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al-Ghazali,
Abu Hamid (1058-1111)
al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid (1058-1111) Al-Ghazali is one
of the greatest Islamic jurists,
theologians and mystical thinkers.
He learned various branches of the
traditional Islamic religious
sciences in his home town of Tus,
Gurgan and Nishapur in the northern
part of Iran. He was also involved
in Sufi practices from an early age.
Being recognized by Nizam al-Mulk,
the vizir of the Seljuq sultans, he
was appointed head of the Nizamiyyah
College at Baghdad in AH 484/AD
1091.
As the intellectual head of
the Islamic community, he was busy
lecturing on Islamic jurisprudence
at the College, and also refuting
heresies and responding to questions
from all segments of the community.
Four years later, however, al-Ghazali
fell into a serious spiritual crisis
and finally left Baghdad, renouncing
his career and the world. After
wandering in Syria and Palestine for
about two years and finishing the
pilgrimage to Mecca, he returned to
Tus, where he was engaged in
writing, Sufi practices and teaching
his disciples until his death. In
the meantime he resumed teaching for
a few years at the Nizamiyyah
College in Nishapur. Al-Ghazali
explained in his autobiography why
he renounced his brilliant career
and turned to Sufism. It was, he
says, due to his realization that
there was no way to certain
knowledge or the conviction of
revelatory truth except through
Sufism. (This means that the
traditional form of Islamic faith
was in a very critical condition at
the time.) This realization is
possibly related to his criticism of
Islamic philosophy. In fact, his
refutation of philosophy is not a
mere criticism from a certain
(orthodox) theological viewpoint.
First of all, his attitude towards
philosophy was ambivalent; it was
both an object and criticism and an
object of learning (for example,
logic and the natural sciences).
He
mastered philosophy and then
criticized it in order to Islamicize
it. The importance of his criticism
lies in his philosophical
demonstration that the
philosophers’ metaphysical
arguments cannot stand the test of
reason. However, he was also forced
to admit that the certainty of
revelatory truth, for which he was
so desperately searching, cannot be
obtained by reason. It was only
later that he finally attained to
that truth in the ecstatic state (fana’)
of the Sufi. Through his own
religious experience, he worked to
revive the faith of Islam by
reconstructing the religious
sciences upon the basis of Sufism,
and to give a theoretical foundation
to the latter under the influence of
philosophy. Thus Sufism came to be
generally recognized in the Islamic
community. Though Islamic philosophy
did not long survive al-Ghazali’s
criticism, he contributed greatly to
the subsequent philosophization of
Islamic theology and Sufism. 1 Life
The eventful life of Abu Hamid
Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali (or
al-Ghazzali) can be divided into
three major periods. The first is
the period of learning, first in his
home town of Tus in Persia, then in
Gurgan and finally in Nishapur.
After the death of his teacher, Imam
al-Haramayn al-Juwayni, Ghazali
moved to the court of Nizam al-Mulk,
the powerful vizir of the Seljuq
Sultans, who eventually appointed
him head of the Nizamiyyah College
at Baghdad in AH 484/AD 1091. The
second period of al-Ghazali’s life
was his brilliant career as the
highest-ranking orthodox
‘doctor’ of the Islamic
community in Baghdad (AH 484-8/AD
1091-5).
This period was short but
significant. During this time, as
well as lecturing on Islamic
jurisprudence at the College, he was
also busy refuting heresies and
responding to questions from all
segments of the community. In the
political confusion following the
assassination of Nizam al-Mulk and
the subsequent violent death of
Sultan Malikshah, al-Ghazali himself
fell into a serious spiritual crisis
and finally left Baghdad, renouncing
his career and the world. This event
marks the beginning of the third
period of his life, that of
retirement (AH 488-505/AD
1095-1111), but which also included
a short period of teaching at the
Nizamiyyah College in Nishapur.
After leaving Baghdad, he wandered
as a Sufi in Syria and Palestine
before returning to Tus, where he
was engaged in writing, Sufi
practices and teaching his disciples
until his death. The inner
development leading to his
conversion is explained in his
autobiography, al-Munqidh min al-dalal
(The Deliverer from Error), written
late in his life. It was his habit
from an early age, he says, to
search for the true reality of
things. In the process he came to
doubt the senses and even reason
itself as the means to ‘certain
knowledge’, and fell into a deep
scepticism. However, he was
eventually delivered from this with
the aid of the divine light, and
thus recovered his trust in reason.
Using reason, he then set out to
examine the teachings of ‘the
seekers after truth’: the
theologians, philosophers,
Isma‘ilis and Sufis. As a result
of these studies, he came to the
realization that there was no way to
certain knowledge except through
Sufism. In order to reach this
ultimate truth of the Sufis,
however, it is first necessary to
renounce the world and to devote
oneself to mystical practice. Al-Ghazali
came to this realization through an
agonizing process of decision, which
led to a nervous breakdown and
finally to his departure from
Baghdad. The schematic presentation
of al-Munqidh has allowed various
interpretations, but it is
irrelevant to question the main line
of the story. Though certain
knowledge is explained in al-Munqidh
as something logically necessary, it
is also religious conviction (yaqin)
as mentioned in the Ihya’ ‘ulum
al-din (The Revival of the Religious
Sciences). Thus when he says that
the traditional teachings did not
grip him in his adolescence, he
means to say that he lost his
conviction of their truth, which he
only later regained through his Sufi
mystical experiences. He worked to
generalize this experience to cure
‘the disease’ of his time. The
life of al-Ghazali has been thus far
examined mostly as the development
of his individual personality.
However, since the 1950s there have
appeared some new attempts to
understand his life in its wider
political and historical context
(Watt 1963). If we accept his
religious confession as sincere,
then we should be careful not to
reduce his thought and work entirely
to non-religious factors. It may
well be that al-Ghazali’s
conversion from the life of an
orthodox doctor to Sufism was not
merely the outcome of his personal
development but also a manifestation
of a new stage in the understanding
of faith in the historical
development of Islam, from the
traditional form of faith expressed
in the effort to establish the
kingdom of God on Earth through the
shari‘a to a faith expressed as
direct communion with God in Sufi
mystical experience. This may be a
reflection of a development in which
the former type of faith had lost
its relevance and become a mere
formality due to the political and
social confusion of the community.
Al-Ghazali experienced this change
during his life, and tried to revive
the entire structure of the
religious sciences on the basis of
Sufism, while at the same time
arguing for the official recognition
of the latter and providing it with
solid philosophical foundations. 2
Theological conceptions Al-Ghazali
wrote at least two works on
theology, al-Iqtisad
fi’l-i‘tiqad (The Middle Path in
Theology) and al-Risala al-Qudsiyya
(The Jerusalem Epistle). The former
was composed towards the end of his
stay in Baghdad and after his
critique of philosophy, the latter
soon afterwards in Jerusalem. The
theological position expressed in
both works is Ash‘arite, and there
is no fundamental difference between
al-Ghazali and the Ash‘arite
school (see Ash‘ariyya and
Mu‘tazila). However, some changes
can be seen in the theological
thought of his later works, written
under the influence of philosophy
and Sufism (see §4). As Ash‘arite
theology came into being out of
criticism of Mu‘tazilite
rationalistic theology, the two
schools have much in common but they
are also not without their
differences.
There is no essential
difference between them as to
God’s essence (dhat Allah); al-Ghazali
proves the existence of God (the
Creator) from the createdness
(hadath) of the world
according to the traditional
Ash‘arite proof. An atomistic
ontology is presupposed here, and
yet there are also philosophical
arguments to refute the criticism of
the philosophers. As for God’s
attributes (sifat Allah), however,
al-Ghazali regards them as
‘something different from,
yet added to, God’s essence’
(al-Iqtisad: 65), while the
Mu‘tazilites deny the existence of
the attributes and reduce them to
God’s essence and acts. According
to al-Ghazali, God has attributes
such as knowledge, life, will,
hearing, seeing and speech, which
are included in God’s essence and
coeternal with it. Concerning the
relationship between God’s essence
and his attributes, both are said to
be ‘not identical, but not different’ (al-Iqtisad: 65). The
creation of the world and its
subsequent changes are produced by
God’s eternal knowledge, will and
power, but this does not necessarily
mean any change in God’s
attributes in accordance with these
changes in the empirical world. One
of the main issues of theological
debate was the relationship between
God’s power and human acts. The
Mu‘tazilites, admitting the
continuation of an accident (‘arad)
of human power, asserted that human
acts were decided and produced (or
even created) by people themselves;
thus they justified human
responsibility for acts and
maintained divine justice. In
contrast, assuming that all the
events in the world and human acts
are caused by God’s knowledge,
will and power, al-Ghazali admits
two powers in human acts, God’s
power and human power. Human power
and act are both created by God, and
so human action is God’s creation
(khalq), but it is also human
acquisition (kasb) of God’s
action, which is reflected in human
volition. Thus al-Ghazali tries to
harmonize God’s omnipotence and
our own responsibility for our
actions (see Omnipotence). As for
God’s acts, the Mu‘tazilites,
emphasizing divine justice, assert
that God cannot place any obligation
on people that is beyond their
ability; God must do what is best
for humans and must give rewards and
punishments according to their
obedience and disobedience. They
also assert that it is obligatory
for people to know God through
reason even before revelation. Al-Ghazali
denies these views. God, he says,
can place any obligations he wishes
upon us; it is not incumbent on him
to do what is best for us, nor to
give rewards and punishments
according to our obedience and
disobedience. All this is
unimaginable for God, since he is
absolutely free and is under no
obligation at all. Obligation (wujub),
says al-Ghazali, means something
that produces serious harm unless
performed, but nothing does harm to
God. Furthermore, good (hasan) and
evil (qabih) mean respectively
congruity and incongruity with a
purpose, but God has no purpose at
all. Therefore, God’s acts are
beyond human ethical judgment.
Besides, says al-Ghazali, injustice
(zulm) means an encroachment on
others’ rights, but all creatures
belong to God; therefore, whatever
he may do to his creatures, he
cannot be considered unjust. The
Mu‘tazilites, inferring the
hereafter from the nature of this
world, deny the punishment of
unbelievers in the grave from their
death until the resurrection, and
also the reality of the various
eschatological events such as the
passing of the narrow bridge and the
weighing on the balance of human
deeds (see Eschatology). Al-Ghazali,
on the other hand, rejecting the
principle of analogy between the two
worlds, approves the reality of all
these events as transmitted
traditionally, since it cannot be
proven that they are rationally or
logically impossible. Another
important eschatological event is
the seeing of God (ru’ya Allah).
While the Mu‘tazilites deny its
reality, asserting that God cannot
be the object of human vision, al-Ghazali
approves it as a kind of knowledge
which is beyond corporeality; in
fact, he later gives the vision of
God deep mystical and philosophical
meaning. In short, the
Mu‘tazilites discuss the unity of
God and his acts from the viewpoint
of human reason, but al-Ghazali does
so on the presupposition that God is
personal and an absolute reality
beyond human reason. 3 Refutation of
philosophy Al-Ghazali’s
relationship with philosophy is
subtle and complicated. The
philosophy represented by al-Farabi
and Ibn Sina (Avicenna) is, for al-Ghazali,
not simply an object of criticism
but also an important component of
his own learning. He studied
philosophy intensively while in
Baghdad, composing Maqasid al-falasifa
(The Intentions of the
Philosophers), and then criticizing
it in his Tahafut al-falasifa (The
Incoherence of the Philosophers).
The Maqasid is a precise summary of
philosophy (it is said to be an
Arabic version of Ibn Sina’s
Persian Danashnamah-yi ala’i (Book
of Scientific Knowledge) though a
close comparative study of the two
works has yet to be made). In the
medieval Latin world, however, the
content of the Maqasid was believed
to be al-Ghazali’s own thought,
due to textual defects in the Latin
manuscripts. As a result, the image
of the
‘Philosopher Algazel’ was
created. It was only in the middle
of the nineteenth century that Munk
corrected this mistake by making use
of the complete manuscripts of the
Hebrew translation. More works by
al-Ghazali began to be published
thereafter, but some contained
philosophical ideas he himself had
once rejected. This made al-Ghazali’s
relation to philosophy once again
obscure. Did he turn back to
philosophy late in life? Was he a
secret philosopher? From the middle
of the twentieth century there were
several attempts to verify al-Ghazali’s
authentic works through textual
criticism, and as a result of these
works the image of al-Ghazali as an
orthodox Ash‘arite theologian
began to prevail. The new trend in
the study of al-Ghazali is to
re-examine his relation to
philosophy and to traditional
Ash‘arism while at the same time
recognizing his basic distance from
philosophy. Al-Ghazali composed
three works on Aristotelian logic,
Mi‘yar al-‘ilm (The Standard
Measure of Knowledge), Mihakk al-nazar
fi’l-mantiq (The Touchstone of
Proof in Logic) and al-Qistas al-mustaqim
(The Just Balance). The first two
were written immediately after the
Tahafut ‘in order to help
understanding of the latter’, and
the third was composed after his
retirement. He also gave a detailed
account of logic in the long
introduction of his writing on legal
theory, al-Mustasfa min ‘ilm al-usul
(The Essentials of Islamic Legal
Theory). Al-Ghazali’s great
interest in logic is unusual,
particularly when most Muslim
theologians were antagonistic to it,
and can be attributed not only to
the usefulness of logic in refuting
heretical views (al-Qistas is also a
work of refutation of the
Isma‘ilis), but also to his being
fascinated by the exactness of logic
and its effectiveness for
reconstructing the religious
sciences on a solid basis. There is
a fundamental disparity between al-Ghazali’s
theological view and the Neoplatonic-Aristotelian
philosophy of emanationism. Al-Ghazali
epitomizes this view in twenty
points, three of which are
especially prominent: (1) the
philosophers’ belief in the
eternity of the world, (2) their
doctrine that God does not know
particulars, and (3) their denial of
the resurrection of bodies. These
theses are ultimately reducible to
differing conceptions of God and
ontology. Interestingly, al-Ghazali’s
criticism of philosophy is
philosophical rather than
theological, and is undertaken from
the viewpoint of reason. First, as
for the eternity of the world, the
philosophers claim that the
emanation of the First Intellect and
other beings is the result of the
necessary causality of God’s
essence, and therefore the world as
a whole is concomitant and coeternal
with his existence (see Creation and
conservation, religious doctrine
of). Suppose, say the philosophers,
that God created the world at a
certain moment in time; that would
presuppose a change in God, which is
impossible. Further, since each
moment of time is perfectly similar,
it is impossible, even for God, to
choose a particular moment in time
for creation. Al-Ghazali retorts
that God’s creation of the world
was decided in the eternal past, and
therefore it does not mean any
change in God; indeed, time itself
is God’s creation (this is also an
argument based on the Aristotelian
concept of time as a function of
change). Even though the current of
time is similar in every part, it is
the nature of God’s will to choose
a particular out of similar ones.
Second, the philosophers deny
God’s knowledge of particulars or
confine it to his self-knowledge,
since they suppose that to connect
God’s knowledge with particulars
means a change and plurality in
God’s essence. Al-Ghazali denies
this. If God has complete knowledge
of a person from birth to death,
there will be no change in God’s
eternal knowledge, even though the
person’s life changes from moment
to moment. Third, the philosophers
deny bodily resurrection, asserting
that ‘the resurrection’ means in
reality the separation of the soul
from the body after death. Al-Ghazali
criticizes this argument, and also
attacks the theory of causality
presupposed in the philosophers’
arguments (see Causality and
necessity in Islamic thought). The
so-called necessity of causality is,
says al-Ghazali, simply based on the
mere fact that an event A has so far
occurred concomitantly with an event
B. There is no guarantee of the
continuation of that relationship in
the future, since the connection of
A and B lacks logical necessity. In
fact, according to Ash‘arite
atomistic occasionalism, the direct
cause of both A and B is God; God
simply creates A when he creates B.
Thus theoretically he can change his
custom (sunna, ‘ada) at any
moment, and resurrect the dead: in
fact, this is ‘a second
creation’. Al-Ghazali thus claims
that the philosophers’ arguments
cannot survive philosophical
criticism, and Aristotelian logic
served as a powerful weapon for this
purpose. However, if the conclusions
of philosophy cannot be proved by
reason, is not the same true of
theological principles or the
teachings of revelation? How then
can the truth of the latter be
demonstrated? Herein lies the force
of al-Ghazali’s critique of
reason.4 Relation to philosophy
Philosophy declined in the Sunni
world after al-Ghazali, and his
criticism of philosophy certainly
accelerated this decline. Nearly a
century later, Ibn Rushd (Averroes)
made desperate efforts to resist the
trend by refuting al-Ghazali’s
Tahafut in his Tahafut al-tahafut
(The Incoherence of the Incoherence)
and Fasl al-maqal (The Decisive
Treatise), but he could not stop it.
Philosophy was gradually absorbed
into Sufism and was further
developed in the form of mystical
philosophy, particularly in the
Shi‘ite world (see Mystical
philosophy in Islam). In the Sunni
world also, Aristotelian logic was
incorporated into theology and
Sufism was partially represented
philosophically. In all this, al-Ghazali’s
influence was significant. Ghazali
committed himself seriously to
Sufism in his later life, during
which time he produced a series of
unique works on Sufism and ethics
including Mizan al-‘amal
(The Balance of Action),
composed just before retirement,
Ihya’ ‘ulum al-din, his magnum
opus written after retirement, Kitab
al-arba‘in fi usul al-din (The
Forty Chapters on the Principles of
Religion), Kimiya’-yi sa‘adat
(The Alchemy of Happiness), Mishkat
al-anwar (The Niche of the Lights)
and others. The ultimate goal of
humankind according to Islam is
salvation in paradise, which is
depicted in the Qur’an and
Traditions as various sensuous
pleasures and joy at the vision of
God. The greatest joy for al-Ghazali,
however, is the seeing of God in the
intellectual or spiritual sense of
the beatific vision. In comparison
with this, sensuous pleasures are
nothing. However, they remain
necessary for the masses who cannot
reach such a vision.
Resurrection
for Ibn Sina means each person’s
death - the separation of the soul
from the body - and the rewards and
punishments after the
‘resurrection’ mean the
pleasures and pains which the soul
tastes after death. The soul, which
is in contact with the active
intellect through intellectual and
ethical training during life, is
liberated from the body by death and
comes to enjoy the bliss of complete
unity with the active intellect. On
the other hand, the soul that has
become accustomed to sensual
pleasures while alive suffers from
the pains of unfulfilled desires,
since the instrumental organs for
that purpose are now lost. Al-Ghazali
calls death ‘the small
resurrection’ and accepts the
state of the soul after death as Ibn
Sina describes. On the other hand,
the beatific vision of God by the
elite after the quickening of the
bodies, or
‘the great resurrection’,
is intellectual as in the view of
the philosophers. The mystical
experience (fana’) of the Sufi is
a foretaste of the real vision of
God in the hereafter. A similar
influence of philosophy is also
apparent in al-Ghazali’s view of
human beings. Human beings consist
of soul and body, but their essence
is the soul. The human soul is a
spiritual substance totally
different from the body. It is
something divine (amr ilahi), which
makes possible human knowledge of
God. If the soul according to al-Ghazali
is an incorporeal substance
occupying no space (as Ibn Sina
implies, though he carefully avoids
making a direct statement to that
effect), then al-Ghazali’s concept
of the soul is quite different from
the soul as ‘a subtle body’ as
conceived by theologians at large.
According to al-Ghazali, the body is
a vehicle or an instrument of the
soul on the way to the hereafter and
has various faculties to maintain
the bodily activities. When the main
faculties of appetite, anger and
intellect are moderate, harmonious
and well-balanced, then we find the
virtues of temperance, courage,
wisdom and justice. In reality,
however, there is excess or
deficiency in each faculty, and so
we find various vicious
characteristics. The fundamental
cause for all this is love of the
world (see Soul in Islamic
philosophy). The purpose of
religious exercises is to rectify
these evil dispositions, and to come
near to God by ‘transforming them
in imitation of God’s
characteristics’ (takhalluq bi-akhlaq
Allah). This means transforming the
evil traits of the soul through
bodily exercises by utilizing the
inner relationship between the soul
and the body. Al-Ghazali here makes
full use of the Aristotelian theory
of the golden mean, which he took
mainly from Ibn Miskawayh. In order
to maintain the earthly existence of
the body as a vehicle or an
instrument of the soul, the mundane
order and society are necessary. In
this framework, the traditional
system of Islamic law, community and
society are reconsidered and
reconstructed. The same is also true
of al-Ghazali’s cosmology. He
divides the cosmos into three
realms: the world of mulk (the
phenomenal world), the world of
malakut (the invisible world) and
the world of jabarut (the
intermediate world). He takes this
division from the Sufi theorist Abu
Talib al-Makki, although he reverses
the meanings of malakut and jabarut.
The world of malakut is that of
God’s determination, a world of
angels free from change, increase
and decrease, as created once
spontaneously by God. This is the
world of the Preserved Tablet in
heaven where God’s decree is
inscribed. The phenomenal world is
the incomplete replica of the world
of malakut, which is the world of
reality, of the essence of things.
The latter is in some respects
similar to the Platonic world of
Ideas, or Ibn Sina’s world of
intelligibles. The only difference
is that the world of malakut is
created once and for all by God, who
thereafter continues to create
moment by moment the phenomenal
world according to his
determination. This is a major
difference from the emanationist
deterministic world of philosophy.
Once the divine determination is
freely made, however, the phenomenal
world changes and evolves according
to a determined sequence of causes
and effects. The difference between
this relationship and the
philosophers’ causality lies in
whether or not the relation of cause
and effect is necessary. This
emphasis on causal relationship by
al-Ghazali differs from the
traditional Ash‘arite
occasionalism. The Sufis in their
mystical experience, and ordinary
people in their dreams, are allowed
to glimpse the world of the
Preserved Tablet in heaven, when the
veil between that world and the soul
is lifted momentarily. Thus they are
given foreknowledge and other forms
of supernatural knowledge. The
revelation transmitted by the angel
to the prophets is essentially the
same; the only difference is that
the prophets do not need any special
preparation. From the viewpoint of
those given such special knowledge
of the invisible world, says al-Ghazali,
the world is the most perfect and
best possible world.
This optimism
gave rise to arguments and criticism
even in his lifetime, alleging that
he was proposing a Mu‘tazilite or
philosophical teaching against
orthodox Ash‘arism. He certainly
says in his theological works that
it is not incumbent upon God to do
the best for humans; however, this
does not mean that God will not in
fact do the best of his own free
will. Even so, behind al-Ghazali’s
saying that God does so in
actuality, we can see the influence
of philosophy and Sufism. Al-Ghazali’s
criticism of philosophy and his
mystical thought are often compared
to the philosophical and theological
thought of Thomas Aquinas, Nicholas
of Autrecourt, and even Descartes
and Pascal. In the medieval world,
where he was widely believed to be a
philosopher, he had an influence
through the Latin and Hebrew
translations of his writings and
through such thinkers as Yehuda
Halevi, Moses Maimonides and Raymond
Martin of Spain. See also:
Ash‘ariyya and Mu‘tazila;
Causality and necessity in Islamic
thought; Ibn Sina; Ibn Rushd; Islam,
concept of philosophy in; Mystical
philosophy in Islam; Neoplatonism in
Islamic philosophy KOJIRO NAKAMURA
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Version 1.0,
London: Routledge
List of works
Al-Ghazali (1094) Maqasid al-falasifa (The
Intentions of the Philosophers), ed.
S. Dunya, Cairo: Dar al-Ma‘arif,
1961.(A precise summary of Islamic
philosophy as represented by Ibn
Sina.) Al-Ghazali (1095) Tahafut al-falasifa
(The Incoherence of the
Philosophers), ed.
M. Bouyges, Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1927; trans.
S.A.
Kamali, Al-Ghazali’s Tahafut al-Falasifah,
Lahore: Pakistan Philosophical
Congress, 1963. (Al-Ghazali’s
refutation of Islamic philosophy.)
Al-Ghazali (1095) Mi‘yar al-‘ilm
(The Standard Measure of Knowledge),
ed. S. Dunya, Cairo: Dar al-Ma‘arif,
1961.(A summary account of
Aristotelian logic.) Al-Ghazali
(1095) Mihakk al-nazar fi’l-mantiq
(The Touchstone of Proof in Logic),
ed.
M al-Nu‘mani, Beirut: Dar al-Nahdah
al-Hadithah, 1966.(A summary of
Aristotelian logic.) Al-Ghazali
(1095) al-Iqtisad fi’l-i‘tiqad
(The Middle Path in Theology), ed.
I.A. اubukçu
and H. Atay, Ankara: Nur Matbaasi,
1962; partial trans. A.-R. Abu Zayd,
Al-Ghazali on Divine Predicates and
Their Properties, Lahore: Shaykh
Muhammad Ashraf, 1970; trans. M. Asيn
Palacios, El justo medio en la
creencia, Madrid, 1929.(An
exposition of al-Ghazali’s
Ash‘arite theological system.) Al-Ghazali
(1095) Mizan al-‘amal (The Balance
of Action), ed.
S. Dunya, Cairo: Dar al-Ma‘arif, 1964; trans. H. Hachem,
Ghazali: Critère de l’action,
Paris: Maisonneuve, 1945.
(An
exposition of al-Ghazali’s ethical
theory.) Al-Ghazali (1095-6) al-Qistas
al-mustaqim (The Just Balance), ed.
V. Chelhot, Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1959; trans. V.
Chelhot, ‘Al-Qistas al-Mustaqim et
la connaissance rationnelle chez
Ghazali’, Bulletin d’ةtudes Orientales 15, 1955-7: 7-98; trans. D.P. Brewster,
Al-Ghazali: The Just Balance,
Lahore: Shaykh Muhammad Ashraf,
1978.(An attempt to deduce logical
rules from the Qur’an and to
refute the Isma‘ilis.)
Al-Ghazali
(1096-7) Ihya’ ‘ulum al-din (The
Revival of the Religious Sciences),
Cairo: Matba‘ah Lajnah Nashr al-Thaqafah
al-Islamiyyah, 1937-8, 5 vols;
partial translations can be found in
E.E. Calverley, Worship in Islam:
al-Ghazali’s Book of the Ihya’
on the Worship, London: Luzac, 1957;
N.A. Faris, The Book of Knowledge,
Being a Translation with Notes of
the Kitab al-‘Ilm of al-Ghazzali’s
Ihya’
‘Ulum al-Din, Lahore:
Shaykh Muhammad Ashraf, 1962; N.A.
Faris, The Foundation of the
Articles of Faith: Being a
Translation with Notes of the Kitab
Qawa‘id al-‘Aqa’id of al-Ghazzali’s
Ihya’ ‘Ulum al-Din, Lahore:
Shaykh Muhammad Ashraf, 1963; L.
Zolondek, Book XX of al-Ghazali’s
Ihya’ ‘Ulum al-Din, Leiden:
Brill, 1963; T.J. Winter, The
Remembrance of Death and the
Afterlife: Book XL of the Revival of
Religious Sciences, Cambridge: The
Islamic Text Society, 1989;K.
Nakamura, Invocations and
Supplications: Book IX of the
Revival of the Religious Sciences,
Cambridge: The Islamic Text Society,
1990; M. Bousquet, Ih’ya ‘ouloûm
ed-din ou vivification de la foi,
analyse et index, Paris: Max Besson,
1951.(Al-Ghazali’s summa of the
religious sciences of Islam.) Al-Ghazali
(1097) al-Risala al-Qudsiyya (The
Jerusalem Epistle), ed. and trans.
A.L. Tibawi, ‘Al-Ghazali’s Tract
on Dogmatic Theology’, The Islamic
Quarterly 9 (3/4), 1965: 62-122.(A
summary of al-Ghazali’s
theological system, later
incorporated into the Ihya’.) Al-Ghazali
(1106-7) Mishkat al-anwar (The Niche
of the Lights), ed.
A. Afifi, Cairo, 1964; trans.
W.H.T.
Gairdner, Al-Ghazzali’s Mishkat
al-Anwar, London: The Royal Asiatic
Society, 1924; repr. Lahore: Shaykh
Muhammad Ashraf, 1952; R. Deladrière,
Le Tabernacle des lumières, Paris: ةditions
du Seuil, 1981; A.-E. Elschazli, Die
Nische der Lichter, Hamburg: Felix
Meiner, 1987.(An exposition of al-Ghazali’s
mystical philosophy in its last
phase.) Al-Ghazali (1109) al-Mustasfa
min ‘ilm al-usul (The Essentials
of the Islamic Legal Theory), Cairo:
al-Matba‘ah al-Amiriyyah, 1322-4
AH.(An exposition and standard work
of the Islamic legal theory of the
Shafi‘ite school.) Al-Ghazali
(c.1108) al-Munqidh min al-dalal
(The Deliverer from Error), ed. J.
Saliba and K. Ayyad, Damascus:
Maktab al-Nashr al-‘Arabi, 1934;
trans. W.M. Watt, The Faith and
Practice of al-Ghazali, London:
Allen & Unwin, 1953; trans. R.J.
McCarthy, Freedom and Fulfillment:
An Annotated Translation of al-Ghazali’s
al-Munqidh min al-Dalal and Other
Relevant Works of al-Ghazali,
Boston, MA: Twayne,
1980.(Al-Ghazali’s spiritual
autobiography.) References and
further reading Abu Ridah, M. (1952)
Al-Ghazali und seine Widerlegung der
griechischen Philosophie (Al-Ghazali
and His Refutation of Greek
Philosophy), Madrid: S.A. Blass.(An
analysis of al-Ghazali’s
refutation of philosophy in the
framework of his religious thought.)
Campanini, M. (1996) ‘Al-Ghazzali’,
in S.H. Nasr and O. Leaman (eds)
History of Islamic PPhilosophy,
London: Routledge, ch. 19,
258-74.(The life and thought of al-Ghazali
is discussed in detail, with a
conspectus of his thought through
his very varied career.) Frank, R.
(1992) Creation and the Cosmic
System: al-Ghazali and Avicenna,
Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitنtsverlag.(One
of the recent works clarifying the
philosophical influence upon al-Ghazali,
representing a new trend in the
study of al-Ghazali.) Frank, R.
(1994) Al-Ghazali and the
Ash‘arite School, Durham, NC: Duke
University Press. (A new attempt to
prove al-Ghazali’s commitment to
philosophy and his alienation from
traditional Ash‘arism.) Ibn Rushd
(c.1180) Tahafut al-tahafut (The
Incoherence of Incoherence), trans.
S. Van den Bergh, Averroes’
Tahafut al-Tahafut, 2 vols, London:
Luzac, 1969.(A translation with
detailed annotations of Ibn
Rushd’s refutation of al-Ghazali’s
criticism of philosophy.) Jabre, F.
(1958a) La notion de certitude selon
Ghazali dans ses origines
psychologiques et historiques (The
Notion of Certitude According to al-Ghazali
and Its Psychological and Historical
Origins), Paris: Vrin.(A
comprehensive analysis of al-Ghazali’s
important concept of certitude.)
Jabre, F. (1958b), La notion de la
ma‘rifa chez Ghazali (The Notion
of Gnosis in al-Ghazali), Beirut:
Librairie Orientale.(An analysis of
the various aspects of the notion of
mystical knowledge.) Laoust, H.
(1970) La politique de Gazali (The
Political Thought of al-Ghazali),
Paris: Paul Geuthner.(An exposition
of al-Ghazali’s political thought,
showing him as an orthodox jurist.)
Lazarus-Yafeh, H. (1975) Studies in
al-Ghazali, Jerusalem: The Magnes
Press.(Literary stylistic analyses
applied to al-Ghazali’s works.)
Leaman, O. (1985) An Introduction to
Medieval Islamic Philosophy,
Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.(A good introduction to al-Ghazali’s
philosophical arguments against the
historical background of medieval
Islamic philosophy.) Leaman, O.
(1996) ‘Ghazali and the
Ash‘arites’, Asian Philosophy 6
(1): 17-27.(Argues that the thesis
of al-Ghazali’s distance from
Ash‘arism has been overdone.)
Macdonald, D.B. (1899) ‘The Life
of al-Ghazzali, with Especial
Reference to His Religious
Experiences and Opinions’, Journal
of the American Oriental Society 20:
71-132.(A classic biography, still
useful.) Marmura, M.E. (1995)
‘Ghazalian Causes and
Intermediaries’, Journal of the
American Oriental Society 115:
89-100.(Admitting the great
influence of philosophy on al-Ghazali,
the author tries to demonstrate al-Ghazali’s
commitment to Sufism.) Nakamura
Kojiro (1985) ‘An Approach to
Ghazali’s Conversion’, Orient
21: 46-59.(An attempt to clarify
what Watt (1963) calls ‘a crisis
of civilization’ as the background
of al-Ghazali’s conversion.)
Nakamura Kojiro (1993) ‘Was
Ghazali an Ash‘arite?’, Memoirs
of Research Department of the Toyo
Bunko 51: 1-24.(Al-Ghazali was still
an Ash‘arite, but his Ash‘arism
was quite different from the
traditional form.) Ormsby, E.L.
(1984) Theodicy in Islamic Thought:
The Dispute over al-Ghazali’s
‘Best of All Possible Worlds’,
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.(A study of the controversies
over al-Ghazali’s ‘optimistic’
remarks in his later works.) Shehadi,
F. (1964) Ghazali’s Unique
Unknowable God: A Philosophical
Critical Analysis of Some of the
Problems Raised by Ghazali’s View
of God as Utterly Unique and
Unknowable, Leiden: Brill.(A careful
philosophical analysis of al-Ghazali’s
religious thought.) Sherif, M.
(1975) Ghazali’s Theory of Virtue,
Albany, NY: State University of New
York Press. (A careful analysis of
al-Ghazali’s ethical theory in his
Mizan and the philosophical
influence on it.) Smith, M. (1944)
Al-Ghazali the Mystic, London:
Luzac.(A little dated, but still a
useful comprehensive study of al-Ghazali
as a mystic and his influence in
both the Islamic and Christian
worlds.) Watt, W.M. (1963) Muslim
Intellectual: A Study of al-Ghazali,
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press.(An analysis of al-Ghazali’s
life and thought in the historical
and social context from the
viewpoint of sociology of
knowledge.) Zakzouk, M. (1992) Al-Ghazali’s
Philosophie im Vergleich mit
Descartes (Al-Ghazali’s Philosophy
Compared with Descartes), Frankfurt:
Peter Lang.(A philosophical analysis
of al-Ghazali’s thought in
comparison with Descartes with
reference to philosophical doubt.)
Routledge Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, Version 1.0, London:
Routledge
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