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¯
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
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
This page intentionally left blank 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
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
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
¯ 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
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, Download 4.03 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
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