Human Destiny and Fate from Ibn-Sina and Fakhr Razi's Perspective

This paper analyzes Ibn Sina and Fakhr Razi’s perspective on the issue of destiny. These perspectives, despite the political disagreements in the field, may be regarded as contradictory. Ibn Sina considers destiny as divine knowledge. Unlike Razi’s, his various viewpoints and definitions are coherent but the result of two approaches, one philosophical and the other theological, may not be disregarded. He sometimes uses a philosophical approach to explain destiny with regards to divine knowledge and sometimes analyses the theological issue of human action with respect to determinism. Despite the fact that he considers destiny as divine knowledge, he does not count destiny synonymous with determinism. He believes in amr Bayn alamrein. And, in explaining liberty, he thinks of it as part of destiny and, at the same time, takes it as a part of the reason and talks about the weakened liberty. Fakhr Razi’s definitions on destiny, however, are agitated and contradictory. They are sometimes synonymous with determinism and sometimes synonymous with liberty but what could be deducted mostly from his definitions is weakened determinism.