Al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s Philosophical
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are the companions of sultans, and those who “have knowledge of divine unity ( tawh.ı¯d ) and the actions of the heart and who are the solitary and isolated in- habitants of the za¯wiya s.” 210
211 As a minor madrasa that is not maintained by the state, a za¯wiya needs the support of small endowments or donations. Al-Ghaza¯lı¯ was opposed to the idea that stu- dents should pay for their education. Teachers, he said, should emulate the Prophet and not require payment for teaching; knowledge should not serve its holders but rather be served by them. 212
The term kha¯nqa¯h refers to a Sufi convent that also required the funding of donated wealth. The origin of the word kha¯nqa¯h is Persian; and although it gains usage in Arabic during this time, some sources prefer to use the Arabic translation riba¯t. for ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r al-Fa¯risı¯’s word kha¯nqa¯h . A riba¯t. originally refers to a “camp” or “convent” for those who fi ght in a jiha¯d . In his Arabic fatwa¯ on who is allowed to live in the kha¯nqa¯h , al-Ghaza¯lı¯ himself uses the word riba¯t. , even though in a Persian text on the same subject, he employs kha¯nqa¯h . For al-Ghaza¯lı¯, the inhabitants of a 5 0 a l - gh a z a ¯ l 1
¯ ’ s ph ilosoph ic a l t h e olo g y kha¯nqa¯h fi ght the jiha¯d of the soul. Others agree: Ibn al-Jawzı¯, for instance, writ- ing in Arabic, documents this synonymous usage when he reports that in T.u¯s al-Ghaza¯lı¯ “had in his neighborhood a madrasa and a convent ( riba¯t. ) for those who practice Sufi sm. He also built a nice house and planted a garden.” 213
The kha¯nqa¯h was a relatively new institution at this time. It allowed those devoted to Sufi sm to stay there and pursue an ascetic lifestyle in the company of like-minded peers. Al-Ghaza¯lı¯ had a clear idea about who could come and stay at his kha¯nqa¯h . He wrote a Persian fatwa¯ in which he clarifi es that only those who are free from such sins as adultery and homosexual intercourse and who do not adorn themselves by wearing silk and gold are allowed to live in the kha¯nqa¯h and benefi t from its facilties. He did not admit people who pursued a profession other than such things as tailoring or paper making that can be done in the kha¯nqa¯h. The fact that there was endowed wealth ( amwa¯l ) on the side of the kha¯nqa¯h should allow its attendants to withdraw from the workforce. Al-Ghaza¯lı¯ also excluded those who seek fi nancial support from the sultan and who have acquired their means of living in another unlawful manner. 214
In his autobiography written in 500 (1106–7), al-Ghaza¯lı¯ portrays his life back home in T.u¯s: “I chose seclusion ( ¶uzla ), desiring solitude and the purifi ca- tion of the heart through dikhr .” 215 These words, together with ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r al-Fa¯risı¯’s report about al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s last years in T.u¯s, created the mistaken im- pression of a totally isolated scholar who had withdrawn from all public activity. ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r al-Fa¯risı¯ writes in a passage about al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s return to Kho- rasan that many later historians copy: Then he returned to his homeland where he stayed close to his fam- ily. He was preoccupied with meditation ( tafakkur ) and he was tena- cious of his time. He was the precious goal and the preserveance of the hearts for those who seeked him and who came to see him. 216
his life after 488/1095. Given that he published books, taught in his za¯wiya , and received those who came to him, this cannot mean the sort of seclusion from his contemporaries that we would describe as a hermit’s retreat, fully separate from the outside world. What al-Ghaza¯lı¯ intended for his seclusion became clear during his written and oral exchanges with Sanjar. These conver- sations were collected and later edited by one of his descendents. Here, soon after 501/1108, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ claimed that: [I]n the months of the year 499, the author of these lines, Ghaza¯lı¯, after having lived in seclusion ( ¶uzlat ) for twelve years and after having been devoted to the za¯wiya , had been obliged to come to Nishapur in order to occupy himself with the spread of knowledge and of divine law ( sharı¯ ¶ at ). (This was ordered), since in scholarship debility and weakness had become widespread. The hearts of those dear to him and of those who have insight ( ahl-i bas.ı¯rat ) rushed to help him with all their good will. In sleep and in wake he was given to understand that this effort is the beginning of something good
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 5 1 and the cause for a revival of scholarship and of divine law. After he agreed (to come to Nishapur) he brought splendor to the teaching po- sition and students from all parts of the world made efforts to come to him. 217
When al-Ghaza¯lı¯ writes that he lived “in seclusion ( ¶uzla ) for twelve years de- voted to the za¯wiya ,” he refers to the period of eleven lunar years between his departure from Baghdad in Dhu ¯ l-Qa ¶da 488 / November 1095 and the begin- ning of his teaching at the Niz.a¯miyya in Nishapur in late 499 / summer of 1106, an event that will be discussed below. The discrepancy between twelve and eleven is either a glitch on al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s part or a scribal mistake. 218 The
years of za¯wiya life that al-Ghaza¯lı¯ mentions includes his popular teaching at Damascus and Baghdad, his writing of a letter for the people of Jerusalem, his performing of the pilgrimage, and most important, his teaching at his own za¯wiya and kha¯nqa¯h in his hometown T.a¯bara¯n-T.u¯s. 219
220 simply means that he had dedicated him- self to the teaching at private madrasas and kha¯nqa¯h s in Damascus, Jerusalem, Baghdad, and T.a¯bara¯n-T.u¯s. Thus “seclusion” ( ¶uzla ) merely means not serving in a public offi ce and not being engaged in state-sponsored teaching at one of the Niz.a¯miyya schools. The key element of this seclusion is avoiding any close contact with the rulers and audiences selected by them. This principle is a Sufi topos, and it is prominent in the Deliverer from Error, where the two teaching engagements at Niz.a¯miyya schools (separated by eleven years) are described in very similar terms. When in 504/1110, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ is once again invited to teach at the Niz.a¯miyya in Baghdad (which will also be discussed below), he declines, saying that a public offi ce would not suit him well. In a letter to his invitor D.iya¯ 7 al-Mulk Ah.mad, the son of Niz.a¯m al-Mulk and the vizier to Sultan Muh.ammad Tapar, he excuses himself by pointing to his three vows at the grave of Abraham: If I fail towards these vows it will darken my heart and my life. Success won’t be granted to anything that I will do in this world. In Baghdad one cannot avoid public disputations and one has to attend the palace of the caliph. During the time while I returned from Syria, I had no business in Baghdad, and since I had no offi cial position, I was free from all responsibilities. I chose to live by my own. If I am given an offi ce, I cannot live without burden ( musallam ). But since my innermost will yearn to give up the offi ce and return to a free state, it will have no good effect. The most important excuse is, however, that I will be unable to earn my living, since I cannot accept money ( ma¯l ) from a ruler ( sult.an ) and since I have no property ( milk ) in Baghdad [to live from.] If one lives economically and in abstinence, the piece of land that I own in T.u¯s is for my humble person and the children just enough. 221
¶ Abd al-Gha¯fi r al-Fa¯risı¯’s personal report about this last period in al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s life, when he stayed in T.a¯bara¯n-T.u¯s, centers on his conversion ( tawba ). He
5 2 a l - gh a z a ¯ l 1
¯ ’ s ph ilosoph ic a l t h e olo g y contrasts the al-Ghaza¯lı¯ of his late years with the one ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r knew as a young and brilliant student-colleague under al-Juwaynı¯. ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r’s im- pression of the younger al-Ghaza¯lı¯ was far from positive: the young scholar was dominated by a feeling of superiority over others. The late al-Ghaza¯lı¯ had com- pletely changed, and yet ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r initially suspected his kind manners to be merely a pretense adopted to cover up his true nature as a scholar fi lled with hubris. By and by, however, ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r became convinced of the depth of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s conversion: I visited [al-Ghaza¯lı¯] many times and it was no bare conjecture of mine that he, in spite of the maliciousness and roughness towards people that I witnessed during the times past, had become quite the opposite and was cleansed from these fi lthy strains. In the past he had looked at people from above and with defi ance. He had a vain pride and was blinded by the ease with which God had provided him to handle words, thoughts, expressions, and the pursuit of glory. I used to think that [this new al-Ghaza¯lı¯] was wrapped in the gar- ments of false mannerism ( takalluf ) and regarding what had become of him, he was suppressing his natural disposition ( na¯mu
alized after investigation that things were the opposite of what I had thought, and that the man had recovered after he had been mad. 222
¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r’s report of his nightly talks with al-Ghaza¯lı¯ has many parallels in the autobiography The Deliverer from Error. Yet ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r’s retelling of the events are more concrete and less chronologically streamlined. The seeds of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s tawba appear much earlier in this report than in the written au- tobiography. According to ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ studied the sciences and excelled in everything that had caught his interest. After these early successes, he started to meditate about the afterlife, which led him to seek the company of the infl uential Sufi teacher Abu ¯ ¶Alı¯ al-Fa¯ramadhı¯. 223 Al-Fa¯ramadhı¯ was a Sha¯fi ¶ite from T.u¯s, where he died in 477/1084 when al-Ghaza¯lı¯ was in his late twenties. Al-Fa¯ramadhı¯ was engaged in mystical practices ( tadhkı¯ r ) and one “to whom fl ashes from the light of insight have been made visible.” 224 ¶Abd
al-Gha¯fi r says that the younger al-Ghaza¯lı¯ received from al-Fa¯ramadhı¯ an intro- duction to his Sufi method ( t.arı¯qa ). After his initiation to Sufi sm, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ experienced his fi rst crisis of knowledge, the one he describes in the second chapter of the Deliverer from Error , “The Inroads of Skepticism.” 225
In the autobiography, this crisis precedes al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s mastering of the sciences. Here, in ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r’s report, the epistemological crisis is a less dramatic confusion about the criteria for truth. It was prompted by the relativist impression that rational arguments seem to stand undecidedly against one another without trumping their opposites ( taka¯fu 7 al-adilla ). Finally, ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r’s conversations with al-Ghaza¯lı¯ illumi- nate the major crisis in his life, the Sufi tawba that led to his departure from Baghdad. The main motive from the Deliverer , namely, fear of the afterlife, also dominates ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r’s report:
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 5 3 Then he related that a gate of fear had been opened for him to such an extent that he could no longer occupy himself with anything else until [his fear] got better. In this manner he remained until he was fully practiced [in matters of religion]. [Only now] the truths ( al-h.aqa¯ 7iq ) became apparent [to him]. 226
events in the autobiography in question. Sufi sm appeared much earlier in al- Ghaza¯lı¯’s life than he acknowledges in that book. ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r also confi rms the impression of some readers of the Deliverer that the narrative description— studying fi rst kala¯m , then falsafa , then Isma¯ ¶ilite theology, until fi nally reach- ing Sufi sm—stems from pedagogical conventions and does not represent the actual sequence of study in al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s life. 227
In the late months of 499 / summer of 1106, shortly before the turn to a new century in the Islamic calendar, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ began teaching at the Niz.a¯miyya madrasa in Nishapur. 228
That event prompted the writing of his autobiography, The Deliverer from Error , which responds to criticism from both close followers as well as hostile scholars. There, he legitimizes his return to the Niz.a¯miyya schools by linking it to the needs of an epoch characterized by religious slack- ness ( fatra ) and the temptations of false beliefs. Al-Ghaza¯lı¯ says that he con- sulted with a group of people “who have a pure heart and religious insight ( musha¯hada )” who advised him to leave his seclusion and emerge from his za¯wiya to lead the much-needed religious renewal at the beginning of the new century. In addition, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ mentions that “the sultan at that time” or- dered him to come to Nishapur. From al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s letters, it becomes clear that Fakhr al-Mulk, a son of Niz.a¯m al-Mulk and vizier to Sanjar (see fi gure 1.5), put pressure on al-Ghaza¯lı¯. He wanted al-Ghaza¯lı¯ to return to state-sponsored figure 1.5 Sanjar as Sultan among his court. Miniature from Rashı¯d al-Dı¯n T.abı¯b’s Compendium of Chronicles (Edinburgh University Library, MS Arab 20, fol. 142a). 5 4 a l - gh a z a ¯ l 1
¯ ’ s ph ilosoph ic a l t h e olo g y teaching in Nishapur. ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r reports that Fakhr al-Mulk confronted al- Ghaza¯lı¯ with the demand to teach at the Niz.a¯miyya in Nishapur, summoned him, and listened to him—meaning he heard his excuses. ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r’s language suggests that the vizier did not mince words and used all means of persuasion short of brute force. Subsequently, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ “was taken” to Nishapur and began teaching at the Niz.a¯miyya. 229
From his letters, one gets the impression that al-Ghaza¯lı¯ had a close relationship with Fakhr al-Mulk: the scholar addresses the vizier as his trusted intellectual mentor. A couple of years later, when al-Ghaza¯lı¯ spoke about the events in 499/1106 to Sanjar, he said that he was initially afraid of returning to the Niz.a¯miyya school and mentioned his fear to the vizier: I said to Fakhr al-Mulk that this era cannot bear my words and that during these times everybody who says the truth has walls erected right in front of him. He said to me: “This king ( scil. Sanjar) is just and I will come to your aid.” 230
might stir up the Seljuq ruler against him. This was indeed the situation in which he found himself during this conversation with Sanjar. Two years later, in late 501 / summer of 1108, a group of scholars that included all Sunni schools of jurisprudence present in Khorasan accused al-Ghaza¯lı¯ of not being a believer in Islam but rather following the beliefs of the fala¯sifa and the heretics ( mulh.ida¯n ). All his books are infested with their words and he mixes unbelief ( kufr ) and falsehoods ( aba¯t.ı¯l ) with the secrets of revelation. He calls God the “true light” [in his Niche of Light ] and that is the teaching of the Zoroastrians ( maju¯s ). 231
Abu¯ ¶Abdalla¯h al-Ma¯zarı¯ al-Dhakı¯ (d. 510/1116–17), a native of Mazzara in Sic- ily and an Ash ¶arite Ma¯likite scholar who had come to the east from Tunisia, was particularly active in this campaign. 232 ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r al-Fa¯risı¯ refers to a controversy in Nishapur that began around 497/1103, when Fakhr al-Mulk be- came grand vizier of Sanjar and fi rst attempted to make al-Ghaza¯lı¯ a teacher at the Niz.a¯miyya in Nishapur. 233
Once in Nishapur, al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s teaching faced resistance. “His staff was struck,” ¶Abd al-Gha¯fir writes, “by opposition, by at- tacks on him, and by slanderings about what he omitted and what he commit- ted.”
234 But al-Ghaza¯lı¯ remained calm and did not respond to these attacks, ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r says, nor did he show much ambition to correct his opponents’ mistakes. Given the arrogance and the litigiousness of the younger al-Ghaza¯lı¯, ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r had found it hard to believe that he had changed when he re- turned to teaching at the Niz.a¯miyya in Nishapur. Yet his calm posture in the face of numerous accusations and slandering impressed ¶Abd al-Gha¯fir, and in a very personal note, he confi rms that his former colleague had indeed become different. In a discussion about al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s bearing while teaching in Nishapur, he writes: 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 5 5 What we [initially] thought was pretention ( tamarrus ) and an aqcuired mode ( takhalluq ) was, in fact, his [true] nature ( t.ab ¶ ) and the realiza- tion ( tah.aqquq ) [of what he truely was]. This was the sign of the hap- piness that has been ordained on him by God. 235
The collection of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s letters provides more information about the con- fl ict. Its compiler reports that among the scholars who carried accusations to Sanjar’s court were a group of H . anafi tes, who asked that al-Ghaza¯lı¯ be punished for a passage in one of his early legal works. In this early work, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ po- lemicizes in an aggressively partisan spirit against the founding fi gure of their school, Abu ¯ H . anı¯fa. 236 Since Sanjar was himself a H . anafi te, the situation was potentially dangerous. A much later source from the tenth/sixteenth century claims that the H . anafi te scholars had issued a fatwa¯ demanding al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s execution. 237
Shortly after 501/1108, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ appeared before Sanjar. In the meantime, Isma¯ ¶ilite agents had murdered Fakhr al-Mulk. During his appear- ance before Sanjar, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ evoked the memory of the assasinated grand vizier and the promises he made to secure al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s safety in the midst of the accusations driven by Nishapur’s notorious partisanship among the legal schools. Al-Ghaza¯lı¯ asked Sanjar to release him from his teaching obligation in Nishapur and in T.u¯s. 238
The name “Nishapur” refers, of course, to al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s teaching at the Niz.a¯miyya madrasa there. It is unclear, however, what the refer- ence to T.u¯s means. Maybe al-Ghaza¯lı¯ was also required to teach there at a local state-sponsored school? Sanjar declined to release al-Ghaza¯lı¯ from his teaching posts. In fact, the theologian’s address ( c. 501/1108) made such a strong impression on Sanjar that he said: “We should have ordered that all scholars of Iraq and Khorasan be present to hear your words.” 239 Sanjar promised to build madrasas for al- Ghaza¯lı¯, “and we will order that all scholars should come to you once a year in order to learn everything what is unknown to them. If someone has a disagree- ment ( khila¯f ) with you, he should be patient and ask you to explain the solution to his problem.” 240 This version of events is the one reported by al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s fol- lowers and students. It does seem that he was exonerated from the accusations of his anti-H . anafi sm, and more amicable relations between him and Sanjar were established. He wrote the Council for Kings ( Nas.ı¯h.at al-mulu¯k ) for Sanjar in response to a piece of game ( shika¯r ) the vice-regent sent him from one of his hunts nearby. 241
there long or all too often. When Sanjar summoned him to his regularly es- tablished camp near T.u¯s, 242 al-Ghaza¯lı¯ arrived there from T.a¯bara¯n, although this was still during the time that he was required to teach in Nishapur. In fact, Sanjar directs all his communications with al-Ghaza¯lı¯ to T.a¯bara¯n and never to Nishapur. During this time, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ also had students in T.u¯s; a group of them appeared before Sanjar’s court to defend al-Ghaza¯lı¯ from enemy ac- cusations. 243
It is not clear whether these students were those who lived at al- Ghaza¯lı¯’s kha¯nqa¯h and studied with him at his za¯wiya , or whether they were Download 4.03 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
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