Fatalism and free will

The book “Fatalism and free will” is one of the works of the pre-eminent Iranian scholar “khajeh Nasir Tousi”, composed on one of the most fundamental issues: fatalism and free will.

The author

Muhammad Ibn Muhammad Tusi, outstanding scholar, known as “Nasir al-Din”, “Khajeh Tusi”, “The master of man”, “the 11^th intellect” and “The 3^rd master” (1201 - 1247), Mashhad – Iran.

He was an astronomer and Shia politician, in 1256 lured the assassin leader Rukn al-Din Khurshah into the hands of the Ilkhan Hulegu, accompanied the latter to Baghdad and founded the observatory of Maragha.

He had a strong sympathy with the Twelver Shia, to him a certain degree of mercy was shown during the Mongol holocaust and whose sanctuaries were spared. He wrote on dogmatics, logic and philosophy, law and belles – lettres, and above all on the sciences, in particular on astronomy.

Khajeh Nasir was fully versed at all the common sciences of his own time: theology, philosophy, mathematics, astronomy and literature.

He also wrote some poems in Arabic and Persian. He followed the Peripatetic philosophers (pshilosophers who follow Aristotle) and his own philosophy was based on Avicenna’s.

Works:

70 works in Arbaic and Persian have been attributed to him but it is doubtfull that some of them to be written by Khajeh Nasir. The following list are some of his works:

1. Abstraction of beliefs (on theology)
2. Explanation of the book “Isharat” (written by Avicenna, on philosophy)
3. The rules of beliefs (on the principles of beliefs)
4. The Tusi ethics (on ethics and the practical philosophy)
5. The beginning and the end (on the creation and resurrection, in Persian)
6. Almagest (on mathematics)
7. Euclid (on geometry)
8. Abstraction of logic
9. The base of extraction (on logic, in Persian)

10- The Ilkhani astronomical tables (on astronomy)

11- The rules of discussions

12- the 20 sections on the knowledge of astrolabe, etc.

The book structure:

The book is written on 10 chapters:

1) The views of different religions on fatalism and free will

2) On the necessity and possibility of fatalism and free will

3) On the conception of fatalism and free will and the reasons

4) On human free will

5) On Divine free will, etc.

Sources

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