 On this latter reading, much of al-Rāzī’s advice for readers focuses on helping non-philosophers work towards a moderate lifestyle, which will prepare them for the more serious and important undertaking of adopting a “philosophical way of life” that will ultimately lead to liberation from the body. Al-Rāzī himself seems to accept this distinction between “pre-philosophical” and “philosophical” ethics (Druart 1997, Adamson 2016), for example in the aforementioned passage about the glutton who loves dates. Al-Rāzī says he threatened the man with stomach aches and illness because