Al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s Philosophical
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God is viewed as the omniscient engineer of an ingenious network of what ap- pears to people to be causes and effects. Once that network runs, however, God does not change it. After its initial creation, the world follows the plan that God made in His eternity: The Omniscient determines [all] this in His eternity ( fi azalihi ) and the things become manifest through His wisdom in accordance with what He has determined. Then, they take place according to His determination, which follows an undisturbed calculus ( h.isa¯b la¯
120
These words recall al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s comparison of the created world with a water clock ( s.andu¯q al-sa¯ ¶a¯t ), which will be discussed below. 121
Yet, unlike al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯, Ibn Tu ¯mart uses language that is—as far as I can see—unambiguously occa- sionalist. 122
We will see that occasionalism is very much within the range of what might be called Ghazalian theology. We will also see that the great theolo- gian from Khorasan was reluctant to express his ideas about God’s predetermi- nation of future events all too candidly. The works of Ibn Tu ¯mart, who shows fewer scruples in this respect, are therefore a welcome and helpful interpreta- tion of what was taught at the Niz.a¯miyya in Baghdad during the fi rst years of the sixth/twelfth century. Ibn Tu¯mart’s view of divine creation and predetermination refl ects much of what al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ has written on this subject. At the beginning of his Creed , for instance, Ibn Tu¯mart says that a Muslim’s belief ( ı¯ma¯n ) and piety ( ikhla¯s. ) are the result of chains of events that eventually go back to the miracle that confi rms the mission of the Prophet. 123
We will see that these chains of events (al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ says: “the chaining of causes,” tasalsul al-asba¯b ) play a very impor- tant role in al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s theology. For instance, al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ mentions a very similar chain in the thirty-fi rst book of his Revival of the Religious Sciences on the subject of patience and thankfulness ( Kita¯b al-S.abr wa-l-shukr ). 124 These chains of events are a novel concept and cannot be found in the works of earlier Ash ¶arite thinkers. After Ibn Tu ¯mart’s death in 524/1131 and the Almohads’ conquest of Mo- rocco and al-Andalus, Ghazalism became fi rmly established in a region where thus far the political leaders had been openly hostile toward it. In 503/1109, the Almoravids, the predecessors of the Almohads as rulers over the Magh- rib, burned al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s Revival of the Religious Science in the courtyard of the mosque in Cordoba. The Almoravids were conservative Ma¯likites who rejected al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s critique of their legal method as well as his rationalist and Sufi tendencies. 125
After their demise at the hands of the Almohads, al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s 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 8 1 position within the theological climate in the Maghrib changed dramatically. While under the Almoravids, al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s teachings were regarded as unbe- lief; they fl ourished under the Almohads, who actively promoted them. 126
The philosophical and theological teachings of such important Almohad thinkers as Ibn T.ufayl (d. 456/1061) and Averroes are part of the Ghazalian tradition, de- spite the fact that both made a point of criticizing al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯.
127 Almohad theol- ogy and philosophy is said to have disappeared after the defeat of the Almohad Empire by the Christian Reconquista in the fi rst half of the seventh/thirteenth century. Yet the rationalist attitude of Almohadism and Ghazalism continued to have a long-lasting effect on intellectuals of the Maghrib. The Ma¯likite jurist al-Sha¯t.ibı¯ (d. 790/1388), who was active in Granada during the Nas.rid era, is a good example of the application of Ghazalian principles in jurisprudence ( fi qh ). His stress on public benefi t ( mas.lah.a ) as a source of Islamic law is a development of al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s earlier rationalist teachings along these lines. 128 In
theology and law, scholars in the Maghrib became more open to accepting the view that these disciplines must be accompanied by the study of philosophi- cal logic. In the Muslim East, infl uential interpreters of al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯, such as the two Damascenes Ibn al-S.ala¯h. al-Shahrazu¯rı¯ and Yah.ya¯ al-Nawawı¯, rejected this element of his teachings. Like Jala¯l al-Dı¯n al-Suyu ¯t.ı¯ (d. 911/1505), they re- garded Aristotelian logic as a dangerous innovation that would lead students to become receptive to the heterodox thought of the fala¯sifa . 129
In the Magh- rib, however, the study of Aristotelian logic fl ourished and produced a great number of works written throughout the eighth/fourteenth to the twelfth/ eighteenth centuries. 130
Egyptian-based scholar and Ghaza¯l ı ¯ commentator al-Murtad.a¯ al-Za¯bidı¯ ob- served that Maghribı¯ scholars had reintroduced the study of philosophical logic into Egypt two generations before. 131 By this time, the Ma¯likite Maghrib, where al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s books were burned during his lifetime, had become more Ghazal- ian than the Muslim East. ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t al-Hamadha¯nı¯ (d. 525/1131) Like Ibn Tu¯mart, ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t al-Hamadha¯nı¯ (or: ¶Ayn al-Quz . a¯t-i Hamada¯nı¯) was not a direct student of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s, never having even met the great scholar. ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t was born in 492/1098 in Hamadan in central Iran to a family of scholars. The historian al-Bayhaqı¯ characterizes ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t as an author who “mixed the teachings of the Sufi s with those of the philosophers.” 132 As a young adult, ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t had met al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s brother Ah.mad and was so impressed by him that, despite his age, ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t became his student (fi gure 2.1). Although ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t had studied al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s Revival before, his close contact with Ah.mad caused him to immerse himself again in the works of Muh.mmad al-Ghaza¯lı¯ and to appreciate them greatly. In one of his books, ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t writes how he had come to the conclusion that Muh.ammad al-Ghaza¯lı¯ belongs, like his brother Ah.mad and himself, to a select group of ten scholars fi rmly rooted ( ra¯sikh ) in knowledge and knowing the outer as well as the inner figure 2.1 ¶ Ayn al-Qud.a¯t al-H.amadha¯nı¯ meets Ah.mad al-Ghaza¯lı¯ in a garden. Mini- ature from a manuscript of Kama¯l al-Dı¯n Ga¯zurga¯hı¯’s (d. after 909/1503–4) Assemblies of God-Lovers (Maja¯lis al- ¶ushsha¯q), produced c. 967/1560 in India. (MS London, British Library, Or. 11837, fol. 57b). 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 8 3 meanings of the Qur’an (cf. Q 3:7). 133 Like As ¶ad al-Mayhanı¯, ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t be- lieved that al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s intelligence ( ¶aql ) reached a stage that few other humans can match. 134
He considered himself a disciple of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s books. 135
A close reading of ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t’s works shows that he was well acquainted with the most important motifs in al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s theology, frequently adopting them as his own. He criticizes, for instance, the fala¯sifa ’s concept of effi cient causality with arguments that are inspired by al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s seventeenth chapter in his Incoherence . 136
Like Ibn Tu ¯mart, ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t was infl uenced by Avicenna’s proof of God’s existence. Unlike his contemporary in the Muslim West, how- ever, he was aware of this philosophical infl uence and discussed it openly. ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t begins his most theological work, The Essence of Truths ( Zubdat al-
ı ¯’s books shortly before 512/1118 takes center stage. Once he had been pointed to these books, he studied them for four years, and it was only by reading them that he began to understand the religious sciences. 137
The discussion of theology in this book starts with a comparison between the merits of the kala¯m proof for God’s existence and the one developed by Avicenna. ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t clearly prefers the latter and excuses al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ for having produced a version of the kala¯m proof in his Balanced Book on What-To-Believe . 138
Al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s attitude to Avicen- na’s so-called “Proof of the Reliable Ones” ( burha¯n al-s.iddı¯qı¯n ) was ambiguous. In his Scandals of the Esoterics, he produces a version of this proof and says its conclusion is necessary. 139
In the fourth and fi fth discussion of his Incoherence , however, he criticizes several elements of the Avicennan proof and suggests that it is demonstrative only after adding the additional premise that the world was created in time. 140 The original Avicennan proof from contingency has indeed some implications that are undesirable for al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯. It proves the existence of God as the origin of all being ( wuju ¯d ) and as the only being that is necessary by virtue of itself ( wa¯jib al-wuju ¯d bi-dha¯tihi ). This implies that all aspects of God’s being are necessary, including His will and His actions. It also implies that God creates necessarily, meaning continuously from pre-eternity. We will see that al- Ghaza¯l
ı ¯ harshly criticizes Avicenna for teaching that God’s will and His actions are necessary. Some aspects of the Avicennan proof, however, were quite appeal- ing to al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯, primarily the fact that it enables humans “to give evidence to the created things by way of their Creator, rather than giving evidence to Him by way of the created things.” 141 Thus, Avicenna’s proof avoids the ascent from the low to the high and allows one to prove God’s existence solely by contemplating on the nature of existence. This is more reliable and nobler ( awthaq wa-ashraf ) than any other argument for God’s existence. 142
Al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ accepted a version of Avicenna’s proof that avoids the implica- tion of eternal creation, and he seems to have regarded it as equivalent—or maybe even preferable—to the traditional kala¯m proof. 143 The fact that all exist- ence is either by itself possible or by itself necessary opens a way to proof that God’s existence is the origin for the existence of all other things. In such works as The Niche of Lights, al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ expresses approval for this aspect of the Avicen- nan proof. In that book, al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ explains that the sun’s light is the best meta- phor to show how everything in this world emerges from God’s existence. ¶Ayn 8 4 a l - gh a z a ¯ l 1
¯ ’ s ph ilosoph ic a l t h e olo g y al-Qud.a¯t enthusiastically follows him in this approach. In his collection Preludes ( Tamhı¯da¯t ), ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t explains how the simile of light works, and he ex- pands upon it with a much more complicated notion of lightness and darkness, personifi ed by the pre-Islamic dualistic fi gures of Yazda¯n and Ahriman. 144
¶ Ayn al-Qud.a¯t’s theology is infl uenced by the Ghazalian notion that God bestows existence onto the created world. God is the only real existence, while all other things have their existence borrowed for a limited time from Him. Everything is, by itself, sheer nothing: “Every contingent being ( mumkin ), in so far as it is looked at in itself and not considered sustained by the Necessary, is by itself non-existent ( ma ¶du
145
Things only come into existence when the conditions ( shuru ¯t. ) are fulfi lled for a particular possible existent to receive existence from God. This idea of the conditions for future contingencies had already been put forward by al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ in his Revival of the Religious Sciences as an attempt to reconcile the limitless world of an occasionalist cosmology with the necessary restrictions to which any future moment is subject. What can possibly be created in the next moment depends on what already exists in this one. 146 God’s plan of creation responds to these limitations. He determines necessarily what has been created in the past and what will be created in the future. There is no arbitrariness in God’s plan; it exists in a timeless sphere and was already there when creation began. Thus, whatever will exist in the future is already determined in God’s timeless knowledge. 147
ı ¯’s ontology. He quotes and explains, for instance, al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s ideas on semantics in his account of the relationship between a name and what it names ( ism wa-musamma¯ ) from the introduction to al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s Highest Goal in Explaining the Beautiful Names of God . 148
There is no evidence that ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t was aware of the philosophical background of these particular teachings, although he clearly did understand the intellectual connection between Avicenna and al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯. ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t crit- icizes the fala¯sifa together with the mutakallimu ¯n because their negative theology cannot lead to an adequate understanding of the Divine, 149 yet he also expresses a fondness toward Avicenna. One of ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t’s original teachings is that the true seeker after God should be acquainted with a certain kind of unbelief ( kufr ) in order to reach a higher degree of belief. This position, ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t claims, had already been expressed by Avicenna in his Epistle on the Occasion of the Feast of Sacrifi ce ( al-Risa¯la al-Ad.h.awiyya ). According to ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t’s account, when a Sufi asked Avicenna to provide a proof—for what exactly remains obscure—he simply said: [The proof is] to enter true unbelief ( al-kufr al-h.aqı¯qı¯ ) and to leave what is (only) metaphorical Islam ( al-Isla¯m al-maja¯zı¯ ) and to pay attention only to what is beyond the three [types of ] people until you are a believing Muslim and an unbeliever. If you are beyond this [level] you are neither believer nor unbeliever. If you remain below this, then you are a polytheist Muslim. If you are ignorant of this, then you will know that there will be no resurrection for you, nor will you return as one of the existing beings. 150
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 8 5 None of this can be found in Avicenna’s Epistle on the Occasion of the Feast of Sacrifi ce or elsewhere in his writings. It is, in fact, a Ghazalian notion inspired by his explanation of four levels of believe in divine unity ( tawh.ı¯d ) at the begin- ning of the thirty-fi fth book of his Revival . There, al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ says that the true seeker of God should aim for the fourth and highest level of insight as to what belief in one single God ( tawh.ı¯d ) really means. On this level, he understands that all being is God. The three lower levels represent lesser insights, insuf- fi cient for the true seeker. 151 In ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t’s pseudo-Avicennan quote, this notion is combined with the idea that the true believer is one who cannot be defi ned by categories such as “Muslim” or “unbeliever.” A portion of unbelief is required to reach the highest level of understanding divine unity ( tawh.ı¯d ). What is meant by requiring such a portion of unbelief is illuminated in another passage in ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t’s Preludes . Here, he defends Avicenna’s position of the world’s pre-eternity. When Avicenna said that the four prime elements are pre-eternal ( qadı¯m ), he did not mean to say, ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t ex- plains, that anything in the sublunar sphere and the world of coming-to-be and passing-away is pre-eternal. Only the building materials of the earthly world are pre-eternal, and these are the “real elements” ( ¶ana¯s.ir-i h.aqı¯qı¯ ). This teach- ing is correct, says ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t, and “Avicenna should be excused for saying this.”
152 Yet, al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ had branded this position as unbelief and apostasy from Islam. It seems that ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t aimed to turn his condemnation into some- thing positive that the Sufi should embrace. ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t also incorporates many of the major ideas of al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯’s moral teachings. He follows al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ closely in his critique of kala¯m . 153 Like
al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯, he criticizes the political elite for their corruption and calls them in one of his letters “a Satan among the Satans of humanity and an enemy among the enemies of God and His messenger.” 154 Those scholars who seek the rulers’ patronage and who do not use their knowledge to earn the afterlife are condemned. He advises his students to “serve the sandals” ( khidmat-i kafsh ) rather than to serve the sultan, 155
using the Ghazalian expression “serving of the sandals” coined in his Niche of Lights. It means that one should follow the ex- ample of Moses, whom God had asked in the valley of T.uwa¯ to “take off the two sandals” (Q 20:12). Al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ interprets this verse as meaning that Moses was asked to leave the worldly affairs ( al-dunya¯ ) behind him and concentrate fully on the afterlife. Several mystics in the generation after al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ picked up this metaphor. ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t’s usage is joined, for instance, by his contemporary Ibn Qası¯ (d. 546/1151) from al-Andalus. In 539/1144, he was the leader of a Sufi revolt against the antimystical Almoravids. Ibn Qası¯’s movement had its center in what is today the Algarve in southern Portugal. 156 Ibn Qası¯’s main work is The Book on Taking Off the Two Sandals ( Kita¯b Khal ¶ al-na ¶ layn ), and here he pur- sues the same Ghazalian motif as ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t persued, “to throw off the two worlds ( kawna¯n ).” Moses, al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯ says, obeyed God’s imperative outwardly by taking off his sandals and inwardly by throwing off the two worlds. 157
Western scholarship on ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t has mostly focused on his political signifi cance. In 525/1131, at age thirty-three, he was crucifi ed in Hamadan along with other offi cials with whom he had close ties. This happened during the 8 6 a l - gh a z a ¯ l 1
¯ ’ s ph ilosoph ic a l t h e olo g y reign of the Seljuq sultan Mah.mu¯d ibn Muh.ammad Tapar (reg. 511–25 / 1118–31) and during the vizierate of Qawwa¯m al-Dı¯n al-Dargazı¯nı¯ (d. 527/1133). This is the same Sultan Mah.mu¯d who, as a child, when he held the governorship of Baghdad, had invited As ¶ad al-Mayhanı¯ to teach at the local Niz.a¯miyya. He was not known for antirationalist or antiphilosophical tendencies. The Seljuq ruling family, particular Mah.mu¯d’s uncle, the Supreme Sultan Sanjar, had formally embraced the teachings of al-Ghaza¯lı¯ after the accusations against him were dismissed. 158
The sources do not allow us to determine fully why ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t was executed and whether this was a reaction to his teachings. Most historians have tried to explain his execution as the outcome of a court intrigue in which al-Dargazı¯nı¯ is usually assigned the role of the villain. 159
misgivings at the Seljuq court. His contemporary al-Sam ¶a¯nı¯ has high praise for ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t’s virtue and his Sufi scholarship. 160 Another early historian wrote: “He was one of the great imams and friends of God ( awliya¯ 7 ) who was noble-hearted and who followed in his works Abu ¯ H . a¯mid al-Ghaza¯l ı ¯.”
161 From
his prison cell in Baghdad, ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t wrote a treatise in his defense ad- dressed to the scholars of Islam. It reveals that he was formally charged with Download 4.03 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
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