Al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s Philosophical
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to represent the pronunciation of these names in their original language. Place- names appear the way we usually refer to them in English unless these places in t roduc t ion 1 7
no longer exist. In the endnotes, I produce a short reference to the authors and the titles of publications that are listed in the bibliography.
key to the works that are cited with more than one page reference: al-Ghaza¯lı¯. al-Arba ¶ı¯n , edition .Sabrı¯ al-Kurdı¯ 1925 / edition Ja¯bir 1964. ———. Fays.al al-tafriqa , edition Dunya¯ 1961 / edition Bı¯ju¯ 1993. ———. .Hima¯qat-i ahl-i iba¯.hat , edition Pretzl 1933 / edition Pu¯rjava¯dı¯ 2002. ———. I.hya 7 , edition al- .Halabı¯ 1967–68 / Lajnat Nashr al-Thaqa¯fa edition 1937–39. ———. Ilja¯m al- ¶awa¯mm , edition al- .Halabı¯ 1891 / edition al-Baghda¯dı¯ 1985. ———. al-Imla¯ 7 fı¯ ishka¯la¯t al-I.hya¯ 7, same as I.hya¯ 7 . ———. Maqa¯.sid al-fala¯sifa , edition .Sabrı¯ al-Kurdı¯ 1936 / edition Dunya¯ 1960. ———. Mishka¯t al-anwa¯r , edition ¶Afı¯fı¯ 1964 / edition al-Sayrawa¯n 1986. ———. Mı¯za¯n al- ¶amal , edition .Sabrı¯ al-Kurdı¯ 1923 / edition Dunya¯ 1964. ———. al-Mustas fa¯ min ¶ilm al-u.s ¯ul , edition H.amza H.a¯fi z. 1992–93 / B¯ula¯q edition 1904–7. ———. Taha¯fut al-fala¯sifa , edition Bouyges 1927 / edition Marmura 1997. Ibn al-Muqaffa ¶. Kalı¯la wa-Dimna , edition Cheikho 1905 / edition ¶Azza¯m 1941. Ibn Sı¯na¯. al-Naja¯t , edition .Sabrı¯ al-Kurdı¯ 1938 / edition Da¯nishpazh¯uh 1985. ———. al-Ta ¶lı¯qa¯t , edition Badawı¯ 1973 / edition al- ¶Ubaydı¯ 2002. Rasa¯ 7il Ikhwa¯n al-s ¯ afa¯ 7 , edition Ziriklı¯ 1928 / Da¯r .Sa¯dir edition, Beirut. This page intentionally left blank 1 A Life between Public and Private Instruction
In the West, al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s life has frequently attracted more attention than his teachings. Every student of Islamic studies knows that at the peak of his career, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ left his prominent teaching posi- tion and became a Sufi . In his autobiography, The Deliverer from Error ( al-Munqidh min al-d.ala¯l ), al-Ghaza¯lı¯ presents this transformation in quite dramatic terms. Yet even before the seventeenth century, when this book became known in the West, European scholars were fa- miliar with the inspiring tale of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s spiritual life. In the fi rst half of the sixteenth century, Catholic scholars at the Vatican asked . asan ibn Muh.ammad al-Wazza¯n (d. after 957/1550), known as Leo Africanus, to write a book on the lives of the most prominent Arabic philosophers and theologians. His biography of al-Ghaza¯lı¯ is the third longest of the twenty-eight biographies in that book, after those of Avicenna and Averroes—and certainly the most interesting. Al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s rapid rise as a scholar, his fi nancial success, and his sudden decision to become a “hermit” ( eremita ) all fi gure prominently in this account. 1
Al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s vocal renunciation in his autobiography of certain at - titudes he held earlier in his life has always captured the imagination. At different times in his career, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ was considered a Sufi , a
opher who subscribed to philosophical teachings. This mix created numerous legends about his life. The Algerian Jewish scholar Abra- ham Gavison (d. 986/1578) spread one of the most curious anecdotes during the sixteenth century. He tells the story—in all earnestness— that during daytime al-Ghaza¯lı¯ composed his Incoherence of the Philos- ophers in response to a request by the ruler, while during the night he worked on his own accord on The Incoherence of the Incoherence . This 2 0 a l - gh a z a ¯ l 1
¯ ’ s ph ilosoph ic a l t h e olo g y book is the well-known refutation of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s Incoherence of the Philosophers and was actually composed by Averroes (d. 595/1198) almost a century after al-Ghaza¯lı¯. 2
made little progress in the past half-century. About forty years ago, Josef van Ess noted that of the primary sources on his life, the reports of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s contemporaries and his students had not yet been fully evaluated. 3 Thirty years earlier, in 1938, Jala¯l al-Dı¯n Huma¯ 7ı¯ had already presented a remarkable bio- graphic study of al-Ghaza¯lı¯—written in Persian—that makes full use of the rich information in the collection of his letters. 4 In Western languages, how- ever, the study of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s life had not yet integrated these fi ndings. The chronology of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s life established by Maurice Bouyges in the 1920s and translated into Arabic by ¶Abd al-Rah.ma¯n Badawı¯ in 1964 is still the most comprehensive secondary literature available. This chronology—which is also the starting point of George F. Hourani’s two articles on the dating of al- Ghaza¯lı¯’s works, published in 1959 and 1984—is more than eighty years old and is based entirely on information provided by al-Ghaza¯lı¯ in his autobiog- raphy or by his main biographers. 5 These sources contain substantial lacunae. For instance, considering the writings of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s student Abu¯ Bakr ibn al- ¶Arabı¯ (d. 543/1148) allows us to solve a number of problems in the chronol- ogy of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s life. Abu¯ Bakr ibn al- ¶Arabı¯ tells us when al-Ghaza¯lı¯ left Baghdad on his way home to Khorasan, as an example. 6 Even more impor- tant are al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s Persian letters, which provide us similarly with the cor- responding information about when he arrived in Khorasan. Other biographic problems of concern to earlier generations of al-Ghaza¯lı¯ scholars involve his possible trip to Egypt and his whereabouts during the “ten years of Sufi -wan- dering”—a particularly deceptive verbal formulation that has caused much confusion. In all these cases, his letters as well as the testimony of his students give clear answers. “How al-Ghaza¯lı¯ Created His Own Historiography” is the subtitle of ¶Abd al-Da¯ 7im al-Baqarı¯’s landmark study on al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s autobiography, and it cap- tures well the great theologian’s attitude toward his biographers. 7 Not only in his Deliverer from Error but also in the conversations with his biographer ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r al-Fa¯risı¯ (d. 529/1134) did al-Ghaza¯li shape the perception of his per- sonality and effectively confuse historians for many centuries. The “ten years of Sufi wandering” are mentioned both in his autobiography as well as in ¶Abd al- Gha¯fi r’s account of his life. 8 They create the impression that he stopped teach- ing and avoided all forms of public life. In particular, the authoritative nature of ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r’s biography, who knew al-Ghaza¯lı¯ personally and who based his biography on personal conversations with him, led to this misunderstand- ing that leaves traces even in most recent scholarship. 9 After al-Ghaza¯lı¯ became a professor at the Baghdad Niz.a¯miyya at age thirty-fi ve, he never stopped teach- ing and writing books. The circumstances under which this teaching took place and those who benefi ted from it became an important issue during the course of his life, as we will see. a l ife b e t w e e n p ubl ic a nd p r i vat e ins t r uc t ion 2 1 The Main Sources for al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s Biography In 1971, Dorothea Krawulsky analyzed the entries on al-Ghaza¯lı¯ in the major historical dictionaries of Muslim scholars and luminaries and in the chronicles of his era. 10 She concluded that only a handful of historians contributed origi- nal material, while the rest simply repeated the entries of others. 11 The main sources for the life of al-Ghaza¯lı¯, these historians rely heavily on al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s autobiography, Deliverer from Error . Only in the mid-twentieth century did the value of this book as a proper reconstruction of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s life become a mat- ter of debate. 12 Observations and comments of contemporaries are the second most important source for al-Ghaza¯lı¯ biographers in the classical period. None of the authors of Arabic biographical dictionaries and chronicles use the collec- tion of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s Persian letters. Among the classical biographies, the one by ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r al-Fa¯risı¯ stands out, as he was himself a contemporary of al-Ghaza¯lı¯ and integrated informa- tion he received directly from the great scholar with reports he got from oth- ers. 13
¯ l-Qa¯sim al-Qushayrı¯ (d. 465/1072) and himself an author of works on Sufi sm, 14 includes an article ( tarjama ) on al-Ghaza¯lı¯ in his Sequence to the History of Nishapur ( al-Siya¯q li- Ta 7rı¯kh Nı¯sa¯bu¯r ). This book was completed in 518/1124 and is the continuation of an earlier History of Nishapur by a fourth/tenth century historian. Only the second part of ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r’s continuation survived, and that part does not contain the entry on al-Ghaza¯lı¯. 15 At the beginning of the seventh/thirteenth cen- tury, ¶Abd al-Gha¯fı¯r al-Fa¯risı¯’s book became the subject of an abridgment, which survived in full and contains an abbreviated version of his entry on al-Ghaza¯lı¯. 16
prominently Ta¯j al-Dı¯n al-Subkı¯ (d. 771/1370). Al-Subkı¯ himself also lacked a copy of ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r’s book. He says he knew its content through Ibn ¶Asa¯kir’s history of the Ash ¶arite school and through the abridged version. 17 He must have had a third source, however, since his quotations from ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r’s article on al-Ghaza¯lı¯ are more extensive than those in Ibn ¶Asa¯kir’s books. 18
knew the juvenile al-Ghaza¯lı¯ as a fellow student and teaching assistant ( kha¯dim ) under al-Juwaynı¯ (d. 478/1085). He later visited him several times and inter- viewed him about his life. 19 His eight-page biographical article had a huge im- pact on the historiography of al-Ghaza¯lı¯. It is much more extensive than any other in his historical dictionary and includes personal comments on the im- pression al-Ghaza¯lı¯ made on the author. In terms of its information, however, it is not faultless. It reports that al-Ghaza¯lı¯ spent ten years in Syria although, in fact, he stayed there for less than two years, prompting at least one often- repeated misunderstanding. 20
of Marw is the second closest biographer, both historically and geographically. He lived a generation after al-Ghaza¯lı¯ and studied with many scholars who 2 2 a l - gh a z a ¯ l 1
¯ ’ s ph ilosoph ic a l t h e olo g y knew him personally. Unfortunately, all of al-Sam ¶a¯nı¯’s documents on al- Ghaza¯lı¯ are lost, leaving only quotations in other historians’ works. 21 There is also some evidence that al-Sam ¶a¯nı¯’s contemporary and colleague Z.a¯hir al-Dı¯n ibn Funduq al-Bayhaqı¯ (d. 565/1169–70) from Sabzawar in Khorasan wrote about the life of al-Ghaza¯lı¯. If he did, his works on this subject are completely lost.
22
The Damascene Ibn ¶Asa¯kir (d. 571/1175) was the second historian after ¶ Abd al-Gha¯fi r whose biography of al-Ghaza¯lı¯ is preserved. He includes a long entry in his apologetic history of the early Ash ¶arite school, The Correction of the
Damascus. 23 Both entries consist of a reproduction of ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r’s biogra- phy, while the longer adds al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s brief work on the Muslim creed ( ¶aqı¯ da ), The Foundation on What-To-Believe ( Qawa¯ ¶id al- ¶aqa¯ 7id ). There is probably more original information on the life of al-Ghaza¯lı¯ in Ibn ¶Asa¯kir’s voluminous his- tory of Damascus, which still needs to be fully explored. 24
Muntaz.am fı¯ l-ta 7rı¯kh ) contains three entries on al-Ghaza¯lı¯ that do not always concur. Ibn al-Jawzı¯ is the fi rst annalist historian to include an obituary for al-Ghaza¯lı¯ in the year of his death. Ibn al-Jawzı¯ reconstructs al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s basic life dates primarily from information given by ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r al-Fa¯risı¯. Yet he also devotes signifi cant space to his own traditionalist criticisms of and ob- jections to al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s works. 25 Ibn al-Jawzı¯’s grandson Sibt. ibn al-Jawzı¯’s (d. 654/1256) The Mirror of Times ( Mir 7a¯t al-zama¯n) lists the available sources of information on al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s life. He mentions ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r al-Fa¯risı¯, Ibn al-Jawzı¯, al-Sam ¶a¯nı¯, and Ibn ¶Asa¯kir. 26 Ya¯qu ¯t (d. 626/1228) includes a brief sketch of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s life within the entry on T.u¯s in his geographic diction- ary. 27
period, writes only a very brief entry on al-Ghaza¯lı¯, along with other scattered but important information. 28
locally close to al-Ghaza¯lı¯ and could credibly contribute original material to his biography. The major historians of Muslim luminaries such as Ibn Khallika¯n (d. 681/1282), al-Dhahabı¯ (d. 748/1347), al-S.afadı¯ (d. 764/1363), and Ibn Kathı¯r (d. 774/1373) all feature articles on al-Ghaza¯lı¯ in their works. 29 By the time they wrote, they had to rely on earlier works of history, some of them lost to us. 30 In the seventh/thirteenth century, Damascus became a center of Ghaza¯lı¯ studies, and legal scholars such as Yah.ya¯ al-Nawawı¯ (d. 676/1277) wrote infl uential com- mentaries on his legal works. This activity revived the interest in al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s life. New information was hard to locate, however, and the dispute around al- Ghaza¯lı¯’s name exemplifi es that it was simply too late to settle some issues of his biography. Whether the nisba (family name) was al-Ghaza¯lı¯ or al-Ghazza¯lı¯ is a point disputed by various early reports. The most erudite historians of the seventh/thirteenth and eighth/fourteenth centuries gave an account of these disputes and refrained from judgment. A more plausible etymology in favor of al-Ghazza¯lı¯ stood squarely against indications that the family itself—including our scholar—preferred the spelling with only one z. 31
a l ife b e t w e e n p ubl ic a nd p r i vat e ins t r uc t ion 2 3 The new genre of monumental historical dictionaries on religious schol- ars, which appear in the seventh/thirteenth century and which cover not only the major luminaries but also everyone contributing to a certain fi eld, made bi- ographic information more readily available. Al-Ghaza¯li features prominently in the early examples of this genre, 32 with entries on him also integrating infor- mation that had earlier been cited only in entries on his students. Out of the in- terest in the Damascene Sha¯fi ¶ite circles grew the monumental compilation of earlier testimonies and comments, written by Ta¯j al-Dı¯n al-Subkı¯ (d. 771/1370). He composed a book-length monograph on al-Ghaza¯lı¯ and incorporated it in his history of the Sha¯fi ¶ite scholars. 33 This is by far the most important treatment of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s life and the impact he had on Muslim scholarship. Al-Subkı¯ in- cludes a variety of voices that have otherwise been lost. 34 He also includes a list of about forty-fi ve of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s works. One of his contemporaries, who com- posed an independent biography of al-Ghaza¯lı¯ based on similar sources, has an even more comprehensive list. Al-Wa¯sit.ı¯ (d. 776/1374) lists in his history of the Sha¯fi ¶ite school almost a hundred titles written by al-Ghaza¯lı¯. 35
be discovered. 36 Writing a book on the life and the “exploits” ( mana¯qib ) of al- Ghaza¯lı¯ became a not-uncommon task of later theologians, particularly when they felt the need to defend al-Ghaza¯lı¯ from the rampant criticism surrounding him. 37
terial has emerged in al-Murtad.a¯ al-Zabı¯dı¯’s (d. 1205/1791) monumental com- mentary on The Revival of the Religious Sciences ( Ih.ya¯ 7 ¶ulu¯m al-dı¯n ). He precedes his commentary with a biography of al-Ghaza¯lı¯ that is largely based on the one written by al-Subkı¯. 38
study as early as 1842 39 —Western scholars mostly relied on al-Subkı¯’s and al- Murtad.a¯ al-Zabı¯dı¯’s works when they reconstructed the life of al-Ghaza¯lı¯. 40
Only during the past thirty years—after the edition of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s letters pub- lished in 1955 and relevant excerpts of Abu ¯ Bakr ibn al- ¶Arabı¯’s works in 1961, 1963, and 1968—have important new sources become available in print. Al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s Date of Birth: Around 448/1056 ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r al-Fa¯risı¯ does not mention when al-Ghaza¯li was born nor how old he was when he died. The year 450 AH (March 1058–February 1059), which has been accepted by most of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s biographers, fi rst appears in Ibn al- Jawzı¯’s obituary of al-Ghaza¯lı¯, composed at least sixty years after al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s death. Ibn al-Jawzı¯ writes that “it is said ( dhukira ), he was born in 450.” 41 Ya¯qu
¯t also has this date. Ibn Khallika¯n repeats it, but adds that people in T.a¯bara¯n, al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s birthplace, say that he was born in the year 451 AH . 42 This disagree- ment eventually falls prey to the times, and even al-Subkı¯, despite the encyclo- pedic character of his work, doesn’t mention it anymore. 43
letter al-Ghaza¯lı¯ wrote to Sanjar, who was then the vice-regent in Khorasan, he 2 4 a l - gh a z a ¯ l 1
¯ ’ s ph ilosoph ic a l t h e olo g y states that at the time of writing he had passed his fi fty-third birthday. 44 This
letter also contains a reference to al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s vow at the grave of Abraham in Hebron. This vow, which included the pledge never again to appear before rul- ers, is well known and was made in Dhu ¯ l-Qa ¶da 489 / October 1096. Writing about himself in the third person, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ says in this letter that “he kept that vow for twelve years and the caliph as well as all the sultans considered him excused.” 45 These words were written in order to convince Sanjar also to excuse al-Ghaza¯lı¯ from appearing before him. Thus, they allow us to date the letter and determine al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s year of birth. Al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s words that “he kept that vow for twelve years,” however, can be understood in two ways. Most straightforward would be to interpret the twelve years as the span between the vow at Hebron and the time of writing. Count- ing twelve lunar years after the vow at Hebron would date the letter in the fi nal months of 501 / summer of 1108, two years after al-Ghaza¯li returned to teaching at the Niz.a¯miyya in Nishapur. If the twelve years can be understood this way, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ was born in 448 AH (March 1056–March 1057), two years earlier than most of the historians report. There is the possibility to assume that he was born even a year earlier. In classical Islam, the age of persons was often counted in solar years according to the seasons. 46 If the age of fi fty-three refers to solar and not lunar years, al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s birth would fall around 447/1055. It must be said, however, that every time al-Ghaza¯lı¯ refers to time spans of a cer- tain number of years, the reference is to the Muslim lunar calendar. Since there is no evidence that he ever applied the solar calendar, the year 448/1056–57 is the most likely year of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s birth. There is, however, another way that the words, “he kept that vow for twelve Download 4.03 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
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