Al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s Philosophical
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as an enemy of philosophy who set off its persecution. According to Renan, a war was waged against philosophy in all lands of Islam during the century following al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s condemnation. 9 For Ignaz Goldziher, by the time of al-Ghaza¯lı¯, the practice of philosophy in the heartlands of Islam had already weakened so much that the critique in his Incoherence was a mere coup de grace to an already ailing tradition. After al-Ghaza¯lı¯, Goldziher continues, “we fi nd the philosophical works every now and then on the pyre.” 10 Goldziher was, of course, the most infl uential teacher in the formative period of Islamic stud- ies in the West, and numerous statements of a similar kind appear there dur- ing the twentieth century. These comments still represent a good part of the more popular understanding of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s position in Muslim intellectual history among contemporaries. William M. Watt, for instance, who shaped the historiography of Islamic thought for a whole generation of scholars studying Islam, acknowledged in 1962 that al-Ghaza¯lı¯ had brought together philosophy and theology. Watt, however, limited this fusion to al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s introduction of syllogistic logic into the Muslim theological discourse. In his Incoherence of
phers, “and after this there was no further philosopher of note in the eastern Islamic world.” 11
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¯ ’ s ph ilosoph ic a l t h e olo g y Already in 1937, however, less than forty years after de Boer described Aver- roes as the last philosopher of note in Islam, Shlomo Pines remarked that it is a widespread but hasty generalization to assume that al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s polemics dealt a death blow to philosophy in Islam. 12 In Pines’s view, there was no decline of the rational sciences and of philosophy after al-Ghaza¯lı¯. There was no lack of new ideas under Islam, Pines wrote, although the tendency to maintain old systems of thought and the stability of the scientifi c environment led to a more gradual development of ideas than in Europe, where fundamental conceptions were periodically revised and sometimes discarded. Science in Islam included a large number of elements of diverse origin, Pines maintained, and it integrated Oriental, Persian, Indian, and Greek infl uences: “In its further development, it did not, as a rule, eliminate one of them; it led them to subsist side by side—or on different planes.” 13 In Islam, there was a trend toward syncretism, in which elements of kala¯m , falsafa , and Sufi sm would appear within one and the same thinker. In 1974, Alessandro Bausani added an interesting observation: while in the medieval West, the mainstream of scientifi c discourse—the scientifi c orthodoxy, so to speak—was dominated by a systematic Aristotelian approach and the progressive trends, that is, the scientifi c heterodoxy, were often radi- cal anti-Aristotelian, in Islam, these roles were reversed. Here, the orthodoxy included various trends of anti-Aristotelianism, and it developed a fl exible and syncretistic approach to the methods of science. The much more static situa- tion in the West was—Bausani adds: paradoxically—one of the reasons for its progress, since it was forced to change its approaches in the methods of science radically: “It is much more diffi cult to be radically revolutionary, if one is con- fronted by a comparatively more progressive establishment!” 14
notion that mainstream Islam integrated the Greek philosophical tradition rather than excluded it. In a seminal article, Sabra argued that after a period of appropriation of the Greek sciences in their translation from Greek to Arabic and in the writings of the fala¯sifa up to Avicenna (Ibn Sı¯na¯, d. 428/1037), phi- losophy and the Greek sciences were naturalized into the discourse of kala¯m and Islamic theology. 15 The discipline of kala¯m , that is, Muslim rationalist theology as it had been developed by the Mu ¶tazilites and continued by Sunni and Shiite schools of thought, most prominently the Ash ¶arites, offered a new homeland to falsafa . The situation was in this respect similar to that in the Latin Middle Ages, during which the study of philosophy could not be distinguished from Christian theology. The discourse of Islamic theology integrated the tra- dition of falsafa so much so that Muslim theologians such as Fakhr al-Dı¯n al- Ra¯zı¯ (d. 606/1210), Nas.ı¯r al-Dı¯n al-T.u¯sı¯ (d. 672/1274), and many other scholars of this period must be considered philosophers as well as theologians. 16 They
studied the works of the philosophical tradition in Islam, most notably those of Avicenna; composed comments on these works; discussed the philosophers’ teachings; and often adopted positions that were developed by one of the ear- lier fala¯sifa . With highly original theories, many of the later Islamic philoso- phers such as al-Suhrawardı¯ (d. 587/1191) or Mulla¯ S.adra¯ Shı¯ra¯zı¯ (d. 1050/1640) founded their own philosophical schools. in t roduc t ion 7 Until now, scholars have been divided as to al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s place in this proc- ess of the naturalization of the Greek sciences into the discourse of Islamic the- ology. Given that he criticizes twenty teachings of the fala¯sifa in his Incoherence of the Philosophers and even condemns three of them as apostasy from Islam, must we say that the naturalization and effective integration of the philosophi- cal discourse in Islam happened despite al-Ghaza¯lı¯? Or, rather, should we think of al-Ghaza¯lı¯ as a thinker who stands at the center of developments in Islamic theology and whose Incoherence and subsequent works on Islamic theology are, in fact, a vital part of this process? In this book I will explain why al-Ghaza¯lı¯ is indeed the fi rst Muslim theo- logian who actively promotes the naturalization of the philosophical tradition into Islamic theology. His works document an attempt to integrate Aristotelian logics into the tradition of kala¯m , of rationalist Islamic theology. Al-Ghaza¯lı¯ tirelessly stresses the merits of syllogistic logics and urges his peers in Islamic theology to adopt this rational technique. He was quite outspoken about this project and propagates it, for instance, in his autobiography, The Deliverer from
al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s relationship to falsafa is well known. 17 Some critics and interpret- ers of al-Ghaza¯lı¯ have questioned how he could make use of Aristotelian log- ics without also adopting Aristotelian ontology. 18 In the Aristotelian tradition, logic is so closely connected to the specifi c explanation of the world’s most elementary constituents and their relations to one another that Aristotelian logic can hardly be adopted without Aristotelian ontology. Al-Ghaza¯lı¯ under- stood this connection very well, and while propagating learning logics from the fala¯sifa , he knew that he was also asking his peers to subscribe to fundamental assumptions that would change their positions on ontology and metaphysics. About this, however, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ was less open. When he summarized his views about the metaphysics of the fala¯sifa in such popular works as his autobiogra- phy, he turns his criticism of metaphysics to the fore and mentions his appre- ciation of their teachings only in passing. 19 Yet a thorough study of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s works on theology leaves no doubt that his views on ontology, the human soul, and prophecy are particularly shaped by Avicenna. 20 Furthermore, even the aforementioned condemnation of three philosophical teachings in the Incoher- ence of the Philosophers was actually a part of the naturalization of Aristotelian philosophy into Muslim theology. With this condemnation, the book identifi es those elements of Aristotelianism that were, according to al-Ghaza¯lı¯, unfi t to be integrated. By highlighting these three teachings, the great Muslim theologian opened the Muslim theological discourse to the many other important positions held by the fala¯sifa . This book approaches the subject of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s philosophical theology from two angles, offering a close study both of his life and of his teachings on cosmology. I have chosen these two subjects because I believe they currently pose the greatest obstacle for positioning al-Ghaza¯lı¯ as someone who contrib- uted to the process of the naturalization of falsafa within the Islamic theological discourse. With regard to the study of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s life, the currently prevailing views in Western scholarship are very much shaped by his own report in his
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¯ ’ s ph ilosoph ic a l t h e olo g y autobiography, The Deliverer from Error . English scholarship does not adequately represent key additional sources on his life and work, such as reports from his students and the collection of his Persian letters. These additional sources be- came available during the mid-twentieth century, and they contain a wealth of information that settles many remaining uncertainties about the chronology of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s actions and whereabouts. In particular, the collection of Persian letters illuminates many details about the circumstances surrounding the last fi fteen years of his life. For example, as in his autobiography, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ often re- fers in his letters to the crisis that led to his departure from Baghdad in 488/1095. Yet in these Persian letters, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ also mentions another event, one that we must consider just as important as the departure from Baghdad: in Dhu ¯ l-Qa ¶da 489 / October–November 1096, about a year after his departure from Baghdad, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ vowed at the tomb of Abraham in Hebron never again “to go to any ruler, to take a ruler’s money, or to engage in one of his public disputations.” 21
departure from Baghdad in bright colors, he never mentions the vow at Hebron. This omission can be seen as connected to his contemporaries having accused him of breaking this vow, so he had little interest in reminding his readers of it. Leaving Baghdad and vowing not to cooperate with the representatives of state authority are, of course, two events that belong together, although a reader of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s autobiography may not understand the connection. The distance of eleven years between al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s decision to leave Baghdad and his writing of the autobiography created this signifi cant change in the representation of that event. Reading the letters and studying the comments of his students gives a much clearer picture of what triggered his decision to leave his post at the Niz.a¯miyya madrasa in Baghdad. Al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s change from one of the most successful and visible intellec- tuals in Baghdad to someone who shunned fame and lived withdrawn at his birthplace in the Iranian province has always captured the public imagination. It allowed the idea to emerge that there are two or even more al-Ghaza¯lı¯s speak- ing in his works. Many interpreters also sensed that al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s relationship to falsafa was more ambiguous than he admitted in his autobiography. The idea that al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s teachings underwent a signifi cant change during his life has been put forward so often that it has become part of the scholarly as well as more popular impression about his œuvre. In 1994, however, Richard M. Frank observed that there was no notable theoretical development or evolu- tion in al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s theology between his earliest works, which were published before his departure from Baghdad in 488/1095, and his last. 22 Frank is right about this; there is hardly any evidence to support the widely held view that al-Ghaza¯lı¯ changed some of his positions after his departure from Baghdad and that he moved away from being a more kala¯m -oriented theologian toward being a Sufi . Although it is true that some motifs appear more prominently in al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s work after his departure from Baghdad—for instance, the concern about gaining salvation in the afterlife—none of them are absent from the early works, and to say that al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s theological teachings underwent a change cannot, in fact, be maintained. in t roduc t ion 9 One of my main interests in studying al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s life was to fi nd out whether the current popular view about his changing from being a mutaka- llim (a Muslim rationalist theologian) and opponent of falsafa before departing Baghdad to being a Sufi , one who shunned kala¯m and worked to reconcile Suf- ism with Muslim orthodoxy and maybe even with falsafa can be supported by any of the most authoritative sources on his life. And although these sources do indeed talk about changes in al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s life, none of them reports that his teachings have signifi cantly changed. ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r al-Fa¯risı¯ (d. 529/1134), one of his colleagues and contemporaries, reports eloquently how the intel- lectual arrogance of the young al-Ghaza¯lı¯ changed to a much more balanced personality. 23 Yet this subtle maturation is not the change from a dogmatic the- ologian to a mystic that many modern accounts talk about. Indeed, this same contemporary tells us that al-Ghaza¯lı¯ received a thorough introduction into Sufi sm from his master al-Fa¯ramadhı¯ (d. 477/1084) before he was thirty. This was at least ten—and probably many more—years before the dramatic crisis reported in his autobiography. In that work, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ pictures his departure from Baghdad as a more or less sudden effect of his discovery of Sufi literature. One of his students, Abu ¯ Bakr ibn al- ¶Arabı¯ (d. 543/1148), informs us that this process was not at all sudden. The student mentions that already two years before his departure from Baghdad, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ had “accepted the Sufi path and made himself free for what it requires.” 24 All these accounts should lead us to reevaluate al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s own narrative of his crisis in 488/1095, which has thus far dominated all Western biographies of him. Al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s teachings on cosmology are currently the biggest obstacle to a coherent understanding of his theology. The word “cosmology” refers to views about the most elementary constituents of the universe and how they interact with one another, if, in fact, they are assumed to do so. In the case of al-Ghaza¯lı¯, who teaches that God creates every being and every event in the universe, cosmology refers to how God creates the world and how He relates to His creation. In Western scholarship, the problematic nature of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s teaching on cosmology was raised soon after 1904, when his work The Niche of Lights ( Mishka¯t al-anwa¯r ) fi rst appeared in print. In that book, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ chooses language refl ecting and implying cosmological principles that were developed by philosophers and that had not appeared in any earlier work by a Sunni theologian. The teachings in The Niche of Lights also seem to be at odds with those in his other works, most signifi cantly in his Balanced Book
25 Within the next thirty years, schol- ars such as W. H. T. Gairdner, Arent J. Wensinck, and Miguel Asín Palacios documented these differences, yet they could not provide much of a recon- ciliation or an explanation. During the second half of the twentieth century, with the works of William M. Watt, Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, and others, Western scholars attempted to solve this puzzle by excluding the most problematic texts, those most at odds with the established teaching from an accepted cor- pus of al-Ghaza¯lı¯. Lazarus-Yafeh argued that those works that use a distinctly philosophical language are spurious and should not be attributed to the great Muslim theologian, as Watt argued regarding a specifi c chapter in The Niche
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¯ ’ s ph ilosoph ic a l t h e olo g y of Lights . 26 I fi nd their arguments unpersuasive; it seems rather improbable that individual chapters could be added to a work of a prominent scholar such as al-Ghaza¯lı¯ if he had published this particular work during his lifetime. Classical Muslim scholarship greatly respected the textual tradition of an au- thor’s work; manuscripts were checked for their accuracy by comparing and collating them with other copies of the same work. 27 The author and many of his readers had an interest in safeguarding the integrity of his published works. Collectively, they would have been able to identify mistakes in the manuscript tradition even centuries after a book had been put on the market. First published in 1966, Hava Lazarus-Yafeh’s argument that books that use philosophical terminology cannot have been authored by al-Ghaza¯lı¯ is meth- odologically problematic. 28 Lazarus-Yafeh observed that philosophical terms are absent from those works universally accepted as authored by al-Ghaza¯lı¯, leading to her assumption that any usages of philosophical language are later and inauthentic additions to the Ghazalian corpus. Since many of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s interpreters were reluctant to acknowledge that he may have occasionally used philosophical language, any use of such language, Lazarus-Yafeh argues, can be used to discredit the authenticity of his writings. Lazarus-Yafeh rejected al- Ghaza¯lı¯’s authorship of books that use philosophical language simply because there had always been scholars who had rejected those aspects of his thought, not because the passages were themselves problematic. New controversy entered the study of al-Ghaza¯lı¯ in 1992 when Richard M. Frank suggested that al-Ghaza¯lı¯ had abandoned the cosmological system developed by the Ash ¶arite school of Muslim theology, the school tradition from whence he came, and that he had adopted the cosmology of Avicenna. Frank said that al-Ghaza¯lı¯ ceased to believe that God creates every event in the world directly and immediately, as Ash ¶arites believed before him. Rather, he subscribed to the philosophical explanation that God’s creative power reaches the objects of creation through chains of intermediaries and secondary causes. Celestial intellects that reside in the nine heavenly spheres mediate the divine creative activity to the sublunar sphere, in which chains of secondary causes and their effects unfold. These causes create change according to their natures ( t.aba¯ 7i ¶ ) and make God’s performance of prophetical miracles impossible, at least in the way they were understood by Muslim theologians. According to Frank’s analysis, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ no longer believed that God performs miracles to verify the claims of His prophets. 29 Yet the existence of prophetical miracles is one of the most fundamental elements of classical Ash ¶arite theology, and they are, at least according to Ash ¶arite theology before al-Ghaza¯lı¯, a clear necessity of their theological system. 30
In several articles published before and after 1992, Michael E. Marmura advanced the position that al-Ghaza¯lı¯ never broke with any fundamental princi- ples of Ash ¶arite theology, remaining faithful to its cosmology. Based on a solid documentation, Marmura rejects Frank’s results. Perhaps one could argue that al-Ghaza¯lı¯ wrote two types of works, one that supports Frank’s analysis of a philosophical cosmology and one that provides evidence for Marmura’s inter- pretation that he still applied the traditional Ash ¶arite cosmology. But indeed,
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the problem runs even deeper: Frank and Marmura use some of the same works to underline their theses. Apparently, the same texts by al-Ghaza¯lı¯ could be interpreted either as Frank or as Marmura interprets them. 31
My own interest in al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s cosmology began in the summer of 1993 when Frank’s work fell into my hands. I was doing my mandatory civil service in one of the academic backwaters of Germany and combed the local library for some interesting reading. Had Frank’s study not been published by a German academic publisher, it would have never arrived there. Reading his Creation
book and returning to the Freie Universität Berlin, I wrote my master’s the- sis on Avicenna’s infl uence on al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s Decisive Criterion ( Fays.al al-tafriqa ). In turn, this research led me to focus on al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s condemnation of three philosophical teaching in his Incoherence of the Philosophers for my Ph.D. I was fascinated by the legal and theological development in Islam that had led to Download 4.03 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
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