Al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s Philosophical


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years,” can be understood. This alternative understanding is less likely in my 

opinion, but it must be mentioned and discussed. The vow at Hebron stands 

in connection to al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s decision to break his close association with the 

Seljuq rulers and resign from his teaching position at the Niz.a¯miyya madrasa 

in Baghdad. Al-Ghaza¯lı¯ left that job and Baghdad in Dhu

¯ l-Qa ¶da 488 / Novem-

ber 1095, almost exactly one year before the vow at Hebron was made. When 

in his autobiography  Deliverer from Error   ( al-Munqidh min al-d.ala¯l )  al-Ghaza¯lı¯ 

writes about his return to teaching at the Niz.a¯miyya school in Nishapur, he says 

that this happened in Dhu

¯ l-Qa ¶da 499 / July–August 1106. He continues: “The 

period of seclusion (  ¶uzla ) amounted to eleven years.” 

47

  The fact that he counts 



to his readers the number of lunar years he did not teach at state-sponsored 

schools is signifi cant. In al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s own understanding, the date for when he 

began to keep the vow at Hebron may have not been the date that he made the 

vow. He might have understood that he began keeping the vow retroactively, 

so to speak, since his departure from Baghdad. Thus, he may have meant to 

say that he “kept that vow” since Dhu

¯ l-Qa ¶da 488 / November 1095. If this was 

the case, the letter would have been written a year earlier in the last months of 

500 / June–July 1108. Subsequently his birth would fall in 447/1055–56, if one 

assumes his age of fi fty-three years is given in lunar years, or 446/1054–55 if 

one assumes solar years. 


 

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 5

 Judged from the information given in this letter to Sanjar, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ 



was born between 446/1054 and 448/1057. His most likely year of brith was 

448/1056–57, two years before the date that currently appears in the literature. 

The period of 446/1054 to 448/1057 concurs with al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s own informa-

tion given in his autobiography,  Deliverer from Error .  There,  al-Ghaza¯lı¯ says that 

he was “over fi fty” when he composed the book. 

48

  According to the traditional 



chronology of his life, which puts his birth in 450/1058–59, the  Deliverer   could 

not have been written before 501/1107; “over fi fty” assumes that he was at least 

fi fty-one lunar years old when he wrote the book. Yet in this book, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ 

refers vividly to the events at the end of the year 499 / summer 1106, when he 

returned to public teaching in Nishapur. The  Deliverer  was more likely written 

soon after this event, since it partly functions as an apologia for what appeared 

to some to be a break of his vow in Hebron. 

49

  In addition, the author makes the 



point that he should be regarded as the “renewer” ( muh.yı¯  ) of the sixth Muslim 

century. 

50

  The beginning of the new century is identifi ed as the turn from 499 



to 500  AH , which fell on September 2, 1106. Therefore, all internal indications 

of the text point toward a publication soon after the beginning of the year 500 

 AH . According to the traditional chronology, however, that would be impossi-

ble since al-Ghaza¯lı¯ may have barely turned fi fty and was certainly not yet “over 

fi fty.” If he was born between 446/1055 and 448/1057, however, he had by this 

time already passed his fi fty-fi rst, fi fty-second, or fi fty-third birthday—either in 

lunar or in solar years—and the words “over fi fty” are well justifi ed. 

51

  



  

 Al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s birthplace T.a¯bara¯n was one of two major towns within the dis-

trict of T.u¯s, the other being Nu¯qa¯n, which was situated a few miles south of 

T.a¯bara¯n. During the sixth/twelfth century, Meshed (Mashhad) grew around 

the pilgrimage site of the Shiite Ima¯m  ¶Alı¯ al-Rid.a¯ (or: Riz

.

a¯), who was bur-



ied in Sana¯ba¯dh near Nu

¯qa¯n in 203/818. 

52

  All these places were referred to as 



T.u¯s, which according to Ya¯qu¯t had more than a thousand “villages” ( qarya ). 

Nu

¯qa¯n was gradually replaced by Meshed and eventually became a suburb of it. 



Three hundred years later, after the destruction of T.a¯bara¯n in 791/1389 during 

an anti-Timurid uprising, Meshed would also replace al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s hometown. 

T.a¯bara¯n was not rebuilt, and its water channels were redirected to Meshed. 

53

  



It was during al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s lifetime that people began to refer to Nu

¯qa¯n, the 

second town of T.u¯s, as Meshed, a name al-Ghaza¯lı¯, however, never used. Oth-

ers among his contemporaries, however, weren’t shy to use “Meshed” or even 

“Meshed, the holy city of Riz

.

a¯.” 



54

  

 Al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s Early Years and His Education 



 Little is known about al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s childhood, even less about his family. In the 

seventh/thirteenth and eighth/fourteenth centuries, some Sha¯fi  ¶ite scholars in 

Damascus made efforts to determine the occupation of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s father. By 

then, however, it was already too late to get reliable information about this. 



2 6   a l - gh a z a

¯ l 1


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

When al-Subkı¯ claims that al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s father was a spinner ( ghazza¯l ) of wool, 

he makes a leap of faith based on a spurious etymology of the family’s name. 

55

  



The  nisba  or family name “al-Ghaza¯lı¯” had been in use for several generations, 

and its most distinguished bearer was not the fi rst famous scholar who wore it. 

Another jurist by the name of al-Ghaza¯lı¯ lived two or three generations before 

him and may have been either his paternal granduncle or his great granduncle. 

The elder al-Ghaza¯lı¯ is said to have died in 435/1043–44 and was an infl uential 

teacher in T.u¯s, an author of books that have not survived. 

56

  

 Later Muslim historians, however, gave another much humbler impres-



sion of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s family. Al-Subkı¯ tells us about the poverty of his father and 

how he made deathbed arrangements for his two young sons, Muh.ammad 

and Ah.mad. The fatherless children were given up to the foster care of a Sufi  

friend of the family. Their small inheritance forced them to enter a madrasa for 

care. Thus, they entered into Muslim learning not for the sake of God, as al-

Ghaza¯lı¯ is quoted as saying, but for the sake of food. 

57

  This story became a stock 



element of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s biography, refl ecting his and his younger brother’s later 

attraction both to poverty and to Sufi sm. Al-Subkı¯ gives no proper source for 

it. He reports it in the fi rst person and claims that this is “just as al-Ghaza¯lı¯ 

used to tell it.” 

58

  The story can be traced back to the lost part of Ibn al-Najja¯r’s 



(d. 643/1245)  Appendix to the History of Baghdad   ( Dhayl ta 7rı¯

kh Baghda¯d )  which 

probably took it from al-Sam ¶a¯nı¯’s lost work with the same title. Al-Dhahabı¯, 

who is our oldest extant source of this information, quotes one of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s 

students, who heard him mentioning that when his father died he left little 

for his brother and him. 

59

  On this occasion al-Ghaza¯lı¯ supposedly said: “We 



acquired knowledge for reasons other than the sake of God; but knowledge 

refuses to be for anything else than for the sake of God.” Although this sen-

tence may refl ect his upbringing, it is actually a well-known quote that appears 

both in al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s  Revival of the Religious Sciences  as well as in his  Scale of Ac-



tion   ( Mı¯za¯n al- amal ). There the author attributes it “to one (or: some) of those 

who found truth” ( ba d. al-muh.aqqiqı¯n ). 

60

  

 It is puzzling that al-Sam ¶a¯nı¯, who is most likely the fi rst authority to report 



the tale, was unable to identify the unnamed Sufi  who cared for the children. 

Al-Sam ¶a¯nı¯ had an intimate familiarity of the intellectual life in T.u¯s during 

this period. Since we do not have the original text of al-Sam ¶a¯nı¯’s version, we 

cannot say whether he implied it to be dubious. In my opinion, the historicity 

of the whole story is doubtful. Al-Subkı¯ turns it into an emotional tale with 

the literary tropes of a father’s deathbed remorse and two young orphans who 

turn toward knowledge simply to survive. Here, there is no role for al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s 

mother, who supposedly survived her husband and must have cared for her 

children. Yet some of these bare facts may be true; al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s father likely 

did die during his sons’ childhood and left little for their education. These trap-

pings may have given rise to further embellishments such as the Sufi  friend 

of the family. Indeed, in this anecdote, the anonymous Sufi  may stand in as 

a cipher for the famous Abu

¯  ¶Alı¯ al-Fa¯ramadhı¯ (d. 477/1084), whose youthful 

infl uence al-Ghaza¯lı¯ acknowledged later during his life and whose role will be 

explained later. 



 

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  

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 In his biography,  ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r al-Fa¯risı¯ does not mention any of this and 



sticks to the bare facts of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s education. There is no Sufi  friend here; 

rather, it begins with the study of  fi qh  under a local teacher named Ah.mad al-

Ra¯dhaka¯nı¯. 

61

   Al-Subkı¯ says that this al-Ra¯dhaka¯nı¯ had himself studied with “al-



Ghaza¯lı¯ the elder.” An Ah.mad al-Ra¯dhaka¯nı¯ from T.a¯bara¯n-T.u¯s was a member 

of the generation of al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s teachers, but it is not clear whether he was a 

scholar. 

62

  There was, however, another al-Ra¯dhaka¯nı¯ in that generation who 



was a well-known scholar.  ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r mentions the scholar Abu¯ Sa ¶d  ¶Abd 

al-Malik al-Ra¯dhaka¯nı¯. He was the maternal uncle of the powerful grand vizier 

Niz.a¯m al-Mulk (d. 485/1092). 

63

  His half-brother, Abu¯ l-Qa¯sim  ¶Abdalla¯h ibn  ¶Alı¯ 



(d. 499/1105–6), was a very important scholar and might have held the posi-

tion of head teacher of the Niz.a¯miyya madrasa in Nishapur between 493/1100 

and al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s later appointment in 499/1106. 

64

  We will see that Niz.a¯m 



al-Mulk was one of the most important personalities for al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s intel-

lectual development. He served as grand vizier over a period of almost thirty 

years between 455/1063 and his violent death in 485/1092. Second in power 

only to the Seljuq Sultans Alp-Arslan (reg. 455–65 / 1063–72) and Maliksha¯h 

(reg. 465–485 / 1072–92), Niz.a¯m al-Mulk formulated the religious policy for 

an area that stretched from Asia Minor to Afghanistan. In the intellectual cent-

ers of the Seljuq Empire, he founded religious madrasas (so-called Niz.a¯miyya 

madrasas), which institutionalized the teaching of Sunni jurisprudence and 

Ash ¶arite theology. 

65

   Niz.a¯m al-Mulk hailed from Ra¯dhaka¯n, a village at the 



northern edge of T.u¯s. 

66

  His whole family became very infl uential among the 



religious scholars in Khorasan and at the Seljuq court. 

67

  



 Their full names support the assumption that  ¶Abd al-Malik al-Ra¯dhaka¯nı¯ 

was a brother of Ah.mad. Regardless of whether Ah.mad or  ¶Abd al-Malik al-

Ra¯dhaka¯nı¯ was al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s fi rst teacher, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ likely made connections 

with the wider family of Niz.a¯m al-Mulk. Al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s early teacher in T.a¯bara¯n-

T.u¯s was probably far less humble than al-Subkı¯ assumed. He may have had 

family ties to the most important Sha¯fi  ¶ite scholars of Khorasan during his 

time, perhaps even to the great vizier. Niz.a¯m al-Mulk was a Sha¯fi  ¶ite jurist edu-

cated in T.u¯s, a district small enough for all Sha¯fi  ¶ite scholars to know one an-

other well. 

 ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r says that after al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s education under al-Ra¯dhaka¯nı¯, 

he went to study with al-Juwaynı¯ in Nishapur, the next major city, about fi fty 

kilometers south of T.u¯s and separated from it by a high mountain range. 

68

   He 


arrived there within a group of students from T.u¯s. Al-Subkı¯ and other later 

historians say that before coming to Nishapur, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ went to study with 

someone named Abu

¯ l-Nas.r al-Isma¯ ¶ı¯lı¯ in Gurga¯n, who is not mentioned in 

any other context. 

69

  



 Al-Subkı¯ also tells an anecdote on al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s early education that he traces 

back to As ¶ad al-Mayhanı¯ (d. 523/1129 or 527/1132–33), a prominent colleague 

and follower of al-Ghaza¯lı¯ who met with him during his later years in T.u¯s. 

Al-Subkı¯ mentions a second source for the anecdote, namely the vizier Niz.a¯m 

al-Mulk. This story has since gained some prominence—some scholars regard 

it as very signifi cant 

70

 —and its origin should be looked at closely: Al-Subkı¯’s 



2 8   a l - gh a z a

¯ l 1


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

two sources, As ¶ad al-Mayhanı¯ and Niz.a¯m al-Mulk, are probably just a single 

source. The historian al-Sam ¶a¯nı¯, whose family was close to As ¶ad al-Mayhanı¯, 

is the fi rst to report the story in a  tarjama   on  Niz.a¯m al-Mulk in his lost  Appendix 



to the History of Baghdad . We have his report preserved in a quotation from the 

historian of Aleppo Ibn al- ¶Adı¯m (d. 660/1262). There, al-Sam ¶a¯nı¯ says that in 

a stack of papers left by his father he found an anecdote about how Niz.a¯m al-

Mulk taught his nephew that making notes alone is not suffi cient learning. The 

nephew was Shiha¯b al-Isla¯m  ¶Abd al-Razza¯q (d. 525/1130), who later became a 

famous vizier and who during the time of this anecdote had just started study-

ing  fi qh : 

 [Niz.a¯m al-Mulk] told the story of how the Ima¯m Abu¯ H.a¯mid 

al-Ghaza¯lı¯, the Sufi  once traveled to Abu

¯ Nas.r al-Isma¯ ¶ı¯lı¯ in Gurga¯n 

and how he took notes from him (  ¶allaqa  anhu ). When he returned to 

T.u¯s, he was robbed on the road and his notes ( ta lı¯q ) were taken away 

from him. He said to the captain of the highway-robbers: “Return my 

notes ( ta lı¯



qa ) to me!” He asked: “What are these notes?” Al-Ghaza¯lı¯ 

answered: “A bag in which are the books of my studies.” [Al-Ghaza¯lı¯ 

said:] “And I told him my story. So he asked me: ‘How can it be that 

you have learned things that you get rid of when this bag is taken 

away from you? And now you remain without knowledge?’ Then he 

returned it to me. I said: ‘He was sent by God to alert me and guide 

me towards what is best for me. And when I entered T.u¯s, I turned 

my attention to this for three years until I had memorized all my 

notes in a way, would I have been robbed I would not have been 

deprived of my knowledge.’ ” 

71

  

 This anecdote next appears in Ibn al-Najja¯r’s  Appendix to the History of Baghdad , 



a book whose full version is also lost. 

72

  It features in the  tarjama   on  al-Ghaza¯lı¯, 



and from here, it spread widely within the biographical literature on this great 

scholar. Al-Subkı¯ represents just the latest stage. 

73

  

 There are several factors that make the authenticity of this anecdote doubt-



ful:  ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r never mentions al-Ghaza¯lı¯’s studies in Gurga¯n, the teacher is 

not correctly identifi ed, and the context of the report is anecdotal, pedagogical, 

and somewhat ahistorical. Most important, however, the nephew addressed by 

Niz.a¯m al-Mulk is only ten years younger than al-Ghaza¯lı¯ and studied himself 

with al-Juwaynı¯, indicating that al-Ghaza¯lı¯ could not yet have been a famous 

Sufi  when the story was allegedly told. Although the story’s age does give it 

some credibility—it goes back almost to the days of al-Ghaza¯lı¯ and contains 

verbatim quotes—the topical nature of the story makes its historicity dubious. 

It is just as possible that the real experience of a less prominent scholar could 

have circulated among people in T.u¯s or elsewhere and become connected to 

the famous al-Ghaza¯lı¯ simply because it fi t the impression that contemporaries 

had about his personality. 

 In his letter to Sanjar mentioned above, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ says that he started his 

deeper education at the age of thirteen. Using one of his favorite metaphors to 



 

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 9

compare knowledge with deep and dangerous water, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ writes about 



himself that since that age, “he had been diving into the sea of religious sci-

ences.” 


74

  This quotation may well refer to the beginning of his studies with 

al-Ra¯dhaka¯nı¯ in T.u¯s, which would place it at 461/1069. A few years later he 

would arrive in al-Juwaynı¯’s class in Nishapur. His famous student-colleague 

al-Kiya¯ 7 al-Harra¯sı¯ (d. 504/1110), who was born in 450/1158, two or three years 

after al-Ghaza¯lı¯, entered al-Juwaynı¯’s seminar in 468/1075–76 at the age of 

seventeen. 

 In his autobiography, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ briefl y comments on the beginnings of 

his intellectual life. “The thirst for understanding the essense of things was 

my persistent habit from my early years and the prime of my life.” This yearn-

ing, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ says, was not a matter of choosing but a personal instinct and a 

natural disposition ( gharı¯



za wa-fi t.ra ) that God had given him. This disposition 

allowed him to scrutinize the intellectual environment he grew up with and to 

thow off “the bounds of emulating others” ( ra¯bit.at al-taqlı¯d ). He broke with the 

convictions he inherited, he says, when he was still a boy (  ¶ahd sinn al-s.iba¯ ). 

75

  

Later,  ¶Abd al-Gha¯fi r  al-Fa¯risı¯ would write that the young al-Ghaza¯li he had 



known had shown some “fi lthy strains” ( za a¯rra ) in his character. He was full of 

haughtiness and looked down at people 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.” 

76

  

 Al-Juwaynı¯ was the most outstanding Muslim scholar of his time, an au-



thority in both Muslim law (   fi qh ) and theology. Around 455/1063, only fi ve 

years before al-Ghaza¯lı¯ started studying with him, he had returned from his 

exile at Mecca and Medina. Ten years prior, in 445/1053, he had fl ed  from 

Khorasan to escape the persecution of Ash ¶arites under the newly ascended 

Seljuqs and their sultan, Toghril-Bey (reg. 432/1040–455/1063). 

77

  After Toghril -



Bey’s death and Niz.a¯m al-Mulk’s ascension to the vizierate of the Seljuq Em-

pire in 455/1063, this policy was reversed. Niz.a¯m al-Mulk was sympathetic 

to Ash ¶arism, and he actively supported this school. 

78

  Marw, Baghdad, Herat, 



and Nishapur saw the founding of Niz.a¯miyya madrasas, institutions open to 

the theological tradition of al-Ash ¶arı¯ (d. 324/935–36). The main chair at the 

Niz.a¯miyya madrasa in Nishapur was offered to al-Juwaynı¯. 

 Al-Juwaynı¯’s teaching activity at the Niz.a¯miyya in Nishapur proved a 

turning point in the history of Ash ¶arite theology. Although generations of 

Ash ¶arites—including al-Ash ¶arı¯, the school’s founder—had understood the tra-

dition of Greek philosophy to pose a signifi cant challenge to the epistemologi-

cal edifi ce of Muslim theology, none of al-Juwaynı¯’s predecessors had seriously 

studied the works of this school of thought. By the time of the mid-fi fth/eleventh 

century, the philosophical tradition in Islam had evolved from its foundational 

texts—translations of Aristotle and their commentaries—to being dominated 

by the works of the Muslim philosopher Avicenna (Ibn Sı¯na¯, d. 428/1037). 

Al-Juwaynı¯ was the fi rst Muslim theologian who seriously studied Avicenna’s 

books. On the one hand, al-Juwaynı¯ fully realized the methodological chal-

lenge of the Aristotelian methods of demonstration ( apodeixis / burha¯n ) as used 

by Avicenna. The Muslim philosophers (   fala¯sifa ) claimed, for instance, that 



3 0   a l - gh a z a

¯ l 1


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

through a chain of conclusive arguments, one can prove demonstrably that the 

world is pre-eternal ( qadı¯

m ), and one can thus disprove the claim of the theolo-

gians that the world is created in time ( h.a¯dith ). On the other hand, al-Juwaynı¯ 

also understood that the works of Avicenna and other  fala¯sifa   contained  solu-

tions to many theological problems the Ash ¶arite school had wrestled with for 

centuries. 

 There can be little doubt that al-Ghaza¯li started to read philosophical lit-

erature many years before he published books about it. His preoccupation 

with this literature likely began in the seminary of al-Juwaynı¯, 

79

  where read-



ing philosophical literature may have been part of the higher curriculum. The 

works of other scholars with a shared education reveal a detailed familiarity 

with the arguments of Aristotle and his Muslim followers. 

80

   Al-Juwaynı¯ him-



self had devoted much effort to a proper study and refutation of the  fala¯sifa ’s 

arguments about the eternity of the world. 

81

  Despite his disagreements, he was 



himself infl uenced by Avicenna’s distinction of being in (1) the being that is 

necessary by virtue of itself ( wa¯jib al-wuju



¯d  ) and (2) the beings that are only 

contingent by themselves ( mumkin al-wuju


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