Al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s Philosophical


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ı

¯ who visited him in his  kha¯nqa¯h   in 



T.u¯s. Later, As ¶ad’s report was used by the collector of the letters as well as by 

Dawlatsha¯h, both of whom somewhat misrepresent its original context. 

 Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯ al-Janzı¯ (d. 549/1154) 

 If  As  ¶ad al-Mayhanı¯ represents the continuation of the Ghazalian teaching 

tradition at the Niz.a¯miyya madrasa in Baghdad, Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯ rep-

resents it in Nishapur. He was born 476/1083–84 in T.uraythı¯th, a village in 



 

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  

7 5

the vicinity of Nishapur. His family came from Janza in Arran, a town that 



was also known as Ganja and today is known as Kirovabad in Azerbaijan. Two 

generations later, Janza would become known as the home of the famous 

Persian poet Niz.a¯mı¯ (d.  c . 604/1207). The historian al-Sam ¶a¯nı¯, who studied 

with Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯, says that his father came to Nishapur for the fa-

mous Ash ¶arite Sufi  al-Qushayrı¯. He became one of his disciples, and after 

having performed the pilgrimage, he settled in T.uraythı¯th. His son, Abu¯ Sa ¶d 

Muh.ammad ibn Yahya¯, studied with Ah.mad al-Khawa¯fı¯ (d. 500/1106–7) and 

Abu


¯ H

. a¯mid al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯. Al-Khawa¯fı¯ was a student of al-Juwaynı¯ and became 



the judge ( qa¯d.ı¯ ) of T.u¯s shortly before 478/1085. The historians describe him as 

a companion ( rafı¯q ) of al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯, renowned for his expertise in the techniques 



of disputation (    jadal  and  muna¯zara ) and in the “silencing of one’s opponent” 

ifh.a¯m al-khus.u¯m ). 

92

   Since  al-Khawa¯fı¯ is associated with T.u¯s rather than with 



Nishapur, it is most likely that Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯ studied with al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯ 



at his  

za¯wiya 

 there and not exclusively during al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯’s tenure at the 



Niz.a¯miyya madrasa in Nishapur in the years after 499/506. 

 Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯ himself became an infl uential teacher of Islamic 

law who attracted students from far away. He was appointed head teacher at 

the Niz.a¯miyya in Nishapur. 

93

  His name is associated with a great number of 



students, and he fi gures in countless intellectual lineages. Two of his students 

are credited with the introduction of Ash ¶arite theology in Ayyu¯bid Syria, for 

instance. 

94

  When the famous theologian, philosopher, and jurist Fakhr al-



Dı¯n al-Ra¯zı¯ (d. 606/1210) came to Nishapur in his youth, he studied with 

al-Kama¯l al-Simna¯nı¯ (d. 575/1179–80), who was a student of Muh.ammad ibn 

Yah.ya¯. Fakhr al-Dı¯n al-Ra¯zı¯’s biographers stress that, through al-Simna¯nı¯ 

and Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯, he is linked to al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯’s teaching activity. 



95

  

 Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯ is particularly connected to the spread of al-Ghaza¯l



ı

¯’s 


work in Sha¯fi   ¶ite law. He was called the “Renewer of Religion” ( muh.yı¯ l-dı¯n ), 

a title that al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯ earlier had claimed for himself in his autobiography; 



96

  

perhaps his student acquired it in his place. Muh.ammad wrote the fi rst com-



mentary on one of al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯’s books on Sha¯fi  ¶ite law,  The Middle One   ( al-Wası¯t. 



fı¯ l-madhhab ).  Al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯ wrote at least three books on the individual rulings or 



the substantive law (   furu¯  ¶) of the Sha¯fi   ¶ite school, the most voluminous being 

a book with the title  The Extended . 

97

  This large work and the less extensive  Mid-



dle One , which became the subject of Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯’s commentary, 

were written early in al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯’s life and are mentioned in books that he com-



posed soon after 488/1095. 

98

  The shortest of al-Ghaza¯l



ı

¯’s books on applied law, 

 The Succinct One   ( al-Wajı¯z ), was completed in the year 495/1101 while he was 

teaching at his  za¯wiya  in T.u¯s. 

99

  The titles of these three works are inspired by 



three works of Qur 7an commentary ( tafsı¯r ) by the Nishapurian commentator al-

Wa¯h.idı¯ (d. 468/1076), who lived two generations before al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯. 


100

  As in al-

Wa¯h.idı¯’s three works, these books represent three set levels of depth ( miqda¯r 

makhs.u¯s. ) in which the subject is treated, 

101


  and they do not imply, for instance, 

that the book  The Middle One  was composed after the longer and the shorter one. 

Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯’s commentary,  The Comprehensive Book about the Com-

mentary on The Middle One   ( al-Muh.ı¯t.  fı¯ sharh. al-Wası¯t. ), is unfortunately lost. 

102


  

7 6   a l - gh a z a

¯ l 1


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

 Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯’s  Comprehensive Book  was the fi rst of many commen-

taries on al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯’s two shorter works on the substantive law (   furu¯  ¶ )  of  the 



Sha¯fi  ¶ites,  The Middle One  and  The Succinct One.  Some of these commentaries 

are among the most successful works in Islamic law. Three generations after 

Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯, the Sha¯fi  ¶ite Abu¯ l-Qa¯sim al-Ra¯fi  ¶ı¯ (d. 623/1226), of Qaz-

vin in northern Iran, wrote a commentary on al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯’s  The Succinct One . 



103

   As 


a commentator on al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯’s legal works, al-Ra¯fi  ¶ı¯ has been overshadowed only 



by Yah.ya¯ al-Nawawı¯ (d. 676/1277), who composed a super-commentary on his 

work. Al-Nawawı¯ was a student of Ibn al-S.ala¯h. al-Shahrazu¯rı¯ (d. 643/1245), who 

wrote himself a commentary on al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯’s  The Middle One .  Al-Shahrazu¯rı¯, 



who had studied in Nishapur, moved to Damascus and founded a prominent 

tradition of al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯ studies. His student al-Nawawı¯ also composed a commen-



tary on  The Middle One . 

104


  Yet much more successful was his book,  The Plentiful 

Garden for the Students and the Support of the Muftı¯s   ( Rawd.at al-t.a¯libı¯n wa- umdat 

al-muftiyı¯n ), the super commentary on Abu¯ l-Qa¯sim al-Ra¯fı¯ ¶ı¯’s commentary on 

al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯’s  The Succinct One  mentioned earlier. Al-Nawawı¯’s  Plentiful Garden  



is the fruit of a productive period of Ghaza¯l

ı

¯ reception among the Damascene 



Sha¯fi   ¶ites in the seventh/thirteenth and eighth/fourteenth centuries. Both al-

Nawawı¯’s and al-Ra¯fi   ¶ı¯’s commentaries are still used among jurists of Sha¯fi  ¶ı¯te 

law today, and they are doubtless among the most infl uential references in 

that fi eld. 

 Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯, who had a signifi cant part in securing al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯’s 



infl uential position among Sha¯fi  ¶ite jurists, died at the age of seventy during the 

tragic sacking of Nishapur by the Oˇguz nomads. In 548/1153, Sanjar’s Seljuq-

Turk army suffered a surprise defeat by one of the larger groups of Oˇguz Turks 

that had newly entered into Khorasan. The nomads took Sanjar prisoner and 

pillaged the cities in his realm. When they arrived in Nishapur in Ramad.an / 

November of that year, they sacked the outer city and killed many of its inhabit-

ants in search for hidden treasures. Soon afterward, they returned and overran 

Nishapur’s inner city. Muh.ammad ibn Yah.ya¯ was killed either in Ramad.a¯n 548 / 

November–December 1153 or—which is more likely—on 11 Shawwa¯l 549 / 19 

December 1154 in the New Mosque of Nishapur. It is said that the Oˇguz forced 

dirt down his throat until he died. 

105


  

 The destruction of Nishapur in 548/1153 was only one step in the steady de-

cline of that city as a center of Muslim scholarship. In 553/1158, the long-standing 

differences between the H

. anafi tes and the Sha¯fi  ¶ites erupted in a civil war that 

lasted until 557/1162 and caused more destruction than the two sackings by the 

Oˇguz nomads. Merw, Isfara 7in, T.a¯bara¯n-T.u¯s, and other cities in Khorasan also 

suffered from the breakdown of the Seljuq military force in 548/1153. In addi-

tion, the region was hit by a number of devastating earthquakes, so that during 

the second half of the seventh/twelfth century, urban life in Khorasan went 

through a severe crisis. With it suffered the cities’ institutions of learning such 

as the Niz.a¯miyya madrasas in Nishapur, Merw, and Herat. Fakhr al-Dı¯n al-Ra¯zı¯ 

was among the last generation of scholars who could connect themselves to 

al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯’s teaching tradition in Nishapur. The very last head teacher at the 



Nishapurian Niz.a¯miyya mentioned in the sources was Abu¯ Bakr ibn al-S.affa¯r, 

 

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  

7 7

a member of the rich and infl uential S.affa¯r family of Nishapur. He had taught 



a course on al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯’s  Middle One  forty times before he was killed in 618/1221 



at age eighty-two, when the Mongol armies under Chingiz Kha¯n’s son Toluy 

captured Nishapur and systematically slaughtered its inhabitants. One of his 

many students was Ibn al-S.ala¯h. al-Shahrazu¯rı¯ from the region of Irbil in Iraq. 

Ibn al-S.ala¯h. al-Shahrazu¯rı¯ and others would carry the teaching tradition of al-

Ghaza¯l

ı

¯’s legal works from Nishapur to its new center in Damascus. 



106

  

 Ibn  Tu¯mart (d. 524/1130) 



 Ibn  Tu

¯mart, the founder of the Almohad Empire in North Africa and al-Andalus, 

never met al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯. He traveled from Morocco to Baghdad and studied at the 



Niz.a¯miyya madrasa at a time when al-Ghaza¯li was no longer there. He became 

an accomplished and quite innovative theologian, developing a number of posi-

tions in theology and  fi qh  that can be connected to al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯’s teachings. 



 Ibn  Tu

¯mart was born in the Su¯s Valley of southern Morocco some time 

between 470/1077 and 480/1088. He was a contemporary of Abu

¯ Bakr ibn 

al- ¶Arabı¯, whom he also never met. At some time before 500/1106, Ibn Tu

¯mart 


left Morocco in pursuit of religious knowledge. He fi rst traveled to al-Andalus 

but soon turned his attention to the east and made his way to Baghdad. 

There he studied at the Niz.a¯miyya for an undetermined period between the 

years 500/1106 and 511/1117. Ibn Tu

¯mart’s biographers mention a number of 

scholars as his teachers at the Niz.a¯miyya, including Abu¯ Bakr al-Sha¯shı¯ 

(d. 507/1114), 

107


   Abu

¯ l-H


. asan al-S.ayrafı¯ (d. 500/1107), 

108


  and al-Kiya¯ 7 al-Harra¯sı¯, 

all venerated scholars of their time. Ibn Tu

¯mart might have also studied with 

As  ¶ad al-Mayhanı¯ and al-Shahrasta¯nı¯, both of whom taught at the Niz.a¯miyya 

during this period. Some historians also claim that Ibn Tu

¯mart was a student 

of al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯, and that the two had a memorable encounter in which the great 



theologian entrusted Ibn Tu

¯mart with his theological legacy. That, however, is 

a myth spread by Ibn Tu

¯mart’s political heirs after his death. By the time Ibn 

Tu

¯mart arrived in Baghdad, al-Ghaza¯l



ı

¯ was already in Khorasan. 

109

  

 There are no reliable reports about Ibn Tu



¯mart’s life before 510/1116 or 

511/1117 when he returned to the Maghrib from the Muslim East. It follows that 

there is no reliable information that he did defi nitely study at the Niz.a¯miyya 

in Baghdad. In an article published in 2005, I compare some of Ibn Tu

¯mart’s 

theological teachings—particularly his proof of God’s existence—with those of 

al-Juwaynı¯ and al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯, concluding that he was indeed at the Niz.a¯miyya 



in Baghdad. The argument supporting the historians’ claim is based on the 

continuity of ideas rather than evidence of his whereabouts. His teachings are 

distinctly Juwaynian and to some degree Ghazalian. Just as al-Juwaynı¯ and al-

Ghaza¯l


ı

¯ were infl uenced by philosophical arguments, so was Ibn Tu¯mart. The 

philosophical infl uence need not be direct and has most probably been medi-

ated through theological ideas taught at the Niz.amiyya during this time. Even 

after al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯’s departure, the Baghdad Niz.a¯miyya remained a hotbed of 



Nishapurian Ash ¶arite theology and its adaptation of philosophical teachings. 

7 8   a l - gh a z a

¯ l 1


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

 Ibn  Tu


¯mart’s career as a religious leader began soon after 510/1116, when he 

appeared in Tunis. In the Maghrib, he made a name for himself by preaching 

strict morality of the sort al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯ taught in his  Revival of the Religious Sci-



ences . In particular, on the duty of “commanding good and forbidding wrong,” 

Ibn Tu


¯mart followed al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯’s moralistic approach. 



110

  On his way back to 

Morocco, he gathered more and more followers, a zealous group that accompa-

nied him and tried to enforce his high moral standards. By the time Ibn Tu

¯mart 

arrived at Marrakesh in 515/1121, his followers had emerged into the avant-garde 



of a religious and political movement, primarily of Ma

s.

mu



¯da-Berbers, that 

would soon conquer North Africa and Muslim Spain. 

 Ibn  Tu

¯mart did not witness the full success of the movement that he 

started. His followers called themselves “those who profess divine unity” 

al-muwah.h.idu¯n ), becoming known as Almohads in Western literature. 

111

   Ibn 


Tu

¯mart died in 524/1130, during the early years of the military campaign that 

led to the conquest of almost all of the Maghrib, including al-Andalus. His suc-

cessor (his “caliph”)  ¶Abd al-Mu 7min ibn  ¶Alı¯ (d. 558/1163) was one of those who 

joined the preacher on his way from Tunis to Marrakesh, and he became the 

real political founder of the Almohad movement. Under his rule, so it is said, 

the works of Ibn Tu

¯mart were collected and written down. The writings that he 

supposedly edited were collected in  The Book That Contains All the Notes on the 

Infallible Imam and Acknowledged Mahdi . . . According to How the Caliph  Abd 

al-Mu 7min Dictated It . It is preserved in two manuscript copies from this time 

and has since been edited. 

112

  

 Most of the works contained in this book are quite complex in their lan-



guage and written with great care. These texts claim to represent the oral teach-

ings of Ibn Tu

¯mart, edited more than twenty years after his death by the “caliph” 

 ¶Abd al-Mu 7min from notes ( ta a¯liq ) taken by Ibn Tu

¯mart’s companions. This is 

conspicuously similar to what is known about the collection of the Qur’an by 

Caliph  ¶Uthman ibn  ¶Affa¯n, and probably is not true. It is hard to imagine that 

Ibn Tu


¯mart himself did not compose these works. For our purposes in under-

standing Ibn Tu

¯mart’s theology and his intellectual connection to al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯, 



three texts will prove to be most important. These texts are his  Creed on the 

Creator ’ s  Divine  Unity   ( Tawh.ı¯d al-Ba¯ri 7 ) and two short texts of about one page 

each, referred to as his  Guides No. I  and  II   ( Murshida  I and II). 

 Ibn  Tu¯mart’s proof for the existence of God follows in its outward structure 

the traditional  kala¯m  proof for God’s existence: we know from observation that 

all things either change or, if they do not change, have the potential to change. 

Things change their place, their position, sometimes their color, and so forth. 

All these changes happen in time, that is, they appear from one moment to the 

next. A substance in which temporal change occurs must be generated in time 

and cannot be eternal. If the temporal changes in a thing are caused by another 

thing that is subject to temporal change, then the series of things that are sub-

ject to such changes cannot regress indefi nitely. Thus, these changes must be 

introduced by something that is itself not subject to temporal change,and this 

must be eternal and not generated in time. This is God. 

113


   Al-Juwaynı¯ has this 

proof fully worked out in his late work  The Creed for Niz.a¯m al-Mulk . 

114

   Al-Ghaza¯l



ı

¯ 


 

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  

7 9

gives a version of this proof at the beginning of his  Balanced Book on What-To-



Believe   ( al-Iqtis.a¯d fı¯ l-i  tiqa¯d ). He devotes much space to the proof that all created 

things are subject to change. 

115

  This is the key premise of the  kala¯m   proof  for 



God’s existence, and it is challenged by an objection of the  fala¯sifa , namely, that 

the celestial bodies and their spheres are not—and have never been—subject 

to change. Ibn Tu

¯mart’s  Creed on the Creator ’ s Divine Unity  shows that he was 

well familiar with this problem. He develops an innovative argument that aims 

to extend judgments about objects of our experience to things that we cannot 

experience. Ibn Tu

¯mart’s wishes to establish a valid analogy that extends to all 

created beings. If such an analogy is possible, judgments about things that we 

experience directly can be extended to things that we experience only indirectly 

or from a distance, such as celestial objects. 

 Ibn  Tu¯mart’s analogy is inspired by the division of judgments into nec-

essary, contingent, and impossible. These divisions are a prominent feature 

of Avicenna’s philosophy, who introduced them to the philosophical genre of 

proofs for God’s existence. In Avicenna, however, necessary, contingent, and 

impossible are not predicates of judgments but rather of things in the outside 

world. We will see that al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯ criticized Avicenna by saying that these di-



visions are not ontological, meaning they cannot be found within the world; 

but they are rather epistemological, meaning the three predicates of necessary, 

contingent, and impossible apply only to our judgments and not to objects in 

the world. This contention can already be found in the works of al-Juwaynı¯. Ibn 

Tu¯mart applies the threefold division of necessary, possible, and impossible as 

an epistemological distinction about human judgments. In our mind, we fi nd 

that the truth of some judgments is necessary, the truth of others is contingent, 

and again others cannot at all be true. An example of the fi rst kind of judgment 

is: “Everything has a maker (   fa¯  il ).” This judgment is always true, says Ibn 

Tu¯mart, and this leads us to know that there cannot be anything in this world 

that doesn’t have a maker, or, in the parlance of the philosophers, an effi cient 

cause (  f a¯  il ). For al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯, the principle that all that comes to be must have 



a cause that brings it about is an axiom of reason and a necessary truth. 

116


   Ibn 

Tu¯mart understands that humans are given this truth  a priori,  and through it, 

God has given us a way to prove His existence. 

117


  The necessary truth of the 

principle that everything has a maker leads humans to realize that everything 

is created, even the stars in heaven. Ibn Tu¯mart’s detailed inquiry into who 

could be the maker of such complicated objects as a human body leads to the 

realization that only God can create such complex things as a human. Other 

beings wouldn’t even be able to create a single limb. If only God can be the 

creator of a human limb, He is  a fortiori  the creator of the stars and of every-

thing else in the world. 

 Ibn  Tu

¯mart’s argument for God’s existence shares many of the notions and 

ideas important in the theology of al-Ghaza¯l

ı

¯. He uses Avicenna’s ontological 



distinction of necessary, contingent, and impossible in an epistemological way. 

Already al-Juwaynı¯ employed it thus in his  Creed for Niz.a¯m al-Mulk . 

118

  Like al-



Ghaza¯l

ı

¯, Ibn Tu¯mart is impressed by the ingenuity of God’s creation and by the 



well-fi tted function and place of all individual elements in an overall plan. Ibn 

8 0   a l - gh a z a

¯ l 1


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

Tu

¯mart and al-Ghaza¯l



ı

¯ both saw a most skillful plan at work in God’s creation. 

This conviction made them introduce arguments for God’s existence from de-

sign and teleological motifs in their respective proofs. 

119

  

 Yet the clearest indicator of al-Ghaza¯l



ı

¯’s profound infl uence on Ibn Tu¯mart 

is their common teachings about God’s determination of every event in the cre-

ated world. Both taught that the plan for God’s creation existed even before the 

fi rst creature came into being. Every event is predetermined by God’s decree. 


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