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 

 Al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s Biography 

 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 

the Moroccan captive al-H

. 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  

mutakallim  who refuted  falsafa , and, to some degree, a genuine philos-

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

  

 In the West, serious source-critical studies of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s biography have 



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

   ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r, a grandson of the great Sufi  Abu



¯ 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

  

The nonabbreviated version survived in the quotations of other historians, most 



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

  

 ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r al-Fa¯risı¯, who was about three years younger than al-Ghaza¯lı¯, 



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

  

 After  ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r, the Khorasanian historian al-Sam ¶a¯nı¯ (d. 562/1166) 



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 

Fabricator ’ s Lies   ( Tabyı¯n kadhib al-muftarı¯  ), and a shorter one in his history of 

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

  

 Ibn  al-Jawzı¯’s (d. 597/1201) chronicle  The Orderly Treatment in History   ( al-



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

  In comparison, Ibn al-Athı¯r (d. 630/1233), the main chronicler of this 



period, writes only a very brief entry on al-Ghaza¯lı¯, along with other scattered 

but important information. 

28

  

 With Ibn al-Athı¯r ends the line of the chroniclers who were historically or 



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

  

 Much of the later contributions to al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s historiography still need to 



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

  Most of these works are still unknown to us, although some of this ma-



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

  

 Next to al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s autobiography—which was the subject of a French 



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

  

 The two dates of 450 or 451  AH  are not without problems, however. In a 



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 


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