Abstract
This article aims to illustrate how al-Rāzī forges his doctrine on the soul in Mafātīḥ al-ghayb. It investigates al-Rāzī’s analysis of the soul's nature, its generation, and its attachment to the body by examining his exegesis of key Qur'anic verses. It analyses the ways that al-Rāzī interprets key cosmological terms from the Qur'an (including ‘soul’, ‘vital spirit’, ‘God's command’, and ‘power’), and provides examples of his practical application of taʾwīl to key Qur'anic verses. The article argues that al-Rāzī moulds ideas from ancient Greek Stoicism and Muʿtazilī theology into Mafātīḥ al-ghayb. By doing so, it illustrates that the hermeneutical device of taʾwīl was instrumental to the process through which al-Rāzī assimilated eclectic ideas from non-canonical sources into the worldview of Sunnism.
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