AL-GHAZALI & THE CONTEMPORARY AGE
Preface
(Copyright © 2000 – 2006 P.A.W. Greenland 2000)
‘The Spirituality
of Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (1058-1111CE).
An examination of al-Ghazali’s
writing and teaching and its relevance for the Islamic Community in the
contemporary world’.
Abu Hamid
Al-Ghazali (1058-1111 CE [1]) is regarded by scholars
as one of the Islam’s
intellectual giants because of the range of his intellectual thoughts and
reasoning. Texts dealing with Muslim theology, ethics, apologetics, and
mysticism nearly always refer to his life and work. Accordingly, taking Ghazali as a seminal figure for a master’s dissertation, has
allowed me both to consider the many views on his influence and to appreciate
the difficulties of placing him within Islamic scholarship. Although I have
compared Ghazali with other Islamic intellectuals,
such the Sufi master Maulana Rumi
and with theologians from other faiths including St. Thomas Aquinas (d.1274
CE), this dissertation aims to offer an analysis of the influence of Ghazali both in his own age and the contemporary era..
I have used as a thematic
base: mysteries not apprehended by the intellect; ‘Contracts of the Heart’ (Ukhuwwa
[2]), ethics, and the place of the Muslim faith community (ummah)
at the end of the twentieth century. Underpinning these themes is an
examination of Ghazali’s
personal spirituality within his own age and his teaching, especially through Ghazali’s
magnum opus, The Revival of The Religious
Sciences (Ihya ulum
al-din [3]).
A translation of Ihya was first published in English during the
sixteenth century and it has continued to be translated, and re-translated,
into German, French, and Dutch and other modern languages. One of the finest
translations in English are four books published within the last ten years by
The Cambridge based Islamic Texts Society (ITS). Additionally a translation of
all forty books of Ihya was published in 1971
by the Sind Sagar Academy
of Lahore. Its scholarship is not of the same high standard as the ITS Ihya. The Islamic Foundation (Leicester) has also
published two good quality extracts of the magnum opus one of which – Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship – is used as a primary text in Chapter Three. Additionally the Sufi
Trust (
Linking Ghazali through Ihya with
the contemporary age, Edwin Calvery’s Worship in Islam: being a translation,
with Commentary … of al-Ghazali’s Book of the Ihya on the worship is not important so much because it is a further English
translation of Ihya, but because, through his
text, Calvery shows a further reason for the current
interest in Ghazali. This is the appeal to Western
classical scholars, which began at the end of the nineteenth century. Other
writers including Duncan B. Macdonald with his influential article in 1899, ‘The Life of al-Ghazzali with Especial
Reference to His Religious Experiences and Opinions’ (4), gave a new meaning and interest for
learning about medieval Islam.
Further R.J. McCarthy, Arend Van Leeuwen, and Keith Ward
feel that Ghazali’s
thoughts were reflected in the opinions of the Jewish intellectual Maimonides (twelfth century CE) and St. Thomas Aquinas
(1225-1274 CE), both of whom still exert a tremendous influence on Judaism and
Christianity. McCarthy also drew similarities between Ghazali’s Munqidh
and St. Augustine’s
Confessions because of the public acknowledgement in both texts for a
love of self-seeking and self-glorification.
Apart from the influence
of Ihya, Ghazali’s theory of Ukhuwwa is discussed within the context of modern
ethics and current issues, especially lifestyle choices for Muslims living in
the West, for whom it is argued there can be only one choice; obedience and
submission (Islam) to the Sunna and Shari’a.
From Ghazali’s late twenties, as a
prominent jurist in the Shari’a, he was able to
relate by the use of Qur’anic
exegesis human action both as the will of God and for submission to Him. During
Ghazali’s
ten year lapse from scholasticism into scepticism and finally as a wandering
Sufi he increased his understanding of Islam against the purely Neoplatonic idea of a ‘Prime Mover’ (Primus Mobile) which had made Creation but without any
apparent reason. In the esoteric tract Mishkat,
Ghazali showed Primus Mobile to be the
creative force of the Universe but with God existing as an independent entity
and being too an enormous concept for human understanding. Ghazali
instead argued the orthodox Islamic viewpoint for the Muslim lifestyle choice
that God exists because God is God. He therefore turned Greek Rationalism on
its head because in Neoplatonism Rationalism has no
Reason. Ghazali argued that Islamic Reason, or the
existence of a God to be praised and obeyed, exists without Rationalism.
Further Ghazali was able to juxtapose the Aristotelian theory of
knowledge with the true or realisable knowledge of the Sufis in both philosophy
and religion because he ‘adopted (its) techniques (to)
diminish the negative influences of Aristotelianism
and excessive rationalism (5)’.
Many Muslim philosophers
had held that the universe was finite in space but infinite in time (6)’. Ghazali though argued that an infinite time was related to
an infinite space. His exciting thesis about time and space has, it is
submitted, placed Ghazali on the same intellectual
level as Einstein and the Theory of Relativity in addition to Ghazali also anticipating the philosophical views of Hume
and Descartes.
Peter Greenland
Notes
(The Winchester Al-Ghazali Site was originally called ‘Peter
Greenland’s Web Site’ published
on BT
Internet in 1999)