Al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s Philosophical

highest mover. This group fails to realize that even if there may not be any 

physical movements beyond the highest sphere, there still are higher beings 

there. Their failure to acknowledge the existence of beings higher than the 

mover and governor of the outermost sphere leads them to the false assump-

tion that he, the mover of the outermost sphere, is the Lord of the world. 

 Again, their error is only pointed out when al-Ghaza¯lı¯ introduces the next 

higher group: 

 The third group leaves these people behind. They say that moving 

the bodies by way of directly acting upon them ( bi-t.arı¯q al-muba¯shira ) 

should be ( yanbaghı¯ an ) [regarded as] a service to the Lord of the 

Worlds, an act of worship towards Him, and an act of obedience 

( t.a¯ ¶a ) towards Him by one of His servants who is called an angel. His 

[ scil.  the angel’s] relation to the pure divine lights is the relation of the 

moon among the sensory lights. 

74

  

 The members of the second subgroup err when they think that moving the 

highest sphere is the most supreme task possible to the Lord. In fact, anything 

that directly moves a physical object cannot be regarded as the truly supreme 

being. Rather, any being that creates physical movements is just doing a ser-

vice to the true Lord. The mover of the highest sphere obeys the Lord and wor-

ships him by moving the sphere. Using another elliptical reference, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ 

compares the highest mover to the moon in Abraham’s story, connecting this 

second level of insight into the divine to Abraham’s false realization, reported 

in Q 6:77, that the moon is his Lord. 

 This second subgroup is characterized by a single conviction, namely, that 

the unmoved Lord is himself the mover of the highest sphere. This is an unmis-

takable reference to Aristotle’s kinematic proof of God’s existence. 

75

   Al-Ghaza¯lı¯ 

was well aware of this proof. In the extensive report of his philosophical meta-

physics preserved in MS London, British Library Or. 3126, he distinguished be-

tween two types of proofs for the existence of God—Aristotle’s kinematic proof 

and Avicenna’s proof that God is the being necessary by virtue of itself: 

 Know that a group amongst the ancients ( mutaqaddimu

¯n )  argued 

by way of the contingent for (the existence of  ) the necessary and by 

way of the effect for (the existence of  ) the cause. They started with 

composed beings. They analyzed them and ascended from there 

to the elementary things ( bas.a¯ 7it. ) [= celestial beings]. They proved 

demonstrably that there is nothing that moves without (being moved) 

by a mover until they ended at a mover who does not move (himself  ). 

He is the fi rst mover. The more recent ones ( muta 7akhkhiru

¯n )  argued 

by way of the creator for (the existence of  ) his created beings. They 

began with the elementary beings then climbed up from them and 

discovered the necessity of the creator’s existence from His existence 

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itself. Once they had established this, they established (the existence 

of  ) contingent beings through it. They said: “This way to argue is 

more reliable and nobler, because if we consider the state of being, 

[we fi nd that] the absolute being ( wuju

¯d mut.laq ) inasmuch as it is 

existence, bears witness to Him. So we had no need for the ascent 

from low to high, because the closest ( awla¯ ) thing [to mind] is giving 

evidence to the created things by way of their creator and not giving 

evidence to Him by way of the created things.” This is all good, but 

the second [method] is better. 

76

  

 This passage is al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s report of Avicenna’s position that his proof is su-

perior to Aristotle’s proof; it should not be assumed to be al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s own 

opinion. One source of the report is Avicenna’s  Pointers and Reminders ,  which 

is briefl y quoted in this passage. 

77

  The report, however, does demonstrate al-

Ghaza¯lı¯’s awareness both of the differences between these proofs and of Avi-

cenna’s claim that his proof gives a higher level of insight into God’s being. In 

the London manuscript, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ calls those who use the kinematic proof for 

God’s existence “the ancients.” This group seems to be the second subgroup 

of those who are veiled by pure light. The second subgroup represents the cos-

mology of Aristotle as al-Ghaza¯lı¯ understands it. 

 If this identifi cation is correct, the “more recent philosophers,” that is, 

the philosophers who see God as the giver of existence rather than as the fi rst 

mover, that is, al-Fa¯ra¯bı¯ and Avicenna, are the third and highest group of those 

who are veiled by pure light. I have already quoted the passage detailing their 

realization that moving cannot be the most supreme action but is done rather 

in obedience and as an act of worship to the Lord. The passage continues: 

 These people claim that the Lord is the one who is obeyed ( al-mut.a¯ ¶)  

by this mover and [they claim that] the Lord, exalted, is the mover of 

everything by way of the “command” ( al-amr ), not by way of directly 

acting upon [other things]. Then, there is an obscurity when they try 

to make the “command” and its essence ( ma¯hiyya ) understood, and 

this places limits to the deeper understanding. This book cannot not 

go into that. 

78

  

 The Lord of the second group moves the highest sphere as an act of obedience to 

the being that this third group considers the true Lord. The Lord of this group is 

called the “one who is obeyed” ( al-mut.a¯ ¶) . This Lord governs not by causing the 

movements of lower beings but by giving “the command” ( al-amr ), a vague term 

that is nowhere explained in this text. Al-Ghaza¯lı¯ blames this group for his own 

lack of an explanation for what “the command” really is. There are several ways 

to understand what this “command” might be. The more recent philosophers 

might, for instance, understand it as the command to exist: “Be!” (Q 6:73). This 

idea is similar to what al-Fa¯ra¯bı¯ did when he developed Aristotle’s causation 

of motion into a causation of being. 

79

  Equally, Avicenna characterizes God not 

as a mover but as the being that bestows existence ( wuju

¯d ) upon His creation. 

Yet according to al-Ghaza¯lı¯, even these scholars—al-Fa¯ra¯bı¯, Avicenna, and their 

 

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followers—are misguided. The shortcomings of their views are again pointed 

out when the next group is described. This is the fourth and fi nal group: 

 These groups are all veiled by pure light. Only a fourth group are the 

ones who arrive [at understanding God’s oneness]. It has also been 

disclosed to them ( tajalla¯ lahum ayd.an ) that this one who is obeyed 

( al-mut.a¯ ¶)  is characterized by an attribute that is incompatible with 

pure oneness and utmost perfection; on account of a secret that this 

book cannot reveal. [It has also been disclosed to them] that the rela-

tion of the one who is obeyed [to the real Lord] is the relation of the 

sun among the sensual lights. Therefore, they have turned their faces 

from the one who moves the heavens [i.e. the Lord of the second 

group] and from the one who commands their movements [i.e. the 

Lord of the third group] to the one who created the heavens and who 

created the one who gives the command ( al-a¯mir ) that the [heavens] 

are moved. 

80

  

 The being that these philosophers consider to be the Lord is Himself only the me-

diator between the real Lord and His creation. Al-Ghaza¯lı¯ compares this version of 

the Lord, the one who is obeyed ( al-mut.a¯ 7) , to the sun, comparing this third group 

to Abraham discovering in Q 6:78 that the sun is his Lord. Al-Ghaza¯lı¯ sees the 

God of philosophers such as al-Fa¯ra¯bı¯ and Avicenna, who believe that this world 

emanates from God according to His nature, to simply be a creation of the real 

God. The real God is the creator of the being that the  fala¯sifa  consider to be God. 

 The Cosmology of the “Fourth Group” in the Veil Section 

of  The Niche of Lights  

 The fourth group is the one that possesses true insight into the nature of God. 

Veiled neither by darkness nor by light, they understand that the philosophers’ 

God is the fi rst creation of the real God. Al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s true cosmology contains 

two main elements: he fi rst appropriates the cosmology of al-Fa¯ra¯bı¯, with all 

its spheres, movers, and its First Being, a cosmology that Avicenna had also 

adopted. Second and crucially, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ adds to it another layer of creation. 

For al-Ghaza¯lı¯, the being that in al-Fa¯ra¯bı¯ and Avicenna’s cosmology bestows 

existence upon others and is obeyed ( mut.a¯ ¶)  by the movers of the spheres is the 

fi rst creation of the real God. Indeed, the real God does little more than create 

the one who is obeyed and continuously emanating being into him. The one 

who is obeyed mediates God’s creative activity and converts it into “the com-

mand” ( al-amr ), through which creation of the heavens and the earth unfolds. 

 Only the last of the four groups, “those who have arrived” at a correct un-

derstanding of who is the Lord, recognize the created nature of the philoso-

pher’s God. Their own insight into the real God is described as follows: 

 These people arrived at a being that is exalted above everything that 

sight has perceived previously. The august glories of His face ( subu -

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h.a¯t wajhih )—the First and the Highest—burn up everything that 

the sight and the insight of the theologians ( al-na¯z.iru¯n )  have 

perceived since they fi nd in Him someone holy and exalted above 

everything that we have described before. 

81

  

 This highest level of insight is likened to Abraham’s discovery that his Lord is 

“He who created the heavens and the earth” in Q 6:79. He is the only true ex-

istence, and He is the one who truly bestows existence on His creatures. Only 

“those who have arrived” know of Him and understand that He is the only 

existence. Among them are a subgroup of those who understand that He is the 

only one who truly exists. This realization leads to their “annihilation” (  f ana¯ 7) : 

 Then these people divide into smaller groups. Among them is the 

one for whom everything that he sees is consumed, perishes, and 

annihilates—but he still remains, observing the beauty and holiness 

[of God], and observing his own self within His beauty, [a state] that 

he attained by the arrival at the divine presence ( al-h.ad.a¯ra al-ila¯hiyya ). 

With regard to these [people], the objects of vision perish, but not he 

who sees. 

 Another group who are the elect of the elect pass beyond these. 

The august glories of His face burn them and the power of glory 

overcomes them (or: takes control of them). In their selves they are 

perished and annihilated. No glance at themselves is left to them 

for they annihilate from themselves. And nothing remains save the 

One, the Truth. The Qur 7anic verse “everything perishes save His 

face” (Q 28:88) becomes for them an individual experience ( dhawq ) 

and a state ( h.a¯l ). We referred to this in the fi rst chapter where we 

mentioned how they apply the word “becoming-one” ( al-ittih.a¯d )  and 

how think of it. And this is the [utmost] limit of those who arrive 

( al-wa¯s.ilu¯n ). 

82

  

 Annihilation  (  f ana¯ 7)  —the goal of Sufi  practice—is achieved once the believer 

becomes aware that all being is God, all actions are God’s action, and all love 

is God’s love. For al-Ghaza¯lı¯, annihilation (  f ana¯ 7)  is not synonymous with a 

“union” ( ittih.a¯d ) with God. “Union,” al-Ghaza¯lı¯ had said earlier in the book, 

is only a metaphor for understanding the true meaning of  tawh.ı¯d ,  namely  the 

realization that all being is He. 

83

  In the thirty-second book of the  Revival,   al-

Ghaza¯lı¯ had already clarifi ed that when the Sufi s say “annihilation of the self” 

(  f ana¯ 7 al-nafs ), they mean looking at the world through the eye of someone who 

truly understands divine oneness ( bi- ¶ayn al-tawh.ı¯d ). That viewpoint includes 

the realization that there is nothing in existence other than God ( laysa f ı¯ l-wuju

¯d 

ghayruhu ). It is false to assume that there exists something that is not God. All 

that exists ( al-wuju

¯d ) is He. 

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 Commenting on a short creed by Ibn Tu

¯mart, in which these Ghazalian 

teachings are reproduced in an easily comprehensible way, Ignaz Goldziher once 

remarked that an “air of pantheism” runs through them. 

85

  For Goldziher, there 

is here the notion that all things are divine. A more thorough analysis, however, 

 

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would say that for al-Ghaza¯lı¯, not all things are divine, but rather the divine is all 

things. This is not pantheism but rather monism. Alexander Treiger observed 

that monotheism and monism come very close to each other in al-Ghaza¯lı¯; mon-

otheism being the view that God is the only existent that is the source of the 

being for the rest of existents, and monism the idea that God is the only existent 

at all: “[T]he monistic paradigm views the granting of existence as essentially 

 virtual  so that in the last analysis God alone exists, whereas the monotheistic 

paradigm sees the granting of existence as  real .” 

86

  Treiger concludes that in al-

Ghaza¯lı¯’s  Niche of Lights,  both perspectives are present. In some passages, God is 

the Lord and the Creator and in others, such as the one on the insight of “those 

who have arrived,” God is the only true existent, the other existents possessing 

only borrowed and metaphorical existence. 

87

  These two perspectives should not 

be regarded as being opposed to each other in al-Ghaza¯lı¯; rather they comple-

ment each other. Arriving at true  tawh.ı¯d  means to arrive at a monist perspective 

of God. This, in turn, includes the monotheist perspective of those levels that 

represent a less complete understanding of  taw. hı¯d . 

 Monism appears in works other than the  Niche of Lights . In one of his 

last works,  The Choice Essentials of the Methods of Jurisprudence   ( al-Mustas.fa¯ min 

  ¶ilm al-us.u¯l ),  al-Ghaza¯lı¯ discusses how human knowledge is a refl ection in the 

human soul of all the intelligible forms of existence, such as the heavens, the 

earth, the trees, the rivers, and so forth. Here al-Ghaza¯lı¯ adds: 

 Similar, the human soul ( al-nafs al-a¯damı¯ ) can be understood as 

being imprinted with the divine presence ( al-h.ad.ra al-ila¯hiyya ]  on 

the whole. The “divine presence” is an expression for the totality 

of the existences (    jumla al-mawju

¯da¯t ). Altogether they are from 

( min ) the divine presence since there is nothing in existence other 

than God Exalted and His actions. 

88

  

 Those who arrive at a proper understanding of God combine a monist under-

standing of God’s relationship to the world with the monotheism of the  fala¯sifa . 

Most important, they have accepted the philosophical cosmological system. 

Richard M. Frank gathered evidence that for al-Ghaza¯lı¯, the celestial intellects 

are intermediaries ( wasa¯ 7it. ) in the transmission of God’s blessings to terrestrial 

beings. 

89

  Since the Farabian and Avicennan philosophers developed a nearly 

correct understanding of the one who is obeyed, many elements of their teach-

ings on cosmology are true—but under the condition that it is not God whom 

they describe in their teachings but the  mut.a¯ ¶ , the highest created being. This 

near-understanding seems to be the reason why al-Ghaza¯lı¯ writes: “To [the 

fourth group] it has  also  been disclosed.” He implies that the fourth group has 

accepted many teachings of the third, while integrating their own superior in-

sight that all being  is  God. The third group understands, for instance, that the 

world is a product of the one who is obeyed ( al-mut.a¯ ¶)  and is created according 

to his essence. The fourth group refi nes the understanding of the  fala¯sifa   and 

posits that the creative power behind this world is not the essence of the one 

who is obeyed. The one who is obeyed has no choice of what to create and fol-

lows the necessity of His own nature. The true God, however, is not affected 

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by the limitations of the nature of the one who is obeyed, since He is the real 

originator and exercises his own deliberate choice. 

 The obeyed one does not act directly upon the rest of the creation but rather 

acts indirectly via “the command” ( al-amr ). He relies on the mediation of the 

celestial spheres and their movers to act on the lower spheres, including the 

sublunar sphere. His acting on all creatures other than himself is by means 

of “the command” ( al-amr ). The cosmological terminology used in this part 

of the  Niche of Lights  is both philosophical as well as Qur’anic in its origin. In 

Sura 81, which starts with a long apocalyptic vision, the Qur’an says that “these 

are the words of an noble messenger, who holds power with the Lord of the 

Throne, someone who is of rank ( makı¯n ), who is obeyed ( mut.a¯ ¶) , and who is 

also trusted” (Q 81.19–21). The commentary literature identifi es this messenger 

with the archangel Gabriel because he is the one who conveys revelation to 

the prophets. 

90

  In his  Decisive Criterion for Distinguishing Islam from Clandestine 

Apostasy,  al-Ghaza¯lı¯ follows this interpretation and says that the Qur’an refers 

to Gabriel in many ways, calling him, among other things, “high in rank with 

the Lord of the Throne” and “the one who is obeyed.” This latter phrase is jus-

tifi ed because “he is the being that is followed in the rightful actions of some 

angels.” 

91

  In another passage, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ says that Gabriel, the Holy Spirit 

( ru

¯h. al-quds ), and the Trusted One ( al-amı¯n ) are all names for the same being, 

“someone who is obeyed” ( mut.a¯ ¶) . 

92

  In the Veil Section, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ identifi es this 

being as God’s fi rst and most supreme creation. Al-Ghaza¯lı¯ was familiar with 

the way philosophers used the term  muta¯ ¶  in their texts. In his report of philo-

sophical teachings preserved in the London manuscript, he includes a chapter 

from one of Miskawayh’s ethical treatises. In that context, which has nothing to 

do with the above-quoted Qur’anic passage, “someone who is obeyed” ( mut.a¯ ¶)  

is a metaphor for the human intellect that governs its domain of the human 

body as a king reigns over a polity. 

93

  In philosophical literature, the word  muta¯ ¶  

is an expression for a being that holds absolute authority. 

94

  

 In the case of the word “command” ( amr ), the fusion between Qur’anic 

terminology and a philosophical reading of revelation is even more apparent. In 

verse 65:12, the Qur’an says that God created the seven heavens “and through 

their midst descends the command.” 

95

  In verse 41:12, it is said that after God cre-

ated the seven heavens, he assigned a command to each of the heavens. Other 

verses identify God as the one who “governs the command” ( yudabbir al-amr ,  Q 

13:2). For al-Fa¯ra¯bı¯, the “world of the command” refers to the world of the highest 

celestial spheres, just below the “world of lordliness” (  ¶a¯lam al-rubu

¯biyya )  where 

the First Principle resides. It is both above the throne and above the “world of 

creation” (  ¶a¯lam al-khalq ). The “world of the command” is where the pen writes 

on the preserved tablet ( al-lawh. al-mah.fu¯z. ). The human spirit ( ru¯h. ) stems from 

the “world of the command,” and whoever turns from emotions, sense per-

ception, and imagination toward the intelligibles ( al-ma ¶qu

¯la¯t ) will reach the 

“world of the command,” which is the highest part of the “world of sovereignty” 

( malaku

¯t ). 

96

  In a clarifying passage, al- ¶A

¯ mirı¯ explains how the philosophers 

understood the Qur’anic cosmological metaphors; there he says that they use 

the term “the command” to refer to the universal forms ( al-s.uwar al-kulliyya ). 

97

  

 

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In Avicenna’s  Throne Philosophy   ( al-H