Several weeks ago, during the Islamic philosophy lecture, we learned about several philosophers prior to the Avicennan Turn that caught my interest. To my great surprise, many of these philosophers, such as Al-Razi and Al-Farabi, were in fact very skeptical of religion, or deemed it as less important or valid than reason; in other words, they priortized the findings of philosophy and rationality over spirituality. But most of these men still believed in a god, even if not necessarily God as is portrayed in the Qur’an.

One philosopher in particular really sparked my interest though: Ibn Al-Rawandi, who was at first a Mu’tazilite scholar, then a Shi’a, and finally, an atheist, rejecting and criticizing all iterations of religion. What I find most fascinating, though, is the apparent lack of persecution he experienced: there is limited information on Al-Rawandi in the first place – the only sources I found that were not behind a paywall from the brief research I did indicate that he was not persecuted or harassed for his beliefs.

According to one webpage which I found, he had written over one hundred books, but only segments of his works remain, and they existed only in critics of his work – Muslim apologetics who sought to debunk al-Rawandi’s claims. Al-Rawandi lived fairly early on in Islamic history – around the tenth century, which to me makes his story all the more fascinating. I would be curious to do further reasearch into the treatment of atheists (and skeptics in general) in the Islamic World, especially in some of the later empires such as the Timurids or the Ottomans.

Sources used: https://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H035.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Rawandi