Changing Attitude toward Life as a Prevention and Treatment of Grief; a Review of Al-Kindi, Razi and Ibn Hazm’s Views

Some Muslim philosophers tried to present solutions for basic prevention and treatment of worldly grief with a focus on rational principles. This can be observed in al-Kindi’s thoughts as a first Muslim philosopher. Other important philosophers like Razi and Ibn Hazm also tried to more deeply pay attention to the issue. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to check out the solutions presented by al-Kindi, Razi and Ibn Hazm for controlling worldly grief.

This is a library-based study organized as a descriptive-analytic method and tries to investigate al-Kindi, Razi and Ibn Hazm’s works on basic prevention and treatment of worldly grief. The author declared no conflict of interest.

The findings of this study point to the existence of a rational solution, which is matched with religious texts in al-Kindi, Razi and Ibn Hazm’s works. Accordingly, al-Kindi, Razi and Ibn Hazm consider human mistake in attitude to the world as the main cause of worldly grief. In other words, getting engaged in the material issues directs the spirit toward grief. At the time of grief, the attitude toward life needs be reconsidered.

Based on the findings if a person can adopt a logical view of life in the world and act in the right way, he/she can control the worldly grief and replace it with happiness.