He passed away at the height of fame and glory in 606/1209.

He passed away at the height of fame and glory in 606/1209.[^5] The career of Imam Fakhr is, in many ways, a repetition of that of Ghazālī’s. Like his great predecessor, he was of the Shafi‘i school, well versed in all the sciences and philosophy and yet opposed to many aspects of the Greek heritage, a critic of the Muslim philosophers, and drawn towards Sufism.[^6] In theology, in which he followed the Ash‘rite school, he was certainly influenced by Ghazālī and Imam al-Haramain.

In philosophy he came under the influence of his compatriot, Mohammad Zakariyya Razi, as well as ibn Sina and in physics his master was, without doubt, Abu al-Barakat al-Baghdadi.

Like a series of anti-Aristotelian philosophers before him, Imam Fakhr tried to reconcile religion and rational philosophy by reliance upon ideas derived more from the Timaeus of Plato than the Physics of Aristotle.[^7] Imam Fakhr’s main role in the intellectual life of Islam was to support the orthodox policy of the Caliphate of his time, to suppress rationalistic philosophy in favour of theology.

In the unified view of Islam, politics, religion and intellectual life have never been divorced, so much so, that the political struggle of minorities in the Caliphate, whether they were opposed to Arab domination or, like the Shi‘ahs, to the ‘Abbasid Caliphate as such, was reflected clearly in the intellectual and religious activities of the period.

As the Caliphate supported the Orthodox Sunni theologians against the rationalists, the philosophers sought refuge in the courts of those minor dynasties that were opposed to the central authority of the Caliphs.

So we see such figures as ibn Sina and Khuwaja Nassir al-Din Tusi seeking favour of rulers opposed to the authority of Baghdad, and especially of Shi‘ah princes.[^8] On the other hand, there appeared a series of great scholars and sages, mostly theologians and Sufis, of whom the most important were Ghazālī, Imam Fakhr, and the Sufi masters, like Shihab al-Din ‘Umar Suhrawardi, who lifted their pen in support of the Caliphate and used both theology and Sufism in order to combat rationalistic philosophy.[^9] The works of Imam Fakhr were, above all else, dedicated to his cause.

Sunni theology reached its height in his works and weakened considerably with the fall of the ‘Abbasid Caliphate, which came to an end about 50 years after his death.