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Islam & Rationality: the Impact of al-Ghazālī
Conference Abstracts
Binyamin Abrahamov : Al-Ghazālī and the Rationalization of Sufism
By rationalization I mean the cognitive process of making something consistent with or based on reason. The present paper aims to show that al-Ghazālī’s Sufism became rational through the emphasizing of certain points in his thought which have been somewhat neglected until now. Numerous works have been written about al-Ghazālī’s philosophy, his philosophical theology and his refutation of philosophy as elaborated by Muslim thinkers. As it is well known, his thought is imbued with philosophical ideas on the spheres of cosmology, cosmogony, causality and so on. Philosophy penetrated not only into these fields of thought but also into the Sufic stations, as I have proved in my book, Divine Love in Islamic Mysticism wherein knowledge of the phenomena increases one’s love for God.
However, rational considerations devoid of philosophical flavor which appear in Iḥyā’ ‘ulūm ad-dīn and other writings of our author deserve a fresh appraisal. For example, tafakkur (Iḥyā’ IV/9), means the process of analogy, that is, bringing two pieces of knowledge in order to deduce from them a third piece of knowledge. Al-Ghazālī does not only limit the process of attaining knowledge to the discussion of metaphysical issues, but also recognizes it as the principle that helps the Sufi to master the stations, which are composed of knowledge, states, and acts. Knowledge is the fruit of tafakkur, and knowledge brings about states that in turn cause one’s acts. As a result, tafakkur is the key to all good things (al-miftāḥ li-l-khayrāt kullihā). To sum up, at the root of all the mystical stations stands syllogistic thinking, a logical process, and not Qur’ānic verses, traditions, or Sufic maxims.
This paper will adduce further examples appearing in different themes, including Qur’ānic exegesis, to demonstrate that reason is the foremost device in al-Ghazālī’s Sufism and is even deployed as the criterion of judging the mystical experience. Also, I will attempt to show that although Ibn al-‘Arabī opposed al-Ghazālī on some issues, the former was influenced by the latter in the evaluation of reason.
Ahmad Atif Ahmad : The Essence and Ends of fiqh according to al-Ghazālī
“Fiqh,” al-Ghazālī writes, “is knowledge of how human actions are classified into obligatory, prohibited, permissible, recommended, reprehensible, which knowledge also includes the classification of contracts into valid, susceptible to invalidation, and fully invalid, and the classification of rituals into performed inside or outside their proper window and the like” (al-Mustasfa, Cairo: al-Maṭba‘a al-Amīriyya, 1322/1904, vol. 1, pp 4-5). This paper discusses al-Ghazālī’s conceptualization of fiqh (and its end or telos), its affinities with kalām and usūl al-fiqh (roughly, theology and legal theory), and his own practice of writing what became foundational texts in Shāfi‘ī law, which are, descending in size: Basīṭ (a summary of Juwayni’s (419/1028-478/1085) Nihāyat al-Matlab), Wasīṭ, Wajīz, and Khulāṣa. Much of fiqh writing is repetitive, and much of it is not. The paper also attends to the question of the extent to which al-Ghazālī’s work was an augmentation or a reorientation of his madhhab. Finally, the paper considers another sense of the word ‘end’ as it pertains to fiqh. Will there be a time when practicing jurists become unavailable, where an end of jurisprudence will occur? In his Mankhūl, al-Ghazālī provided a summary of what his teacher Abū l-Ma‘ālī al-Juwaynī taught on this subject (attested in his Burhān and Ghiyāthi), but his position on the subject became more complex over time. This paper attempts an interpretation of his view on this issue.
Charles E. Butterworth : Al-Ghazālī’s Critique of Philosophy
When most people think of philosophy in the classical tradition of Islam, the name of al-Ghazālī comes immediately to their lips. Yet from the perspective of the one most revered for his contribution to philosophy during this period, al-Ghazālī is anything but a philosopher. A confused thinker, maybe even a sophist, but never one interested in philosophy - such is Averroes’s judgment of al-Ghazālī. The judgment must give pause, not least because of Averroes’s deserved reputation as the commentator and greatest interpreter of Aristotle ever to write in Arabic.
In this paper, al-Ghazālī’s criticism of the philosophers will be examined in the light of Averroes’s own judgment of its merits. This inquiry into the famous controversy between these two great thinkers has as its goal a resolution and assessment of the conflict.
Hans Daiber : God versus Causality: al-Ghazālī’s Solution and its Historical Background
The conflicting discussions on divine determinism in early Islam and the first attempts of "dahrite" circles to replace God by matter resulted in attempts to replace the divine cause and its creativity by a concept of causality, which attributes to nature an essential role in the shaping of the world. This is similar to the revolutionary innovation of John Philoponus in the sixth century which suggests that nature determines the causality of substances created by the transcendent God. In the ninth century, the Muʿtazilite an-Naẓẓām could explain that “God provided the stone with such a nature that it rolls, if someone pushes it.”
Subsequent discussions by Islamic theologians and philosophers culminated in the solution of al-Ghazālī, who proposed a seemingly contradictory solution: God is the first cause and at the same time causality follows the strict rules of cause and effect. We can explain this with the observation that the effect is not identical with the cause; Neoplatonists had postulated a mere similarity between the transcendent divine cause and the effects, which result from intermediate causes. The hierarchy of causes and effects is the background of Ibn Sīnāʾs concept of different modes of existence with regard to priority and posteriority, self-sufficiency and need, necessity and possibility. Conditioning causes are superior to the conditioned effects, and because of the multitude of intermediate causes the ultimate divine cause makes possible many similar effects. Here, we detect first beginnings of a separation between natural sciences and theology.
For al-Ghazālī it was not necessary to finalize this separation; he consequently developed Ibn Sīnāʾs Neoplatonic hierarchy of cause and effect, which later was criticized by al-Ghazālī ʾs adversary Ibn Rushd. This enables us to discuss again al-Ghazālīʾs relation to Ashʿarite theology.
Thérèse-Anne Druart : Al-Ghazālī on the Importance of Demonstration for both ‘ulūm ad-dīn and falsafa
In his autobiography al-Ghazālī indicates that God cast a light in his heart that cured him from complete skepticism. This light in fact restored his confidence in demonstration and the importance of logic. For him Aristotelian logic is superior to the traditional juridical logic and even allows distinguishing a magic trick from a true miracle. Therefore, it plays an important role in the ‘ulūm ad-dīn. Yet, his confidence in Aristotelian logic, which he shares with the falāsifa, does not blind him to the limitations of these falāsifa, precisely because, despite their claim to be people of demonstration, most of their arguments are not strictly speaking demonstrative. So he enjoys showing in the Tahāfut the weakness of their arguments. Logic allows him to distinguish bad philosophy from truth.
Ken Garden : Al-Ghazālī’s Ethics Before and After the Crisis
Al-Ghazālī’s famous crisis of 488/1095 resulted in a well-known personal transformation: the relinquishing of a prestigious post at the Niẓāmiyya madrasa in Baghdad, taking up the practice of Sufism, and the renunciation of officially sponsored teaching for the next eleven years. But the crisis also led al-Ghazālī to promote a radical and very public agenda found the Revival of the Religious Sciences, which he began composing soon after his crisis and read from already in Damascus and Baghdad during his brief return to that city. The Revival is a comprehensive blueprint for the re-focusing of the religious sciences away from fiqh and kalām, and towards the pursuit of salvation through ethical self-perfection.
But how radical a break from al-Ghazālī’s pre-crisis thinking does the Revival represent? By comparing the Revival to another work of ethics al-Ghazālī wrote shortly before his crisis, The Criterion for Action, this paper will seek to identify continuities and changes in al-Ghazālī’s ethical thought before and after 488/1095. It will focus on the question of the respective roles of philosophy and Sufism in al-Ghazālī’s crisis and his ethical thought and agenda.
Avner Giladi : Sex, Marriage and the Family in al-Ghazālī’s Thought
Based on Kitāb ādāb an-nikāḥ (Iḥyāʾ II/2) and Kitāb kasr ash-shahwatayni (Iḥyāʾ III/ 3), this paper examines al-Ghazālī’s attitudes towards sex, marriage and the family. As a jurist, loyal to a system of law that was comprehensive and total, al-Ghazālī did not hesitate to deal with the most intimate aspects of the Muslim way of life, including marriage and procreation, both encouraged by the Sharīʿa. For Sufis, on the other hand, the option of seclusion and withdrawal from sex, although probably not frequently applied, seemed legitimate. In his efforts to harmonize these two religious approaches, al-Ghazālī offers an extremely interesting discussion, rich not only in sophisticated legal, theological and ethical arguments but also in psychological insights. The latter are reflected in what I designate al-Ghazālī’s “theory of relativity,” which proposes different formulas for family life adaptable to the personal circumstances, abilities and religious aspirations of each believer.
The place allocated to sex, marriage and the family within the Iḥyāʾ, the way these themes are interwoven into the general plan of the whole collection and the relation between their location and their content are some of the more specific issues the paper discusses. Others are al-Ghazālī’s concept of human sexuality and the distinction he makes between sexual activity as directed at impregnation versus sex as a source of pleasure for both males and females; his exceptional position on the use of contraception; his views on the role and status of women, on gender relations and on the religious significance of childrearing. Finally, the paper touches on the possible correlation between al-Ghazālī’s writing on the family, from a normative point of view, and the reality of family life in his time and points to the long-term impact of his notions in this domain.
The paper provides a brief overview of the author’s conception of al-Ghazali’s synthesis of traditionalist and rationalist scriptural hermeneutics, focusing on the role of the psychology of the philosophers in this synthesis. Concentrating on The Niche of Lights (Mishkāt al-Anwār), the paper argues that al-Ghazālī uses the philosophical psychology that he adapts from Ibn Sīnā to assert both the validity of rationalist epistemologies and the traditionalist hermeneutical principle that the truths of God and the Qur’ān exhaust human comprehension. It then provides a brief overview of the reception of al-Ghazālī’s philosophical-psychological hermeneutics in medieval Jewish tradition through Hebrew translations and commentaries on his works, particularly The Niche of Lights. Finally, the paper illustrates a potential instance of al-Ghazālī’s influence through a brief comparison of the seventh chapter of Maimonides Eight Chapters with the final sections of The Niche of Lights. This comparison will again concentrate on the use of the philosophical psychology in each work, particularly the presentation of human appetites and faculties of perception as veils.
Frank Griffel : Radical Rationalism and Avicennism: al-Ghazālī’s Letter al-Qānūn al-kullī fī t-taʾwīl
Al-Ghazālī’s short work al-Qānūn al-kullī fī t-taʾwīl (“The Universal Rule of Interpreting Revelation”) was initially a letter addressed to his student Abū Bakr ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 543/1148). It was written most probably in the summer of 490/1097 in Baghdad, when Abū Bakr ibn al-ʿArabī was al-Ghazālī’s student, or shortly after. The letter responds to a number of questions relating to certain aḥādīth, chief among them the ḥadīth “Satan runs in the blood vessels of one of you” (inna sh-shayṭāna yajrā min aḥadikum majrā d-dam). Al-Ghazālī’s response is divided in a first, programmatic part about how reason and revelation relate to one another, and a second part where he addresses the questions in detail and clarifies, for instance, what the word “satan” stands for in revelation. Satan is not a distinct being but rather a cipher for bad temptations and “whisperings” from the active intellect. Although Avicenna did not explain Satan this way, al-Ghazālī’s clarification is clearly inspired by certain teachings of Ibn Sīnā. This letter is al-Ghazālī’s most rationalist work. The concept about the relation between reason and revelation displayed in this letter is distinct from what al-Ghazālī writes elsewhere. Here, he exposes a radical rationalism that clearly challenges the Ashʿarite school tradition. The letter might help us decide the authenticity of some works from al-Ghazālī’s so-called maḍnūn corpus.
Steven Harvey : The Changing Image of al-Ghazālī in Medieval Jewish Thought
The title of our conference, “Islam and Rationality: the Impact of al-Ghazālī,” could well be the title of my paper with one not insignificant change: “Judaism and Rationality: the Impact of al-Ghazālī.” Al-Ghazālī was known to some Jewish thinkers – mostly twelfth-century Andalusians – directly through certain Arabic writings of his that had made their way to the West, and to many more through the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Hebrew translations of several of his writings. As this conference will no doubt underscore, al-Ghazālī was a brilliant and penetrating author in many disciplines. There is no question that his impact upon medieval Jewish thought was marked, but in which areas? And in what ways? This paper will build upon recent research into al-Ghazālī’s influence on Jewish thought and present a picture of the changing image of Abū Ḥāmid (as he was known in Hebrew) as he was seen by Jewish thinkers from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. We will see which of his writings were translated, and which of them were popular and cited. Special attention will be given to the very different ways in which the medieval Jewish reader reacted to his presentation of Aristotelian philosophy and science and to his critique of it.
Jules Janssens : Raymundus Marti’s Pugio Fidei: An Evaluation of his Ghazalian Quotations
Raymundus Marti (died ca. 1286) was a Dominican Father who had actively studied Arabic in one of the Dominican centres for the study of languages that flourished at his time. Hence, it is not completely surprising that he, in his major work Pugio Fidei, quotes several passages of different works of al-Ghazālī in Latin translation, otherwise unknown in the West. A. Cortabarria has already given a basic outline of these passages and tried to identify their origin in al-Ghazālī’s original works. However, he has limited himself to a very basic presentation. He has not given any appreciation of the quality of the offered translations, nor has he looked for any explanation of the reasons beyond Marti’s choices, nor has he valorised their specific place, let alone their doctrinal worth inside Marti’s own project. I will try to fill up these lacunae as completely as possible, so as to show that Raymundus Marti was not only familiar with several of al-Ghazālī’s works, but also made use of some of the Islamic scholar’s ideas in a (rather) significant way. At once, a particular reception of al-Ghazālī’s thought in the Latin thirteenth-century West, which is quite different from the common one that was limited to the knowledge of his Maqāṣid, comes to the fore, even if its influence was in all likelihood very limited.
Birgit Krawietz : Al-Ghazālī on Repentance Revisited
The religion of Islam does not promote the idea of an original sin: becoming guilty and transgressing God’s commands is inevitable but not problematic as long as the believer again and again reorients himself to the path of righteousness. In managing his otherworldly account of good and bad deeds, repentance (tawba) serves as the main instrument. Repentance is found both at the beginning of the mystical path of the Sufi and, more generally, at the intersection between theology and law. These two genres cater to the systematic considerations of their respective disciplines and thereby complement each other. Some issues in this field of shared concerns, however, do not receive proper attention in the Islamic sources themselves; hence, the scholars of the so-called Qur’ānic sciences never developed a systematic theory of sinning which intertwined both its theological and its legal aspects. The issue of tawba would be located at the very heart of this absent, systematic theory of sinning.
Hitherto, Western secondary literature has primarily discussed the writings of certain authors on repentance, including, for example, as Ibn Abī d-Dunyā, Muḥāsibī or al-Ghazālī. While the importance of the doctrine of tawba is attested by the fact that several scholars -- such as Stern (M. S. Stern, Al-Ghazzali on Repentance, New Delhi 1990) and Gramlich (Muḥammad al-Gazzālīs Lehre von den Stufen zur Gottesliebe: die Bücher 31-36 seines Hauptwerkes; eingeleitet, übersetzt und kommentiert von Richard Gramlich, Wiesbaden 1984) -- translated al-Ghazālī‘s relevant chapter on repentance into European languages, they hardly ever offer a convincing analytical framework that goes beyond the mere text. The most likely candidate to offer a more elevated approach, until now, is Wilzer. Over half a century ago, she wrote her German dissertation “Untersuchungen zu Gazzālīs Kitāb at-Tawba” (published as a series of articles in Der Islam 32 (1957), 237-309, 33 (1957), 51-120, 34 (1959), 128-137). It has somewhat fallen into oblivion. My talk is intended to not only revisit al-Ghazālī’s text as found in his compendium, but also to critically appreciate the exact contribution of Wilzer and relate that to my understanding of the importance of repentance. The special popularity of al-Ghazālī has spread his Iḥyā’ to people who do not have any serious aspirations concerning state-of-the-art Sufism but rather employ or perceive tawba as a decisive technology of the self in everyday life.
Taneli Kukkonen : Al-Ghazālī on Practical Reason and the Passions
This paper aims to throw light on one area of al-Ghazālī’s thought that has received surprisingly little philosophical attention, that is, his take on how the virtues are cultivated. It is a commonplace that al-Ghazālī’s later works share a practical bent: one often hears said that they are the works of a religious reformer and moral preacher, rather than a theorist. But even if the overall characterization of al-Ghazālī’s later work as ethical treatises were true, one might still wonder whether an inveterate theorist and tinkerer such as al-Ghazālī could have left this domain of philosophical reflection untouched by his own preoccupations. This is all the more so if, as is claimed, the inner reform of Islam and the unification of knowledge and practice (‘ilm wa-‘amal) stood at the centre of his intellectual project. As it turns out, al-Ghazālī’s exposition of moral psychology represents a reasonably sophisticated and well thought-out take on Aristotelian virtue ethics. In this talk, I wish to focus on certain problems that arise from the need to balance habituation and practical reasoning as resources for virtuous action.
Luis Xavier Lopez-Farjeat : Al-Ghazālī on Knowledge (‘ilm) and Certainty (yaqīn) in al-Munqidh min aḍ-ḍalāl and in al-Qisṭās al-mustaqīm
In his autobiographical treatise called Deliverance from Error (al-Munqidh min aḍ-ḍalal), al-Ghazālī carefully evaluates the different means and methods of the seekers after truth, i.e. theologians, philosophers, authoritarians, and mystics. These seekers differ from each other in the different ways and methods used to attain certain truth and to avoid error. When trying to find the correct method for the attainment of truth al-Ghazālī deals with some epistemological difficulties that could be brought to contemporary discussions on the sources of knowledge and its connection with certainty. I mean, specifically, the epistemic controversies related to skepticism, foundationalism, and fallibilism.
This paper examines al-Ghazālī’s explanation of the different methods of knowledge. I argue that al-Ghazālī is a foundationalist that adopts skepticism as a starting point of his epistemology, with the intention of showing that the only alternative to avoid skepticism is to defend that the first principles or primary truths in which knowledge is grounded are intuitively apprehended. This resolution, however, is directly connected with the knowledge of God. It is God who warranties the ultimate groundings of knowledge. But how can we know God? Al-Ghazālī’s question on the nature of knowledge is simultaneously the question on the correct way of knowing God. In order to find an answer for the knowledge of God I moved to the logical-religious treatise called The Correct Balance (al-Qisṭās al-Mustaqīm) in which al-Ghazālī connects philosophical logic with revelation and conceives intellectual knowledge as the best way for knowing God. This connection provides an original understanding of the relation between reason and revelation.
Wilfred Madelung : Al-Ghazālī’s Changing Attitude to Philosophy
Al-Ghazālī’s famous refutation of the philosophers, his Tahāfut al-falāsifa, was written by him as a young man. Its title Incoherence of the Philosophers may suggest that al-Ghazālī intended to point out contradictions and inconsistencies in philosophical thought. In fact, however, al-Ghazālī rather was concerned to demonstrate the incompatibility of philosophical thought with the Sunnī Muslim creed. In particular he maintained that three points of Ibn Sīnā’s teaching constituted unbelief (kufr) in Islam: The thesis of the eternity of the world, God’s knowledge of universals only, and the denial of the physical Resurrection. The refutation was set forth on the basis of Ash‘arī theological thought, although al-Ghazālī stated that he did not wish to support any particular school doctrine. Al-Ghazālī’s Maqāṣid al-falāsifa, which he composed shortly before the Tahāfut, is testimony of his admiration for the rational achievement of Ibn Sīnā. In his later life, al-Ghazālī wrote some treatises reserved for his elite students in which he seemed to adopt the philosophical thought of Ibn Sīnā fully even in the points he had described as unbelief in his Tahāfut. He evidently no longer viewed the philosophers’ thesis of the eternity of the world as incompatible with Islam. There are indications, however, that he, like Fakhr ad-Dīn ar-Rāzī after him, ultimately remained undecided on whether the philosophers or the Ash‘arī theologians were in possession of the truth about God and the world. He remained primarily concerned with upholding the traditional Sunnī Muslim creed.
Yahya Michot : Al-Ghazālī’s Esotericism according to Ibn Taymiyya’s Bughyat al-Murtād
Some two hundred years after the death of al-Ghazālī, the Damascene theologian Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) read several of his major and minor works, in philosophy and kalām-theology, jurisprudence and Sufism. He has therefore a much broader understanding of the Ghazālian corpus than, for example, Averroes. In the first pages of his Bughyat al-murtād (The Goal of the Explorer), he maps the development of al-Ghazālī’s esotericism from his philosophical definitions in The Standard of Knowledge (Mi‘yār al-‘ilm) to the five degrees of existence which he distinguishes in The Distinction between faith and Free-Thinking (at-Tafriqa bayna l-īmān wa-z-zandaqa) and his concordist interpretations of the Qur’ānic verse of the Light (24:35) in The Niche of Lights (Mishkāt al-anwār), and of the angels’ prostration before Adam in The Jewels of the Qur’ān (Jawāhir al-Qur’ān). For Ibn Taymiyya, al-Ghazālī is an important milestone on the path of sophistic, Qarmaṭizing, scriptural distortion (taḥrīf) leading towards the doctrine of the unicity of existence (waḥdat al-wujūd). The fact that al-Ghazālī eventually abjured his esoteric ideas did not prevent their propagation and Ibn Taymiyya condemns their pernicious impact on several later Islamic thinkers. The paper examines this radical exposure of al-Ghazālī at the beginning of Bughyat al-murtād.
Yasien Mohamed : Ar-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī as a Source of Influence on the Ethics of al-Ghazālī with Special Reference to the Duties of the Teacher
Previous research has shown that al-Iṣfahānī’s adh-Dharī‘a ilā Makārim ash Sharī‘a is a direct source of influence on the ethics of al-Ghazālī, especially on his work, Mīzān al-‘Amal (The Scale of Action). Although Janssens and Akiti have dealt with this subject to some extent, it has not been explored in detail. This study will attempt, for the first time, to provide a detailed analysis of the content, style and differences in these two works, with special reference to the duties of the teacher, which forms a major part of the ethics of education. The question that we attempt to answer is: did al-Iṣfahānī’s educational thought inspire al-Ghazālī? To answer this question we need to compare their writings on education closely, and establish the similarities and differences in their thought and style. Considering similar passages in these two works, we shall comment on the relationship between these two works. The main focus will be on comparing the duties of the teacher in al-Ghazālī and al-Iṣfahānī.
Eric Ormsby : The Comedy of Reason: Strategies of Humor in al-Ghazālī
This presentation will explore some of the ways in which al-Ghazālī employs humor in his works as a way of clinching his arguments. These ways range from such time-honored rhetorical devices as reductio ad absurdum, hyperbole and irony to outright satire, caricature and even lampoon. Examples will be drawn mainly, but not exclusively, from the Iḥyā’ ‘ulūm ad-dīn, and especially from the 36th Book on the love of God (Kitāb al-maḥabba); other examples will be taken from the Tahāfut al-falāsifa, particularly the notorious chapter on causality. The importance of such consideration is twofold: first, to demonstrate that al-Ghazali, in his use of such devices, stands firmly in a classic tradition of adab of which such authors as al-Jāḥiz· and al-Tawḥīdī are acknowledged masters; and second, to explore certain aspects of tone and style in his prose. The dubious reputation which al-Ghazālī encountered among his various detractors —for example, the recurrent accusations of ‘insincerity’ or inconsistency — may be explicable, at least in part, to his use of such stylistic strategies. Too often, it seems, his irony was taken all too literally.
M. Sait Özervarli : Commentaries on al-Ghazālī’s Tahāfut in the Ottoman Philosophical Context
In this paper, I will focus on the activity of Ottoman commentators on al-Ghazālī’s Tahāfut, which is expected to help readers to understand the contribution of classical Ottoman thinkers to al-Ghazālī’s legacy. The existing literature on the Incoherence debate neglects an important phase: namely, the works written by Ottoman scholars (ulama) of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. As a part of general Ottoman contribution to Islamic philosophical theology, I will examine the case of Tahāfut commentaries written by major Ottoman scholars of the classical period, such as Khojazade, Tusi, Kemalpashazade, and Karabaghi in the fifteenth century. Finally, an eighteenth century Ottoman scholar, Mehmed Emin Uskudari, abridged the content of Tahāfut, and, later in the nineteenth century, al-Ghazālī’s book was translated into Turkish by Süleyman Hasbi Efendi. These commentaries, all of which were written by Ottoman scholars, were produced in the Arabic language, compliant with the scholarly tradition of the time. A close examination of the texts by these authors demonstrates that Ottoman works were not just mere repetitions, but examples of critical analyses that produced profound insights.
Sobhi Rayan : The Concepts of “Limitation of the Intellect” and “Infinity of Knowledge” in al-Ghazālī’s Writings
This study deals with the concept of “limitation of the intellect” and “infinity of knowledge” in al-Ghazālī’s writings. It clarifies his views concerning the functions of the intellect and explains the ways in which knowledge works.
The intellect is considered the epistemological stage that comes between the stage of the senses and the stage beyond-the-intellect, and it relates to both of them on the basis of epistemological completion within one epistemological system. Each stage constitutes an independent epistemological unit in itself regarding its epistemological functional role, but it is not separated from the other stages; each stage also includes gradual epistemological degrees, and each degree represents a unit that has its own limited epistemological function: it is independent functionally, but connected to other degrees. Thus, the stage or the degree is a part of a whole that works inside an epistemological system characterized by distribution of limited functions in limited fields. The difference between the stages and the degrees is only a disparity of the epistemological role that is devoted to each of them, as if we were in front of a pyramidal epistemological structure.
The concept of the functional and indicative intellect passed through two stages: the stage that precedes the crisis of doubt, in which al-Ghazālī considers the intellect as the supreme epistemological rank, and the reliable tool by which it is possible to achieve things in both the sensible world and the metaphysical abstract world. The second stage is the stage of Sufism through which al-Ghazālī discovered the stage beyond-the-intellect, which is considered above the intellect and can lead to the realization of metaphysical reality. Al-Ghazālī also recognized the limitation of the intellect and its field in this world. However, this stage does not deny the role of the intellect. On the contrary, the intellect constitutes a main role and represents a basic epistemological stage within a whole gnosis system.
Tamar Rudavsky : Temporality, Duration, and Flux: Phenomenological Implications of al-Ghazālī’s Atomism
In his recent study of al-Ghazālī’s philosophical theology, Frank Griffel mentions the now-forgotten work of Julian Obermann, whose radical reading of the Tahāfut was embedded in the subjectivism of early twentieth philosophy. According to Griffel, “Obermann interpreted al-Ghazālī’s criticism of causality from the point of view of the post-Kantian debate about ‘subjectivism’ and ‘psychologism’ in early twentieth-century Vienna” (Griffel, 160). Griffel notes that this theory was criticized by such noted thinkers as Carnap, Brentano and Husserl, who “bemoaned the subjectivism and anthropologism of this time” (Griffel, 330 note 68). Obermann welcomed al- Ghazālī’s critique of epistemological realism and saw him as a predecessor to Immanuel Kant in that “while empirical observation stands on shaky grounds, human judgments remain the solid foundation of certain and firm knowledge” (161). Claiming that “it seems evident today that al-Ghazālī’s approach has nothing to do with modern subjectivism” (162), Griffel offers a more moderate reading of Obermann’s interpretation of al-Ghazālī. In this paper I want to revisit Obermann’s interpretation, by exploring similarities between al-Ghazālī’s theory of time and that of Edmund Husserl, whose rejection of subjectivism Obermann noted.
I propose to analyze the concept of time as developed in the context of al-Ghazālī’s atomism against the backdrop of Husserl’s noted phenomenology of internal time-consciousness, which is essentially indexical in character, and consists of both acts of immediate memory (retention), acts of awareness of what is perceived right now (original impressions), and anticipations of what will be perceived soon (protention). In this paper I shall argue that Husserl’s indexical view of temporality captures the phenomenological experiencing of time as reflected in al-Ghazālī’s atomistic view of time. While the trajectory connecting al-Ghazālī to Husserl is fairly straightforward (via Suarez, Malebranche, Hume, Brentano), the implications of this trajectory have not been examined. Given their respective rejection of a “scientific” conception of time rooted in essentialism, both Husserl and al-Ghazālī must grapple with similar problems of identity and individuation as a result of their atomistic views. Reading the Tahāfut in the context of Husserl’s phenomenological program will enable us to appreciate further the metaphysical implications of al-Ghazālī’s atomist theory of time.
Bilal Sambur : Al-Ghazālī, Rationality, Liberty, and Pluralism: a Contemporary Critical Perspective
Al-Ghazālī is one of the most influential scholars in Muslim tradition. It would be wrong to regard al-Ghazālī merely as a historical figure. Al-Ghazālī is still an important figure in our contemporary area, because he has still influenced the Muslim mind profoundly. Al-Ghazālī is one of the key sources which shape and have shaped the Muslim mind,past and present.
The Muslim attitude toward freedom, pluralism and rationality is very problematic. Unfortunately, many Muslims do not value them for the sake of religion: in other words, the Muslim mind contradicts these values with religiosity. Al-Ghazālī’s construction of religious theology and experience is one of the sources which feeds and justifies this Muslim attitude. In my paper, I intend to show how al-Ghazālī’s religious ideas create tensions and conflicts between religiosity, liberty rationality and pluralism. I will use largely al-Ghazālī’s autbiographical work, al-Munqidh min aḍ-ḍalāl, in which he narrated his religious adventure. In my paper, I will argue that al-Ghazālī promotes irrationality, not rationality, unliberty not liberty, and homogenity -- not pluralism -- for the sake of being a real Muslim. Furthermore, I will point out that divorcing religiosity from pluralism, liberty and rationality makes the Muslim mind a closed and narrow world of religiosity.
Hidemi Takahashi : The Influence of al-Ghazālī on the Philosophical and Theological Works of Barhebraeus
The principal aim of the literary activities of the Syrian Orthodox Christian prelate and polymath Gregory Barhebraeus (d. 1225/6–86) seems to have been the creation of a new synthesis out of the older Syriac literary heritage and the fruits of more recent scholarly activities which were available to him mostly in Arabic. One of the Muslim authors he most frequently drew upon, alongside Ibn Sīnā and his older contemporary Naṣīr ad-Dīn aṭ-Ṭūsī, was al-Ghazālī. It has for long been known that Barhebraeus’ major work on moral/mystical theology, the Ktobo d-Ithiqon, is based both in its overall structure and for much of its contents on al-Ghazālī’s Iḥyā’ ‘ulūm ad-dīn. It has also been pointed out that the autobiographical account in his Book of the Dove (Ktobo d-yawno) is modelled on al-Munqidh min aḍ-ḍalāl. If not the overall conception, certain parts, at least, of one of his philosophical works, the Treatise of Treatises (Tegrat tegroto), are taken from al-Ghazālī’s Maqāṣid al-falāsifa. The influence of al-Ghazālī appears also in his works on dogmatic theology, such as the Candelabrum of the Sanctuary (Mnorat qudshe) and the Book of Rays (Ktobo d-zalge). An attempt will be made in the present paper both to provide an overview of the works and passages where Barhebraeus drew upon al-Ghazālī and to analyse, through a closer examination of a number of such passages, the manner in which he went about utilising the latter’s works, sometimes altering and “Christianising” the contents of the source passages.
Richard C. Taylor : The Role of al-Ghazālī in the Formation of Averroes’s Philosophical Rationalism
Al-Ghazālī is famous for his brilliant attack on the Arabic peripateticism of al-Farābī and Avicenna in his Incoherence of the Philosophers. Yet far from undermining the future of philosophy, for Averroes that work and others by al-Ghazālī provided a very special opportunity for the formation and exposition of a powerful philosophical response to the charges of unbelief and dissimulation against the philosophers. Making use of the treatment of those charges by Averroes in his Faṣl al-Maqāl and of samplings of his direct response in his Incoherence of the Incoherence on issues of divine knowledge, the eternity of the world, resurrection and the afterlife, and others, I argue that al-Ghazālī’s writings played an important role in providing the impetus prompting Averroes to form a powerful philosophical rationalism ca. 1180 as the theoretical foundation for his major philosophical works up to his death in 1198.
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