Al-Ghazali

Al-Ghazali, ( ( – 19 December 1111), Latinized as Algazelus, was a Shafi'i Sunni Muslim Persian scholar and polymath. He is known as one of the most prominent and influential jurisconsults, legal theoreticians, muftis, philosophers, theologians, logicians and mystics in Islamic history. a renewer of the faith, who, according to the prophetic hadith, appears once every 100 years to restore the faith of the Islamic community. Al-Ghazali's works were so highly acclaimed by his contemporaries that he was awarded the honorific title "Proof of Islam" (Ḥujjat al-Islām). Al-Ghazali was a prominent mujtahid in the Shafi'i school of law.

Much of al-Ghazali's work stemmed around his spiritual crises following his appointment as the head of the Nizamiyya of Baghdad, which was the most prestigious academic position in the Muslim world at the time. This led to his eventual disappearance from the Muslim world for over 10 years, realising he chose the path of status and ego over God. It was during this period where many of his great works were written. This belief led him to write his magnum opus entitled Iḥyā’ ‘ulūm ad-dīn ("The Revival of the Religious Sciences"). Among his other works, the Tahāfut al-Falāsifa ("Incoherence of the Philosophers") is a landmark in the history of philosophy, as it advances the critique of Aristotelian science developed later in 14th-century Europe.

Biography Al-Ghazali was born in in Tus. He was a Muslim scholar of Persian descent. to caliph al-Qa'im in 1056. After some time in Damascus and Jerusalem, with a visit to Medina and Mecca in 1096, he returned to Tus to spend the next several years in uzla (seclusion). The seclusion consisted in abstaining from teaching at state-sponsored institutions, but he continued to publish, receive visitors and teach in the zawiya (private madrasa) and khanqah (Sufi lodge) that he had built.

Fakhr al-Mulk, grand vizier to Ahmad Sanjar, pressed al-Ghazali to return to the Nizamiyya of Nishapur. Al-Ghazali reluctantly capitulated in 1106, fearing rightly that he and his teachings would meet with resistance and controversy.

School affiliations

Al-Ghazali contributed significantly to the development of a systematic view of Sufism and its integration and acceptance in mainstream Islam. As a scholar of Islam, he belonged to the Shafi'i school of Islamic jurisprudence and to the Asharite school of theology. Al-Ghazali received many titles such as Zayn al-Dīn and Ḥujjat al-Islām .

Decade of seclusion In 1095, at the peak of his academic career as the leading scholar of the most prestigious institution in the Islamic world; Al-Ghazālī decided to step down to undertake a journey that would take the next 10 years of his life. It was said that Al-Ghazālī was suffering from both emotional and physical difficulties including loss of appetite, indigestion and struggling to even vocally orate his lectures as he would normally. When the leading medical practitioners could not remedy his ailments and all medicines had failed, they determined the cause to be a psychological and internal spiritual one, and therefore its remedy can only be a spiritual one. During this time period, he produced his most celebrated works of Islamic authorship, some that are today a hallmark of that era. He wrote his chief work, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, in this period. In addition to the works mentioned above related to Bāṭinism, al-Maqṣad al-asnā fī sharḥ asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā, Bidāyat al-hidāya, al-Wajīz, Jawāhir al-Qurʾān, al-Arbaʿīn fī uṣūl al-dīn, al-Maḍnūn bihi ʿalā ghayr ahlih, al-Maẓnūn al-ṣaghīr, Fayṣal al-tafriqa, al-Qānūn al-kullī fī al-taʾwīl (Qānūn al-taʾwīl, p. 95, 111), Kīmiyā-yi Saʿādat, and Ayyuhā al-walad are also among the works he wrote in this period.

Works A total of about 70 works can be attributed to al-Ghazali. He is also known to have written a fatwa against the Taifa kings of al-Andalus, declaring them to be unprincipled, not fit to rule and that they should be removed from power. This fatwa was used by Yusuf ibn Tashfin to justify his conquest of al-Andalus.

Incoherence of the Philosophers Al-Ghazali's 11th-century book titled Tahāfut al-Falāsifa ("Incoherence of the Philosophers") marked a major turn in Islamic epistemology. The encounter with skepticism led al-Ghazali to investigate a form of theological occasionalism, or the belief that all causal events and interactions are not the product of material conjunctions but rather the immediate and present will of God.

In the next century, Ibn Rushd (or Averroes) drafted a lengthy rebuttal of al-Ghazali's Incoherence entitled The Incoherence of the Incoherence; however, the epistemological course of Islamic thought had already been set. Al-Ghazali gave as an example of the illusion of independent laws of cause the fact that cotton burns when coming into contact with fire. While it might seem as though a natural law was at work, it happened each and every time only because God willed it to happen—the event was "a direct product of divine intervention as any more attention grabbing miracle". Averroes, by contrast insisted while God created the natural law, humans "could more usefully say that fire caused cotton to burn—because creation had a pattern that they could discern."

The Incoherence also marked a turning point in Islamic philosophy in its vehement rejections of Aristotle and Plato. The book took aim at the Falāsifa, a loosely defined group of Islamic philosophers from the 8th through the 11th centuries (most notable among them Avicenna and al-Farabi) who drew intellectually upon the Ancient Greeks.

The influence of Al-Ghazali's book is still debated. Professor of Arabic and Islamic Science George Saliba in 2007 argued that the decline of science in the 11th century has been overstated, pointing to continuing advances, particularly in astronomy, as late as the 14th century.

Professor of Mathematics Nuh Aydin wrote in 2012 that "it is a widespread belief among orientalists that one of the major factors, if not the single most important reason, for the decline of science in the Islamic world after its golden age is al-Ghazali's attack on philosophers". The attack peaked in his book Incoherence, whose central idea of theological occasionalism implies that philosophers cannot give rational explanations to either metaphysical or physical questions. The idea caught on and nullified the critical thinking in the Islamic world.

On the other hand, author and journalist Hassan Hassan in 2012 argued that while indeed scientific thought in Islam was stifled in the 11th century, the person mostly to blame is not al-Ghazali but Nizam al-Mulk.

The Revival of Religious Sciences (Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn)

Another of al-Ghazali's major works is Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn (The Revival of Religious Sciences). It covers almost all fields of Islamic sciences: fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), kalam (theology) and sufism.

It contains four major sections: Acts of Worship , Norms of Daily Life , The Ways to Perdition and The Ways to Salvation . The became the most frequently recited Islamic text after the Qur'an and the hadith. Its great achievement was to bring orthodox Sunni theology and Sufi mysticism together in a useful, comprehensive guide to every aspect of Muslim life and death. The book was well received by Islamic scholars such as Nawawi who stated that: "Were the books of Islam all to be lost, excepting only the Ihya', it would suffice to replace them all." This reception, however, was not universal as the book was burned in Almoravid Spain in 1109 and 1143 as al-Ghazali criticised the fuqaha for meddling in politics and due to al-Ghazali's syncretism and support of Sufism. Allegedly, being outraged upon hearing of the burning of his book, al-Ghazali foretold the rise of the Almohad dynasty and invested its founder Ibn Tumart with the duty to overthrow the Almoravid rule.

The Alchemy of Happiness

The Alchemy of Happiness is a rewritten version of The Revival of the Religious Sciences. After the existential crisis that caused him to completely re-examine his way of living and his approach to religion, al-Ghazali put together The Alchemy of Happiness. The first chapter primarily focuses on how one can develop himself into a person with positive attributes and good personal characteristics . The second chapter has a more specific focus: sexual satisfaction and gluttony. In it, al-Ghazali recounts how, once a crisis of epistemological skepticism had been resolved by "a light which God Most High cast into my breast ... the key to most knowledge," he studied and mastered the arguments of kalam, Islamic philosophy, and Ismailism. Though appreciating what was valid in the first two of these, at least, he determined that all three approaches were inadequate and found ultimate value only in the mystical experience and insight he attained as a result of following Sufi practices. William James, in Varieties of Religious Experience, considered the autobiography an important document for "the purely literary student who would like to become acquainted with the inwardness of religions other than the Christian" because of the scarcity of recorded personal religious confessions and autobiographical literature from this period outside the Christian tradition.

Works in Persian Al-Ghazali wrote most of his works in Persian and in Arabic. His most important Persian work is Kimiya-yi sa'adat (The Alchemy of Happiness). It is al-Ghazali's own Persian version of Ihya' 'ulum al-din (The Revival of Religious Sciences) in Arabic, but a shorter work. It is one of the outstanding works of 11th-century-Persian literature. The book was published several times in Tehran by the edition of Hussain Khadev-jam, a renowned Iranian scholar. It is translated to English, Arabic, Turkish, Urdu, Azerbaijani and other languages.

Another authentic work of al-Ghazali is the so-called "first part" of the Nasihat al-muluk (Counsel for kings), addressed to the Saljuqid ruler of Khurasan Ahmad b. Malik-shah Sanjar (r. 490-552/1097-1157). The text was written after an official reception at his court in 503/1109 and upon his request. Al-Ghazali was summoned to Sanjar because of the intrigues of his opponents and their criticism of his student's compilation in Arabic, al-Mankhul min taʿliqat al-usul (The sifted notes on the fundamentals), in addition to his refusal to continue teaching at the Nizamiyya of Nishapur. After the reception, al-Ghazali had, apparently, a private audience with Sanjar, during which he quoted a verse from the Quran 14:24: "Have you not seen how Allah sets forth a parable of a beautiful phrase (being) like a beautiful tree, whose roots are firm and whose branches are in Heaven." The genuine text of the Nasihat al-muluk, which is actually an official epistle with a short explanatory note on al-Manḵul added on its frontispiece.

The majority of other Persian texts, ascribed to him with the use of his fame and authority, especially in the genre of Mirrors for Princes, are either deliberate forgeries fabricated with different purposes or compilations falsely attributed to him. The most famous among them is Ay farzand (O Child!). This is undoubtedly a literary forgery fabricated in Persian one or two generations after al-Ghazali's death. The sources used for the forgery consist of two genuine letters by al-Ghazali's (number 4, in part, and number 33, totally); both appear in the Fazaʾil al-anam. Another source is a letter known as ʿAyniya and written by Muhammad's younger brother Majd al-Din Ahmad al-Ghazali (d. 520/1126) to his famous disciple ʿAyn al-Quzat Hamadani (492-526/1098-1131); the letter was published in the Majmuʿa-yi athar-i farsi-yi Ahmad-i Ghazali (Collection of the Persian writings of Ahmad Ghazali). The other is ʿAyn al-Quzat's own letter, published in the Namaha-yi ʿAyn al-Quzat Hamadani (Letters by ʿAyn al-Quzat Hamadani). Later, Ay farzand was translated into Arabic and became famous as Ayyuha al-walad, the Arabic equivalent of the Persian title. The earliest manuscripts with the Arabic translation date from the second half of the 16th and most of the others from the 17th century. The earliest known secondary translation from Arabic into Ottoman Turkish was done in 983/1575. In modern times, the text was translated from Arabic into many European languages and published innumerable times in Turkey as Eyyühe'l-Veled or Ey Oğul.

A less famous Pand-nama (Book of counsel) also written in the genre of advice literature is a very late compilatory letter of an unknown author formally addressed to some ruler and falsely attributed to al-Ghazali, obviously because it consists of many fragments borrowed mostly from various parts of the Kimiya-yi saʿadat.

Influence During his life, Al-Ghazali wrote over seventy books on science, Islamic philosophy, and Sufism. Al-Ghazali played a major role in integrating Sufism with Shariah. He was also the first to present a formal description of Sufism in his works. His works also strengthened the status of Sunni Islam against other schools. The Batinite (Ismailism) had emerged in Persian territories and were gaining more and more power during al-Ghazali's period, as Nizam al-Mulk was assassinated by the members of Ismailis. In his Fada'ih al-Batiniyya (The Infamies of the Esotericists) al-Ghazali declared them unbelievers whose blood may be spilled. Al-Ghazali succeeded in gaining widespread acceptance for Sufism at the expense of philosophy. At the same time, in his refutation of philosophers he made use of their philosophical categories and thus helped to give them wider circulation.

Al-Ghazali believed himself to be more mystical or religious than he was philosophical; however, he is more widely regarded by some scholars as a leading figure of Islamic philosophy and thought. He describes his philosophical approach as a seeker of true knowledge, a deeper understanding of the philosophical and scientific, and a better understanding of mysticism and cognition. The period following Ghazali "has tentatively been called the Golden Age of Arabic philosophy" initiated by Ghazali's successful integration of logic into the Islamic seminary Madrasah curriculum.

Ghazali was cited by Isaac Abravanel to argue that the Greeks borrowed their scientific and philosophical knowledge from Jewish sources.

Number of works Al-Ghazali mentioned the number of his works "more than 70" in one of his letters to Sultan Sanjar in the late years of his life. Some "five dozen" are plausibly identifiable, and several hundred attributed works, many of them duplicates because of varying titles, are doubtful or spurious.

The tradition of falsely attributing works to al-Ghazali increased in the 13th century, after the dissemination of the large corpus of works by Ibn Arabi. Pages Content 1–72 works definitely written by al-Ghazali 73–95 works of doubtful attribution 96–127 works which are almost certainly not those of al-Ghazali 128–224 are the names of the Chapters or Sections of al-Ghazali's books that are mistakenly thought by him 225–273 books written by other authors on al-Ghazali's works 274–389 books of other unknown scholars/writers regarding al-Ghazali's life and personality 389–457 the name of the manuscripts of al-Ghazali's works in different libraries of the world:

+Short List of Major Works of GazaliTitleDescriptionTypeal-Munqidh min al-dalalRescuer from ErrorTheologyHujjat al-HaqProof of the TruthTheologyal-Iqtisād fī al-iʿtiqadThe Moderation in BeliefTheologyIljām al-Awām an Ilm il-KalāmBridling the Common Folk Away From the Science of Theological SpeculationTheologyal-maqsad al-asna fi sharah asma' Allahu al-husnaThe best means in explaining God's Beautiful NamesTheologyJawahir al-Qur'an wa duraruhJewels of the Qur'an and Its PearlsTheologyFaysal al-tafriqa bayn al-Islam wa-l-zandaqaThe Criterion of Distinction between Islam and Clandestine UnbeliefTheologyal-radd al-jamil li-ilahiyyat ‘Isa bi-sarih al-InjilThe Excellent Refutation of the Divinity of Jesus through the Text of the GospelTheologyMishkāt al-Anwār The Niche for Lights, a commentary on the Verse of LightTheologyTafsir al-yaqut al-ta'wilTheologyMizan al-'amalCriterion of ActionTasawwufIhya'e Ulum-ed'DeenThe Revival of the Religious SciencesTasawwufBidayat al-hidayahThe Beginning of GuidanceTasawwufKimiya-yi sa'ādatThe Alchemy of Happiness [a résumé of Ihya'ul ulum, in Persian]TasawwufNasihat al-mulukCounseling Kings in PersianTasawwufal-Munqidh min al-dalalRescuer from ErrorTasawwufMinhaj al-'AbidinMethodology for the WorshipersTasawwufFada'ih al-BatiniyyaThe Infamies of the Esotericists, a refutation of esoteric Sufism in general and Isma'ili doctrines in particularTasawwufMaqasid al falasifaAims of the Philosophers written in the beginning of his life, in favour of philosophy and presenting the basic theories in Philosophy, mostly influenced by Avicenna's worksPhilosophyTahāfut al-FalāsifahThe Incoherence of the Philosophers refutes the Greek Philosophy aiming at Avicenna and al-Farabi; and of which Ibn Rushd wrote his famous refutation Tahāfut al-Tahāfut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence)PhilosophyMiyar al-Ilm fi fan al-MantiqCriterion of Knowledge in the Art of LogicPhilosophyMihak al-Nazar fi al-mantiqTouchstone of Reasoning in LogicPhilosophyal-Qistas al-mustaqimThe Correct BalancePhilosophyFatawy al-GhazaliVerdicts of al-GhazaliJurisprudenceal-wajiz fi fiqh al-imam al-shafi’iThe Condensed in Imam Shafi’i’s JurisprudenceJurisprudenceKitab tahzib al-IsulPrunning on Legal TheoryJurisprudenceal-Mustasfa fi 'ilm al-isulThe Clarified in Legal TheoryJurisprudenceAsas al-QiyasFoundation of Analogical reasoningJurisprudenceThe Jerusalem Tract Jurisprudence Sources:

Economic philosophy

Al-Ghazali's economic philosophy was primarily influenced by his Islamic beliefs. He argued that the importance of economic activity lay both in its benefit to society, as well being necessary for salvation.

He established three goals of economic activity that he believed were part of one's religious obligation: "achievement of self-sufficiency for one's survival; provision for the well-being of one's progeny; and provision for assisting those in economic need." Many, perhaps most, later Muslims concurred and, according to Watt, some have even considered him to be the greatest Muslim after Muhammad.

and the jurist, al-Yafi'i stated:

The Shafi'i jurist al-Subki stated:

Also a widely considered Sunni scholar, al-Dhahabi, in his praise of al-Ghazali wrote: "Al-Ghazzaali, the imaam and shaykh, the prominent scholar, Hujjat al-Islam, the wonder of his time, Zayn al-Deen Abu Haamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Toosi al-Shaafa'i al-Ghazzaali, the author of many books and one possessed of utter intelligence. He studied fiqh in his own town, then he moved to Nisapur in the company of a group of students. He stayed with the Imaam al-Haramayn and gained a deep knowledge of fiqh within a short period. He became well-versed in 'ilm al-kalaam and debate, until he became the best of debater."

Ibn Rushd (Averroes), a rationalist, famously responded that "to say that philosophers are incoherent is itself to make an incoherent statement." Rushd's book, The Incoherence of the Incoherence, attempted to refute al-Ghazali's views, but the work was not well received in the Muslim community.

According to historian Firas Alkhateeb, "When one reads Imam al-Ghazali's works at a very superficial level, one can easily misunderstand what he is saying as anti-scientific in general. The truth, however, is that al-Ghazali's only warning to students is to not fully accept all the beliefs and ideas of a scholar simply because of his achievements in mathematics and science. By issuing such a warning, al-Ghazali is in fact protecting the scientific enterprise for future generations by insulating it from being mixed with theoretical philosophy that could eventually dilute science itself to a field based on conjecture and reasoning alone."

Al-Ghazali has been seen by Orientalist scholars as causing a decline in scientific advancement in Islam, because of his refutation of the new philosophies of his time. He purportedly saw danger in the statements made by philosophers that suggested that God was not all-knowing or even non-existent, which strongly contradicted his conservative Islamic belief. The following statement made by al-Ghazali has been described as evidence that he was not against scientific advancement: "Great indeed is the crime against religion committed by anyone who supposes that Islam is to be championed by the denial of mathematical sciences." Ghazali does not mean that neglecting the study of mathematics would be a crime against science or against reason, but that rejecting them is a crime against religion. Its aim is not to promote the study of mathematics: it is to condemn the attitude which consists in considering them as rivals of religion. For him, religion has nothing to fear from them, because they do not deal with the same subjects. To condemn the study of mathematics for fear that it endangers religion is to mistake the place of each of them. This is clarified by the sentence which immediately follows: "For the revealed Law nowhere undertakes to deny or affirm these sciences, and the latter nowhere address themselves to religious matters. he writes that the books of the philosophers must be banned - he defines philosophy as composed of six branches: mathematical, logical, physical, metaphysical, political, and moral. Al-Ghazali notably influenced Ibn Rushd, Ayn al-Quzat Hamadani, al-Nawawi, Ibn Tumart, Fakhruddin Razi, Suyuti, David Hume, Sayf al-Din al-Amidi, Asad Mayhani, Ali al-Qari, Muhammad Ibn Yahya al-Janzi.