 One question that arises here is why God would not prevent the Soul from mixing with matter, if this is such a bad idea. Al-Rāzī’s explanation is that God allows it to happen as a learning experience for the Soul (Goodman 1975). God bestows upon the Soul the gift of reason or intellect (ʿaql), and Soul can use this to realize that it should be working to free itself from its unwise bond with matter (Druart 1996). We have reports of parables used by al-Rāzī to explain this. A wise father might allow his inexperienced child to venture to a dangerous country, but send with him a good advisor (namely the intellect; Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, FDR: vol. 4, 416). Similarly, a wise father might allow his foolish child to go into an alluring garden full of thorns and stinging insects, so as to teach the child a lesson (Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī, AHR: 18–19). This theodicy points the way towards a conception of our ultimate end, namely to escape from the material world, achieving “liberation” through moderate lifestyle and the practice of philosophy.