Al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s Philosophical
Download 4.03 Mb. Pdf ko'rish
|
|
ı ¯ who visited him in his kha¯nqa¯h in T.u¯s. Later, As ¶ad’s report was used by the collector of the letters as well as by Dawlatsha¯h, both of whom somewhat misrepresent its original context. Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯ al-Janzı¯ (d. 549/1154) If As ¶ad al-Mayhanı¯ represents the continuation of the Ghazalian teaching tradition at the Niz.a¯miyya madrasa in Baghdad, Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯ rep- resents it in Nishapur. He was born 476/1083–84 in T.uraythı¯th, a village in m os t in f lue n t i a l s t u de n t s a nd e a r l y f ol low er s 7 5 the vicinity of Nishapur. His family came from Janza in Arran, a town that was also known as Ganja and today is known as Kirovabad in Azerbaijan. Two generations later, Janza would become known as the home of the famous Persian poet Niz.a¯mı¯ (d. c . 604/1207). The historian al-Sam ¶a¯nı¯, who studied with Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯, says that his father came to Nishapur for the fa- mous Ash ¶arite Sufi al-Qushayrı¯. He became one of his disciples, and after having performed the pilgrimage, he settled in T.uraythı¯th. His son, Abu¯ Sa ¶d Muh.ammad ibn Yahya¯, studied with Ah.mad al-Khawa¯fı¯ (d. 500/1106–7) and Abu
¯ H . a¯mid al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯. Al-Khawa¯fı¯ was a student of al-Juwaynı¯ and became the judge ( qa¯d.ı¯ ) of T.u¯s shortly before 478/1085. The historians describe him as a companion ( rafı¯q ) of al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯, renowned for his expertise in the techniques of disputation ( jadal and muna¯zara ) and in the “silencing of one’s opponent” ( ifh.a¯m al-khus.u¯m ). 92 Since al-Khawa¯fı¯ is associated with T.u¯s rather than with Nishapur, it is most likely that Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯ studied with al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ at his za¯wiya there and not exclusively during al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s tenure at the Niz.a¯miyya madrasa in Nishapur in the years after 499/506. Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯ himself became an infl uential teacher of Islamic law who attracted students from far away. He was appointed head teacher at the Niz.a¯miyya in Nishapur. 93 His name is associated with a great number of students, and he fi gures in countless intellectual lineages. Two of his students are credited with the introduction of Ash ¶arite theology in Ayyu¯bid Syria, for instance. 94 When the famous theologian, philosopher, and jurist Fakhr al- Dı¯n al-Ra¯zı¯ (d. 606/1210) came to Nishapur in his youth, he studied with al-Kama¯l al-Simna¯nı¯ (d. 575/1179–80), who was a student of Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯. Fakhr al-Dı¯n al-Ra¯zı¯’s biographers stress that, through al-Simna¯nı¯ and Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯, he is linked to al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s teaching activity. 95
Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯ is particularly connected to the spread of al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s
work in Sha¯fi ¶ite law. He was called the “Renewer of Religion” ( muh.yı¯ l-dı¯n ), a title that al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ earlier had claimed for himself in his autobiography; 96
perhaps his student acquired it in his place. Muh.ammad wrote the fi rst com- mentary on one of al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s books on Sha¯fi ¶ite law, The Middle One ( al-Wası¯t. fı¯ l-madhhab ). Al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ wrote at least three books on the individual rulings or the substantive law ( furu¯ ¶) of the Sha¯fi ¶ite school, the most voluminous being a book with the title The Extended . 97 This large work and the less extensive Mid- dle One , which became the subject of Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯’s commentary, were written early in al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s life and are mentioned in books that he com- posed soon after 488/1095. 98 The shortest of al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s books on applied law, The Succinct One ( al-Wajı¯z ), was completed in the year 495/1101 while he was teaching at his za¯wiya in T.u¯s. 99 The titles of these three works are inspired by three works of Qur 7an commentary ( tafsı¯r ) by the Nishapurian commentator al- Wa¯h.idı¯ (d. 468/1076), who lived two generations before al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯.
100 As in al- Wa¯h.idı¯’s three works, these books represent three set levels of depth ( miqda¯r
101
and they do not imply, for instance, that the book The Middle One was composed after the longer and the shorter one. Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯’s commentary, The Comprehensive Book about the Com-
102
7 6 a l - gh a z a ¯ l 1
¯ ’ s ph ilosoph ic a l t h e olo g y Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯’s Comprehensive Book was the fi rst of many commen- taries on al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s two shorter works on the substantive law ( furu¯ ¶ ) of the Sha¯fi ¶ites, The Middle One and The Succinct One. Some of these commentaries are among the most successful works in Islamic law. Three generations after Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯, the Sha¯fi ¶ite Abu¯ l-Qa¯sim al-Ra¯fi ¶ı¯ (d. 623/1226), of Qaz- vin in northern Iran, wrote a commentary on al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s The Succinct One . 103 As
a commentator on al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s legal works, al-Ra¯fi ¶ı¯ has been overshadowed only by Yah.ya¯ al-Nawawı¯ (d. 676/1277), who composed a super-commentary on his work. Al-Nawawı¯ was a student of Ibn al-S.ala¯h. al-Shahrazu¯rı¯ (d. 643/1245), who wrote himself a commentary on al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s The Middle One . Al-Shahrazu¯rı¯, who had studied in Nishapur, moved to Damascus and founded a prominent tradition of al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ studies. His student al-Nawawı¯ also composed a commen- tary on The Middle One . 104
Yet much more successful was his book, The Plentiful Garden for the Students and the Support of the Muftı¯s ( Rawd.at al-t.a¯libı¯n wa- ¶umdat al-muftiyı¯n ), the super commentary on Abu¯ l-Qa¯sim al-Ra¯fı¯ ¶ı¯’s commentary on al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s The Succinct One mentioned earlier. Al-Nawawı¯’s Plentiful Garden is the fruit of a productive period of Ghaza¯l ı ¯ reception among the Damascene Sha¯fi ¶ites in the seventh/thirteenth and eighth/fourteenth centuries. Both al- Nawawı¯’s and al-Ra¯fi ¶ı¯’s commentaries are still used among jurists of Sha¯fi ¶ı¯te law today, and they are doubtless among the most infl uential references in that fi eld. Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯, who had a signifi cant part in securing al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s infl uential position among Sha¯fi ¶ite jurists, died at the age of seventy during the tragic sacking of Nishapur by the Oˇguz nomads. In 548/1153, Sanjar’s Seljuq- Turk army suffered a surprise defeat by one of the larger groups of Oˇguz Turks that had newly entered into Khorasan. The nomads took Sanjar prisoner and pillaged the cities in his realm. When they arrived in Nishapur in Ramad.an / November of that year, they sacked the outer city and killed many of its inhabit- ants in search for hidden treasures. Soon afterward, they returned and overran Nishapur’s inner city. Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯ was killed either in Ramad.a¯n 548 / November–December 1153 or—which is more likely—on 11 Shawwa¯l 549 / 19 December 1154 in the New Mosque of Nishapur. It is said that the Oˇguz forced dirt down his throat until he died. 105
The destruction of Nishapur in 548/1153 was only one step in the steady de- cline of that city as a center of Muslim scholarship. In 553/1158, the long-standing differences between the H . anafi tes and the Sha¯fi ¶ites erupted in a civil war that lasted until 557/1162 and caused more destruction than the two sackings by the Oˇguz nomads. Merw, Isfara 7in, T.a¯bara¯n-T.u¯s, and other cities in Khorasan also suffered from the breakdown of the Seljuq military force in 548/1153. In addi- tion, the region was hit by a number of devastating earthquakes, so that during the second half of the seventh/twelfth century, urban life in Khorasan went through a severe crisis. With it suffered the cities’ institutions of learning such as the Niz.a¯miyya madrasas in Nishapur, Merw, and Herat. Fakhr al-Dı¯n al-Ra¯zı¯ was among the last generation of scholars who could connect themselves to al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s teaching tradition in Nishapur. The very last head teacher at the Nishapurian Niz.a¯miyya mentioned in the sources was Abu¯ Bakr ibn al-S.affa¯r, m os t in f lue n t i a l s t u de n t s a nd e a r l y f ol low er s 7 7 a member of the rich and infl uential S.affa¯r family of Nishapur. He had taught a course on al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s Middle One forty times before he was killed in 618/1221 at age eighty-two, when the Mongol armies under Chingiz Kha¯n’s son Toluy captured Nishapur and systematically slaughtered its inhabitants. One of his many students was Ibn al-S.ala¯h. al-Shahrazu¯rı¯ from the region of Irbil in Iraq. Ibn al-S.ala¯h. al-Shahrazu¯rı¯ and others would carry the teaching tradition of al- Ghaza¯l ı
106
Ibn Tu¯mart (d. 524/1130) Ibn Tu ¯mart, the founder of the Almohad Empire in North Africa and al-Andalus, never met al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯. He traveled from Morocco to Baghdad and studied at the Niz.a¯miyya madrasa at a time when al-Ghaza¯li was no longer there. He became an accomplished and quite innovative theologian, developing a number of posi- tions in theology and fi qh that can be connected to al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s teachings. Ibn Tu ¯mart was born in the Su¯s Valley of southern Morocco some time between 470/1077 and 480/1088. He was a contemporary of Abu ¯ Bakr ibn al- ¶Arabı¯, whom he also never met. At some time before 500/1106, Ibn Tu ¯mart
left Morocco in pursuit of religious knowledge. He fi rst traveled to al-Andalus but soon turned his attention to the east and made his way to Baghdad. There he studied at the Niz.a¯miyya for an undetermined period between the years 500/1106 and 511/1117. Ibn Tu ¯mart’s biographers mention a number of scholars as his teachers at the Niz.a¯miyya, including Abu¯ Bakr al-Sha¯shı¯ (d. 507/1114), 107
Abu ¯ l-H
. asan al-S.ayrafı¯ (d. 500/1107), 108
and al-Kiya¯ 7 al-Harra¯sı¯, all venerated scholars of their time. Ibn Tu ¯mart might have also studied with As ¶ad al-Mayhanı¯ and al-Shahrasta¯nı¯, both of whom taught at the Niz.a¯miyya during this period. Some historians also claim that Ibn Tu ¯mart was a student of al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯, and that the two had a memorable encounter in which the great theologian entrusted Ibn Tu ¯mart with his theological legacy. That, however, is a myth spread by Ibn Tu ¯mart’s political heirs after his death. By the time Ibn Tu ¯mart arrived in Baghdad, al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ was already in Khorasan. 109
¯mart’s life before 510/1116 or 511/1117 when he returned to the Maghrib from the Muslim East. It follows that there is no reliable information that he did defi nitely study at the Niz.a¯miyya in Baghdad. In an article published in 2005, I compare some of Ibn Tu ¯mart’s theological teachings—particularly his proof of God’s existence—with those of al-Juwaynı¯ and al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯, concluding that he was indeed at the Niz.a¯miyya in Baghdad. The argument supporting the historians’ claim is based on the continuity of ideas rather than evidence of his whereabouts. His teachings are distinctly Juwaynian and to some degree Ghazalian. Just as al-Juwaynı¯ and al- Ghaza¯l
ı ¯ were infl uenced by philosophical arguments, so was Ibn Tu¯mart. The philosophical infl uence need not be direct and has most probably been medi- ated through theological ideas taught at the Niz.amiyya during this time. Even after al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s departure, the Baghdad Niz.a¯miyya remained a hotbed of Nishapurian Ash ¶arite theology and its adaptation of philosophical teachings. 7 8 a l - gh a z a ¯ l 1
¯ ’ s ph ilosoph ic a l t h e olo g y Ibn Tu
¯mart’s career as a religious leader began soon after 510/1116, when he appeared in Tunis. In the Maghrib, he made a name for himself by preaching strict morality of the sort al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ taught in his Revival of the Religious Sci- ences . In particular, on the duty of “commanding good and forbidding wrong,” Ibn Tu
¯mart followed al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s moralistic approach. 110 On his way back to Morocco, he gathered more and more followers, a zealous group that accompa- nied him and tried to enforce his high moral standards. By the time Ibn Tu ¯mart arrived at Marrakesh in 515/1121, his followers had emerged into the avant-garde of a religious and political movement, primarily of Ma s. mu ¯da-Berbers, that would soon conquer North Africa and Muslim Spain. Ibn Tu ¯mart did not witness the full success of the movement that he started. His followers called themselves “those who profess divine unity” ( al-muwah.h.idu¯n ), becoming known as Almohads in Western literature. 111 Ibn
Tu ¯mart died in 524/1130, during the early years of the military campaign that led to the conquest of almost all of the Maghrib, including al-Andalus. His suc- cessor (his “caliph”) ¶Abd al-Mu 7min ibn ¶Alı¯ (d. 558/1163) was one of those who joined the preacher on his way from Tunis to Marrakesh, and he became the real political founder of the Almohad movement. Under his rule, so it is said, the works of Ibn Tu ¯mart were collected and written down. The writings that he supposedly edited were collected in The Book That Contains All the Notes on the
and has since been edited. 112
guage and written with great care. These texts claim to represent the oral teach- ings of Ibn Tu ¯mart, edited more than twenty years after his death by the “caliph” ¶Abd al-Mu 7min from notes ( ta ¶a¯liq ) taken by Ibn Tu ¯mart’s companions. This is conspicuously similar to what is known about the collection of the Qur’an by Caliph ¶Uthman ibn ¶Affa¯n, and probably is not true. It is hard to imagine that Ibn Tu
¯mart himself did not compose these works. For our purposes in under- standing Ibn Tu ¯mart’s theology and his intellectual connection to al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯, three texts will prove to be most important. These texts are his Creed on the Creator ’ s Divine Unity ( Tawh.ı¯d al-Ba¯ri 7 ) and two short texts of about one page each, referred to as his Guides No. I and II ( Murshida I and II). Ibn Tu¯mart’s proof for the existence of God follows in its outward structure the traditional kala¯m proof for God’s existence: we know from observation that all things either change or, if they do not change, have the potential to change. Things change their place, their position, sometimes their color, and so forth. All these changes happen in time, that is, they appear from one moment to the next. A substance in which temporal change occurs must be generated in time and cannot be eternal. If the temporal changes in a thing are caused by another thing that is subject to temporal change, then the series of things that are sub- ject to such changes cannot regress indefi nitely. Thus, these changes must be introduced by something that is itself not subject to temporal change,and this must be eternal and not generated in time. This is God. 113
Al-Juwaynı¯ has this proof fully worked out in his late work The Creed for Niz.a¯m al-Mulk . 114 Al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯
m os t in f lue n t i a l s t u de n t s a nd e a r l y f ol low er s 7 9 gives a version of this proof at the beginning of his Balanced Book on What-To- Believe ( al-Iqtis.a¯d fı¯ l-i ¶tiqa¯d ). He devotes much space to the proof that all created things are subject to change. 115 This is the key premise of the kala¯m proof for God’s existence, and it is challenged by an objection of the fala¯sifa , namely, that the celestial bodies and their spheres are not—and have never been—subject to change. Ibn Tu ¯mart’s Creed on the Creator ’ s Divine Unity shows that he was well familiar with this problem. He develops an innovative argument that aims to extend judgments about objects of our experience to things that we cannot experience. Ibn Tu ¯mart’s wishes to establish a valid analogy that extends to all created beings. If such an analogy is possible, judgments about things that we experience directly can be extended to things that we experience only indirectly or from a distance, such as celestial objects. Ibn Tu¯mart’s analogy is inspired by the division of judgments into nec- essary, contingent, and impossible. These divisions are a prominent feature of Avicenna’s philosophy, who introduced them to the philosophical genre of proofs for God’s existence. In Avicenna, however, necessary, contingent, and impossible are not predicates of judgments but rather of things in the outside world. We will see that al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ criticized Avicenna by saying that these di- visions are not ontological, meaning they cannot be found within the world; but they are rather epistemological, meaning the three predicates of necessary, contingent, and impossible apply only to our judgments and not to objects in the world. This contention can already be found in the works of al-Juwaynı¯. Ibn Tu¯mart applies the threefold division of necessary, possible, and impossible as an epistemological distinction about human judgments. In our mind, we fi nd that the truth of some judgments is necessary, the truth of others is contingent, and again others cannot at all be true. An example of the fi rst kind of judgment is: “Everything has a maker ( fa¯ ¶il ).” This judgment is always true, says Ibn Tu¯mart, and this leads us to know that there cannot be anything in this world that doesn’t have a maker, or, in the parlance of the philosophers, an effi cient cause ( f a¯ ¶il ). For al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯, the principle that all that comes to be must have a cause that brings it about is an axiom of reason and a necessary truth. 116
Ibn Tu¯mart understands that humans are given this truth a priori, and through it, God has given us a way to prove His existence. 117
The necessary truth of the principle that everything has a maker leads humans to realize that everything is created, even the stars in heaven. Ibn Tu¯mart’s detailed inquiry into who could be the maker of such complicated objects as a human body leads to the realization that only God can create such complex things as a human. Other beings wouldn’t even be able to create a single limb. If only God can be the creator of a human limb, He is a fortiori the creator of the stars and of every- thing else in the world. Ibn Tu ¯mart’s argument for God’s existence shares many of the notions and ideas important in the theology of al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯. He uses Avicenna’s ontological distinction of necessary, contingent, and impossible in an epistemological way. Already al-Juwaynı¯ employed it thus in his Creed for Niz.a¯m al-Mulk . 118 Like al- Ghaza¯l ı ¯, Ibn Tu¯mart is impressed by the ingenuity of God’s creation and by the well-fi tted function and place of all individual elements in an overall plan. Ibn 8 0 a l - gh a z a ¯ l 1
¯ ’ s ph ilosoph ic a l t h e olo g y Tu ¯mart and al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ both saw a most skillful plan at work in God’s creation. This conviction made them introduce arguments for God’s existence from de- sign and teleological motifs in their respective proofs. 119
ı ¯’s profound infl uence on Ibn Tu¯mart is their common teachings about God’s determination of every event in the cre- ated world. Both taught that the plan for God’s creation existed even before the fi rst creature came into being. Every event is predetermined by God’s decree. Download 4.03 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
|