A detailed discussion of al-Ghazali’s relationship with philosophy and science will follow. Indeed, few notice that he was critical of Greek metaphysics and its spread in an “Islamic” dress at the hands of reputed Muslim philosophers such as Ibn Sina and Al-Farabi. Almost all scholars tend to generalize and say that al-Ghazali gave a coup de grace to philosophy in this book. His critique of philosophy followed, in a book he called Tahafut Al-Falasifah (The Incoherence of the Philosophers). I, p.7)ĭuring this period, Imam al-Ghazali RA studied philosophy on his own and wrote Maqasid al-Falasifah (The Aims of the Philosophers) and appeared as if he was one of them. 196-197) This position won him prestige, wealth and respect that even princes, kings and viziers could not match. He lectured there between 484 AH / 1091 CE and 488 AH / 1095 CE. Imam al-Ghazali RA won the respect of other scholars and was assigned by Nizam Al-Mulk to be the teacher at the Nizamiyyah of Baghdad. The Camp was reputed as a meeting place for scholars who debated in the Islamic sciences. This may have been the reason for the presence of some unsound traditions in his works, such as the famous Ihya’ Ulum al-Din (The Revival of the Islamic Sciences).Īfter the death of Al-Juwaini, al-Ghazali went to the Camp (Al-Mu`askar) of vizier Nizam Al-Mulk who founded the Nizamiyyah schools. 195-196) During this period Imam al-Ghazali RA excelled in all the Islamic sciences with the exception of the science of the Hadith he confessed this in the last paragraph of his work Qanun al-Ta’wil (The Law of Metaphorical Exegesis). He returned to Tus for three years only to leave afterwards for Nishapur, where he joined the Nizamiyyah school and studied under Imam Al-Haramayn Al-Juwaini for eight years until the death of his teacher in 478 AH / 1085 CE. His next station was Jurjan where he wrote Al-Ta`liqah from the lectures of Abu Al-Qasim Al-Isma`ili Al-Jurjani. Imam Al-Ghazali RA began studying at Tus where his teacher was Ahmad Al- Radhakani. VI, p.195), schools used to provide room, board and stipend. When the money was finished, the Sufi asked them to join a school so that they might subsist. He asked him to spend whatever little money he left behind, to teach them reading and writing. 191-193) Although he was born in Tus, a Persian, non-Arabic land, Al-Ghazali wrote the overwhelming majority of his works in Arabic, the lingua franca of his world.īefore his death, al-Ghazali’s father entrusted him and his brother Ahmad to a Sufi friend. (al-Subki, Tabaqat al-Shafi`iyyah al-Kubra, vol.
His father was a wool spinner (Ghazzal) and thus, relative to this profession, al-Ghazali acquired this name. He bore the title of respect Hujjat al-Islam (Proof of Islam) for the role he played in defending Islam against the trends of thought that existed at the time. He was born in 450/1058 in Tus, Khurasan near Meshhad in present-day Iran.
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Imam Al-Ghazali RA full name is Muhammad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Ahmad al-Tusi. As a result, the fetters of servile conformism fell away from me, and inherited beliefs lost their hold on me, when I was quite young.” It was an instinctive, natural disposition placed in my makeup by Allah Most High, not something due to my own choosing and contriving. “The thirst for grasping the real meaning of things was indeed my habit and want from my early years and in the prime of my life. In the introduction to his autobiographical work Deliverance from Error (Al-Munqidh min al-Dalal, p.
The tens of books that he left behind were the result of an inquisitive mind that began the quest for knowledge at a very early stage. His exceptional life and works continue to be indispensable in the study of jurisprudence, theology, philosophy and mysticism. Imam Muhammad al-Ghazali RA remains one of the most celebrated scholars in the history of Islamic thought. Imam Ghazali RA – URS 14th Jumada al-Thani