Al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s Philosophical


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from an offi cial teaching engagement he held in T.u¯s. 


5 6   a l - gh a z a

¯ l 1


¯ ’ s   ph ilosoph ic a l   t h e olo g y

 There is evidence that al-Ghaza¯lı¯ had temporarily left T.u¯s years before his 

teaching engagement in Nishapur. In one of his Persian letters to the vizier 

Mujı¯r al-Dı¯n, which Krawulsky has tentatively dated as shortly after 490/1097, 

al-Ghaza¯lı¯ mentions that T.u¯s had been plagued by “oppressors” ( z.a¯lima¯n ), 

prompting al-Ghaza¯lı¯ to leave that place. After a year, however, he was forced 

bi-h.ukm-i d.aru¯rı¯  ) to return to T.u¯s and saw that the oppression ( z.ulm ) was still 

going on. 

244

  If the dating of this letter and its information is correct, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ 



would have stayed in T.u¯s for very little time after he had arrived there from 

Baghdad in Dhu

¯ l-h.ijja 490 / November 1097. It is more likely that the dating 

needs to be corrected and that all this actually happened a handful of years 

later. About ten years after his arrival in T.u¯s, in his conversation with Sanjar, 

al-Ghaza¯lı¯ refers to the fact that the people of T.u¯s had to endure “much oppres-

sion” ( z.ulm bisya¯r ) and that their harvests were poor because of cold and lack 

of water. He implicitly accuses Sanjar of being responsible for their situation 

since he was the one who tolerated the people of T.us’s being robbed. 

245


   Given 

the political situation at this time, the oppressors were most likely nomadic 

Turks who roamed the countryside of T.u¯s and disrupted its irrigation systems. 

These Turks may have been part of Sanjar’s regular Seljuq army, whose choice 

of a camp location near T.u¯s likely led to strained area resources. The oppres-

sors may also have been from one of the numerous groups of irregular no-

madic Turks who had moved from Central Asia to Khorasan and were referred 

to as  ghuzz  in the sources. Sanjar had only limited power over these groups 

and probably little motivation to call them to order. When in 548/1153 Sanjar 

lauched a campaign against a group of Og

ˇuz Turks who had failed to pay their 

tribute, he suffered a surprising defeat and was captured. Their real power now 

became evident; defenseless, the walls of most major cities of Khorasan were 

overrun and many of their inhabitants robbed and killed. 

  

  ¶


Abd al-Gha¯fi r reports that al-Ghaza¯lı¯ quit teaching in Nishapur and returned 

to T.u¯s before his death. His wording suggests that the scholar handed in his 

resignation before the local unrest in Nishapur would lead to his dismissal. 

246


  

Back in T.a¯bara¯n,  ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r says he turned his attention to the study of  



h.adı¯th  in the collections of Muslim and al-Bukha¯rı¯.  ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r stresses that 

he actually studied the transmission of  h.adı¯th -material, meaning the distinction 

of what can and cannot be verifi ed through chains of reliable transmitters. 

247


  

Among the works of al-Ghaza¯lı¯, there is no evidence for the kind of traditional-

ist  h.adı¯th -scholarship these words might invoke. Al-Ghaza¯lı¯ was always con-

sidered a weak transmitter of  h.adı¯th . Later critics would list this as one of his 

faults, and admirers fi lled volumes to make up for his neglect. 

248


  If the content 

of a Prophetical report fi tted al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s purposes, he did not bother much to 

check whether it had a sound chain of transmitters ( isna¯d ). According to some 

historians, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ openly admitted this and said: “I have little expertise in 

the  h.adı¯th -science.” 

249


  In fact, in the fi rst book of  Revival,  he criticizes those 

who wrote the earliest collections of  h.adı¯th . 

250

   ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r’s report repro-



duces a literary trope in classical Islamic literature: a rationalist scholar who 

neglects the outward meaning of revelation and the  sunna  of the Prophet for 



 

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 7

much of his life, fi nally repenting shortly before his death and returning to 



these sources. There is little evidence for al-Ghaza¯lı¯ becoming a traditional-

ist  h.adı¯th -scholar late in his life, and perhaps behind this report is a different 

kind of  h.adı¯th -study than the verifi cation of reports through the study of their 

chains of transmission. In his two late books,  The Criterion of Distinction between 



Islam and Clandestine Apostasy   ( Fays.al al-tafriqa bayna l-Isla¯m wa-l-zandaqa ) 

and  Restraining the Ordinary People from the Science of Kala¯m   ( Ilja¯m al- awa¯mm 



  an  ilm al-kala¯m ),  al-Ghaza¯lı¯ is deeply concerned with the anthropomorphic 

descriptions of God that appear in the  h.adı¯th -corpus. Both books teach an ap-

propriate attitude toward those reports and the correct interpretation ( ta 7wı¯

l )  of 

them, and maybe this is what  ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r tried to turn apologetically into a 

more traditionalist understanding of  h.adı¯th -scholarship. 

 Whether  al-Ghaza¯lı¯ was ever offi cially released from his teaching position 

in Nishapur is unclear. Neither do we know when his teaching engagement 

ended nor who succeeded him as the head teacher of the Niz.a¯miyya madrasa 

in Nishapur. An obvious candidate is Abu

¯ l-Qa¯sim al-Ans.a¯rı¯ (d. 512/1118), one of 

the most prominent theologians of his time in Nishapur and, like al-Ghaza¯lı¯, 

a student of al-Juwaynı¯. He seems to have been younger than al-Ghaza¯lı¯. He is 

the author of two important works that stand much deeper in the teaching tra-

dition of al-Juwaynı¯ than al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s œuvre. 

251

   Al-Ans.a¯rı¯ was initially a teacher 



at the Bayhaqı¯ madrasa, the second most important institution for Sha¯fi ¶ites 

in Nishapur. 

252

  If he had ever become the head teacher at the Niz.a¯miyya in 



Nishapur, he did so after al-Ghaza¯lı¯ left that position. 

253


  

 According to the  Deliverer from Error,   al-Ghaza¯lı¯ seems to have accepted 

that the return to a Niz.a¯miyya was necessary for reasons other than just the 

pressure of Sanjar and Fakhr al-Mulk. The letters clearly reveal that al-Ghaza¯lı¯ 

never liked this assignment. 

254


  There are at least two reasons why he would de-

test teaching at the Niz.a¯miyya madrasa. First was his decision not to work for 

state authorities. Second, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ may not have liked the fact that he had to 

teach in a public space where whomever wanted could join the teaching circle. 

In his conversations with Sanjar, it becomes clear that he feared eavesdroppers 

on his lectures and potential spies for other scholars or for the Seljuq authori-

ties. This is why he starts his apologetic address to Sanjar by saying that he is 

intellectually so remote from other scholars that they are unable to understand 

the real meaning of his words. In his own  za¯wiya   in  T.a¯bara¯n, where he ap-

parently taught all through these years, he could handpick those who would 

become his students and expel those he did not trust. 

 In  504/1110,  D

.

iya¯ 7 al-Mulk Ah.mad ibn Niz.a¯m al-Mulk, the vizier to the Su-



preme Sultan Muh.ammad Tapar, who was Sanjar’s older brother, invited al-

Ghaza¯lı¯ to return to the Niz.a¯miyya madrasa in Baghdad and take up the chair 

he once held. Its recent holder, al-Kiya¯ 7 al-Harra¯sı¯, who had been teaching on 

this position since 493/1100, had just died. 

255

  The exchange of letters on this 



occasion is preserved. Al-Ghaza¯lı¯ responded in a letter that later became widely 

known. 


256

   He  declines  D

.

iya¯ 7 al-Mulk’s offer and excuses himself by saying that 



“pursuing the increase of worldly goods” ( t.alab bi-ziya¯dat-i dunya¯ ) has been 

removed from his heart. He mentions his madrasa in T.u¯s and says that he has 



5 8   a l - gh a z a

¯ l 1


¯ ’ s   ph ilosoph ic a l   t h e olo g y

a family and 150 students to care for. 

257

  It seems that at this time, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ no 



longer taught at the Niz.a¯miyya in Nishapur. 

 On 14 Juma¯da II 505 / 18 December 1111, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ died in T.a¯bara¯n, at 

approximately fi fty-fi ve years old. His death came only a few days after he had 

fi nished work on his last book,  Restraining the Ordinary People from the Science 



of Kala¯m   ( Ilja¯m al- awa¯mm  an  ilm al-kala¯m ). His brother, Ah.mad, was prob-

ably present during his death, since he left us a description of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s 

last day. 

258


  When the news of his death reached Baghdad, the court poet al-

Abı¯wardı¯ (d. 507/1113) eulogized al-Ghaza¯lı¯ in a short poem. 

259

   Al-Ghaza¯lı¯ was 



figure 1.6 

The Ha¯ru

¯niyya mausoleum in T.a¯bara¯n-T.u¯s at the beginning of the twen-

tieth century. Watercolor by André Sevruguin (from Diez, Die Kunst der islamischen 



Völker).

 

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 9

buried in a mausoleum right outside the walls of T.a¯bara¯n’s citadel ( qas.aba ). 



260

  

After T.a¯bara¯n’s destruction in 791/1389, al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s mausoleum fell into 



decay and could at one point barely be identifi ed. It is most likely a heavily re-

constructed building that is today erroneously named  al-Ha¯ru



¯niyya , that is, the 

mausoleum of Ha¯ru

¯n al-Rashı¯d (see fi gure 1.6). 

261


       Signifi cant funds went into 

the contruction of this impressive building. It bears some architectural resem-

blance to Sanjar’s mausoleum in Marw, which suggests that he or some high 

dignitary at the Seljuq court commissioned al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s mausoleum. 

 There is no information as to what became of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s children. ¶Abd 

al-Gha¯fi r al-Fa¯risı¯ provides the information that he had only girls. 

262

  There was, 



in fact, no prominent male descendent of al-Ghaza¯lı¯, at least not someone who 

merited mention in the biographical dictionaries. A manuscript of one of his 

legal works copied two years after al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s death in 507/1113 contains an 

 ija¯za  issued by a Muh.ammad al-Ghaza¯lı¯ who, if he existed, may have been the 

author’s son. 

263


  Of course, the note may simply be a forgery, intended to in-

crease the manuscript’s market value. We do not hear of his descendents until 

some time later, when the unknown collector of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s letters claims to 

be related to the author. 

264

  

 A direct descendent of al-Ghaza¯lı¯ is mentioned during the I¯l-Kha¯nid period 



in Baghdad. The Egyptian lexicographer al-Fayyu

¯mı¯ reports that in 710/1310–11, 

he met a sheikh in Baghdad who was an eighth-generation descendant of al-

Ghaza¯lı¯. 

265

  According to his lineage, which is fully recorded by al-Fayyu



¯mı¯, one 

of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s daughters was the great-grandmother of T.a¯hir ibn Abı¯ l-Fad.a¯ 7il 

Fakhra¯wir, who appears in this chain as a Shirwa¯nsha¯h, that is, a king of the 

independent region of Shirwa¯n in northern Azerbaijan. It might be a coin-

cidence that around the time that T.a¯hir lived, a member of the family of the 

Shirwa¯nsha¯hs was a student of Fakhr al-Dı¯n al-Ra¯zı¯, who commissioned one 

of his books. 

266


  Later references to the family of al-Ghaza¯lı¯ are much more 

vague. The historian Ibn al- ¶Ima¯d (d. 1089/1679) mentions a direct decendent 

of al-Ghaza¯lı¯, a H

. anbalı¯ scholar who died in Aleppo in 830/1427; but this in-

formation seems unreliable. 

267


  In the twelfth/eighteenth century, al-Murtad.a¯ 

al-Zabı¯dı¯ reports that Ah.mad al-T.aht.a¯ 7ı¯ (d. 1186/1772), one of the Egyptian 

Sha¯dhilı¯ Sufi s, claimed that he once met descendants ( awla¯d ) of al-Ghaza¯lı¯ in 

Abnu


¯d in Upper Egypt. 

268


  

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 2 

 Al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s Most 

Infl uential Students and 

Early Followers 

 Al-Ghaza¯lı¯ was the most infl uential teacher of Islamic law and theol-

ogy during the fi fth/eleventh and the sixth/twelfth centuries. He had a 

particularly monumental impact on the intellectual life of the century 

after his death. Indeed, his writings on the relationship between the 

philosophical sciences and Muslim theology profoundly affected 

all Muslim thinkers until the early twentieth century and still carry 

weight in the Muslim discourse on reason and revelation today. The 

biographical dictionaries of the Sha¯fi  ¶ite school of law feature numer-

ous articles on the many scholars who studied with al-Ghaza¯lı¯. In 

1972, Henri Laoust made a cautious attempt to view this material. 

1

   The 


writings of his students are an important source for our understand-

ing of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s theology. In particular, his early followers offer 

contextualized insight into his teachings that later literature cannot 

offer. Although the reactions to al-Ghaza¯lı¯ by authors from the Muslim 

West (al-Andalus, specifi cally) have been studied since Ernest Renan’s 

 Averroès et l’averroïsme  of 1852, comparatively little is known about the 

intellectual history of the sixth/twelfth century in the Muslim East. Key 

fi gures of the reception of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s thought during this century 

remain largely unknown today. Sharaf al-Dı¯n al-Mas ¶u

¯dı¯ (d. after 

582/1186), for instance, lived around the middle of the sixth/twelfth 

century in Transoxania and wrote what is probably the very fi rst com-

mentary on Avicenna’s  Pointers and Reminders . In this work,  Doubts 

and Uncertainties on the Pointers ,  al-Mas  ¶u¯dı¯ takes a critical stand 

toward Avicenna’s most theological work. 

2

   Al-Mas  ¶u



¯dı¯’s student Ibn 

Ghayla¯n al-Balkhı¯, who lived close to end of the century, composed a 

harsh criticism of Avicenna’s arguments in favor of the world’s pre-

eternity. In it, he praises his teacher al-Mas ¶u

¯dı¯ as someone who had 

developed an understanding of the philosophical sciences similar only 



6 2   a l - gh a z a

¯ l 1


¯ ’ s   ph ilosoph ic a l   t h e olo g y

to that of al-Ghaza¯lı¯. 

3

  We will hear more about the typical Ghazalian approach of 



al-Mas ¶u

¯dı¯ and Ibn Ghayla¯n al-Balkhı¯ at the end of the next chapter. 

 One of the most important early followers of al-Ghaza¯lı¯ was his brother, 

Abu


¯-l Futu¯h. Ah.mad al-Ghaza¯lı¯. He outlived his older sibling Muh.ammad 

by either eighteen or twenty-one years and was an infl uential scholar in his 

own right. 

4

  He became famous for his preaching activity in the cities of Iraq 



and Iran. His brother Muh.ammad confessed that he had no talent for preach-

ing and would rather leave that to others. 

5

  He saw the role of highly educated 



religious scholars (  ¶

ulama¯ 7 bi-Lla¯h ) as addressing the intellectual elite, while 

preachers ( al-wu  a¯z. ) would speak to the masses. 

6

   Muh.ammad clearly saw him-



self in the fi rst category; his brother Ah.mad likely understood himself as also 

belonging to the latter class. 

 The most widespread epitome of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s  Revival  is a book named  The 

Kernels of the Revival   ( al-Luba¯b min al-Ihya¯ 7 ), which is sometimes attributed to 

Ah.mad, although most manuscripts, including the one(s) on which the printed 

version is based, clearly identify it as a work of Muh.ammad’s. 

7

  In his own œuvre, 



Ah.mad was concerned with the same subjects that his brother discussed in his 

 Revival . In one of Ah.mad’s short epistles, for instance, he explains what the con-

fession of monotheism ( tawh.ı¯d ) truly entails. 

8

  This is a prominent subject in the 



thirty-fi fth book of his brother’s  Revival  and in his  Niche of Lights.   ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t 

al-Hamadha¯nı¯, who will be discussed below, became deeply acquainted with the 

works of Muh.mmad al-Ghaza¯lı¯ through his personal contact with Ah.mad. 

9

   Yet, 



unlike  ¶Ayn al-Qud.a¯t, for instance, Ah.mad was not so much attracted to the philo-

sophical Sufi sm that al-Ghaza¯lı¯ taught, and he pursued in his own works a less 

rationalist mysticism that focused around the  leitmotif  of love for God. It is inter-

esting to note that in his  Revival,   Muh.ammad shows little patience with some 

Sufi s’ “long and pleonastic invocations on the love of God,” since they distract 

one’s attention from outward human actions. 

10

  Richard Gramlich judged that the 



particular appeal of Ah.mad’s collection of aphorisms on Sufi  love is neither the 

result of his intellectual depth or penetration, nor is it due to some strength in 

poetic creativity. Rather, his sometimes strange and baroque technique of inter-

weaving thoughts is what creates the beauty of Ah.mad’s writing. 

11

  Further stud-



ies are necessary to explicate the relationship between the theological teachings 

of the two brothers. 

 In the following pages, I will introduce those students and followers of 

al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯ who may contribute signifi cantly to the reconstruction of his teach-



ings. From what is available to us, their texts are particularly important, since 

al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯ seems to have been more outspoken with those students with whom 



he had a close relationship than with those who were more on the periphery. 

Considering the views of the close students and well-informed followers should 

signifi cantly enhance our understanding of his theology. 

 Abu


¯ Bakr ibn al- ¶Arabı¯ (d. 543/1148) 

 Among his contemporaries, Abu

¯ Bakr ibn al- ¶Arabı¯ (468/1076–543/1148) is the 

most important source of information about al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯’s life and his teachings. 



A native of Seville in al-Andalus, he and his father went on a long trip to the 

Muslim East. The purpose of this travel was partly political: Abu

¯ Bakr’s father, 

Abu


¯ Muh.ammad ibn al- ¶Arabı¯ had been an administrator in the local Sevillian 

government of the  ¶Abba¯dids. When in 484/1091 the Almoravids conquered 

Seville, he felt that it would be prudent to leave al-Andalus. 

12

  He knew that the 



ruler ( amı¯r ) of the Almoravids, Yu

¯suf ibn Ta¯shifı¯n (d. 500/1107), longed for an 

offi cial recognition from the  ¶Abba¯sid caliph in Baghdad. For Abu

¯ Muh.ammad, 

this was a welcome opportunity to fl ee al-Andalus and await the outcome of the 

confl ict between the Almoravids and the Taifa-Kings. Abu

¯ Muh.ammad ibn al-

   ¶Arabı¯ offered Yu

¯suf ibn Ta¯shifı¯n the opportunity to perform a political mission 

on his behalf and achieve offi cial recognition from the caliph. Caution made 

him take his son with him. 

13

  In any case, he and his son were in no haste to re-



turn with the desired documents, and they spent much time among the schol-

ars of Jerusalem, Damascus, and Baghdad before they even started to lobby on 

behalf of Yu

¯suf ibn Ta¯shifı¯n four years after their departure. 

14

  

 The two Ibn al- ¶Arabı¯s left al-Andalus in the spring of 485/1092 when Abu



¯ 

Bakr was just sixteen years old. 

15

  They traveled on ships, which took them—



not without an incident of shipwreck—to Bougie, Mahdiyya, and fi nally Egypt. 

From there they turned toward Jerusalem, where they spent most of their time 

between the years 486/1093 and 489/1096. In Jerusalem, the Ibn al- ¶Arabı¯s 

met their fellow Andalusian al-T.urt.u¯shı¯ (d. 520/1126), who was a staunch sup-

porter of Yu

¯suf ibn Ta¯shifı¯n and the Almoravids, and the young Abu¯ Bakr stud-

ied with him. 

16

  Ibn al- ¶Arabı¯ reports on his travels in an autobiographical book 



with the title  Book on the Arrangement of the Travel That Raised My Interests in 

Religion . 

17

  This book has not come down to us. 



18

  There is, however, a second 

book by Abu

¯ Bakr ibn al- ¶Arabı¯, in which he briefl y reports on his travels and 

meetings with eminent scholars. This work,  Experiences of the Great Authorities 

and Eminent People by the Observer of Islam and the Various Lands , presents de-

tailed information about the two Ibn al- ¶Arabı¯s’ travels in the service of the Ber-

ber king Yu

¯suf ibn Ta¯shifı¯n. 

19

  According to this text and to information in Ibn 



al- ¶Arabı¯’s book  The Rule of Interpretation , the two Ibn al- ¶Arabı¯s traveled from 

Jerusalem via Ascalon, Acre, and Damascus to Baghdad, where they arrived in 

the early days of Ramad.a¯n 489 / August 1096  . 

20

   Al-Ghaza¯l



ı

¯ arrived in Jeru-

salem during the summer of 489/1096, almost a year after the Ibn al- ¶Arabı¯s 

had left the city. During the four or fi ve months al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯ stayed in Jerusalem, 



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