TEXTS ONLINE
We have tried to separate these from Biographical
Sites but there is still a certain amount of overlap. Also online sales sites are also featured
because titles point to different elements in Ghazali’s life and influence.
http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/344ghaz.html Paul Halsall, September 1998 - Abu Hamid
al-Ghazali
Excerpts from the Original
Electronic Text at the web site of the Internet Medieval Sourcebook.
Acknowleged source – Paul
Halsall and listed at Google ® (downloaded
2/3 May 2002)
http://www.algonet.se/~pmanzoor/MNews-Ghazali.htm
- Online source for AL-Ghazali: The
Incoherence of the Philosophers. Tr. By Michael E. Marmura. Brigham
University Press, Provo, Utah, 1997. Pp. 260. ISBN 0-8425-23510. also comparison with Niche of Lights:
There is little doubt that The Incoherence of Philosophers is a
very sophisticated piece of polemics, a highly original and stimulating text
occupying the borderland of philosophy and theology that constituted the most
cogent intellectual argument of the monotheistic faith in medieval times. Not
surprisingly, it was a source of inspiration even for the protagonists of other
Abarahamic traditions. The principal claim of Maimonides’ great apology for
Judaism, The Guide of the Perplexed,
that the God of religious faith possesses a free will in the exercise of which
He is not bound to act in accordance with the order of nature, and the God of
Aristotelian philosophers, who is hamstrung by the immutability of this order,
‘owes’, according to Shlomo Pines, Maimonides’ modern translator, ‘a great deal
to Al-Ghazali.’ Of course, there’s no denying that Al-Ghazali’s argument –
which is certainly not to be construed as an anti-philosophy - inhabits the
mental universe of Aristotelian logic and syllogism. And yet, he is also
surprisingly ‘modern’ in his insight that certain claims of First philosophy
are nothing but the dogmatic tenets of an unsubstantiated and unverifiable
‘cosmology’, a non-philosophical attempt to impart meaning to the human
situation from the standpoint of an ‘All’, the ever-existing and eternal
‘world’. Thus, there is every reason to agree with the editor of this series
that Al-Ghazali’s seminal text needs to be dusted off the medieval shelf and
brought to the debating hall of modernity. Following the Ghazalian insights, it
would appear that even attempts by modern physics to generate a cosmology, to
deliver an authoritative account of all by a theory of the origin, are spurious
and unscientific. The putative ‘cosmology’ of physics, whatever its claims to
analogical reasoning, is nothing but an ideology!
Mamura’s translation is
eminently lucid and readable. If one may have any quibble with it all, it would
be about its excessive transparency which suggests far too generous an empathy
with modern consciousness! For instance,
al-dahriyya, is rendered, in conformity with the usage adopted by the earlier
translator Van Den Bergh, as ‘the materialists.’ While this choice may be
conceptually and philosophically unimpeachable, the literal rendering of the
term would be ‘the temporalists’. The very canny adaptation by Muslim writers
of this term would seen to suggest, however that the duality of ‘spirit’ and
‘matter’ is conceived by them as the antithesis of ‘time’ and ‘transcendence’.
Islamic consciousness does not, accordingly, devalues ‘matter’ but is opposed
to the nihilistic pretensions of the temporalists who, like the postmodern
relativists, find no values beyond and outside of time and history. Uncannily,
the Islamic labeling of nihilism as ‘temporalism’ also strikes at the heart of
philosophical and metaphysical variety of modern secularism, which is
quintessentially historicist and immanentist. Be that as it may, Mamura has
done a great service not only to the scholarly community but also to all lovers
of Ghazali and the would-be critics of Enlightenment reason. Not only is his
translation far more eloquent and gratifying, his commentary also lacks the
gratuitous polemics and supercilious Eurocentism of Orientalist precursors,
just as the presence of the parallel Arabic text is a real boon that for many
readers is likely to provide a doorway to the intricacies and beauties of
classical Arabic itself.
The Niche of Light is a text of a different complexion
and character altogether. It forms a mystical reflection and esoteric
commentary on the celebrated Qur’anic Light Verse (Ayat al-Nur; 24:35), and the hadith, thematically related to this,
that is known as the ‘Veils Hadith’. Ghazali explains their meaning, according
to the translator, ‘by establishing a metaphysics of light - which includes an
ontology and an epistemology- and interrelated cosmological and psychological
schemes based upon this metaphysics.’ Thus, contrary to his strictures on the
axiomatic claims of philosophy, which enunciate a cosmology, as it were,
gratuitously and insidiously, Ghazali here proffers a cosmology and a worldview
– ‘a way of giving meaning to reality though presenting an interrelated cosmology
and psychology’ – that derives from the Qur’anic revelation. This brief tract
on the metaphysics of light, full of spiritual beauty and mystical splendour,
is regarded as a gem of Sufi literature and as such has elicited much
traditional reflection and modern commentary. By his competent scholarship and
labour of love, Buchman has thus put everyone, scholars and truth-seekers
alike, in his gratitude. Nor may one forget that lovers of Sufism would be
particularly delighted at the appearance of this bi-lingual edition of such a
key text of the Islamic mysticism.
These magnificent texts
reflect the two, ostensibly opposite, sides of Al-Ghazli’s personality. In one,
he refutes - on the ground of reason itself - the claim of reason to provide an
account of ‘everything that is’; in the other he himself discovers, from the
light of the Revelation, such a source of ultimate meaning and reality. If
these disclose tensions and inconsistencies, they do so within a splendidly
critical and creative human soul.
Acknowleged source – S Parvez Manzoor and
listed at Google ® (downloaded 2/3 May
2002)
www.mala.bc.ca/~mcneil/cit/citlcghazzali.htm
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058-1128) : Library of Congress Citations
... Rare and Hard-to-Find
Books from Alibris Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058-1128) : Library
of Congress Citations
www.mala.bc.ca/~mcneil/cit/citlcghazzali.htm - 30k - Cached - Similar pages
[ More results from www.mala.bc.ca
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Acknowleged source –
listed at Google ® (downloaded 2/3 May 2002)
http://muslim-canada.org/sufi/ghacontents.html
Online Al-Ghazali : The Alchemy of
Happiness (Kimiya as-Sa’adub)
–translated by Claud Field. Complete
text which is thought of many scholars as the abridged version of Ihya.
Acknowleged source – listed at
Google ® (downloaded 2/3 May 2002)
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/
Islamic Philosophy Online Current Research and Events:
Keep up with current research in Islamic
Philosophy. Sign up for our Mailing list and we'll keep you updated with upcoming events as well as when the site is
updated. Featured Articles: Al-Ghazali's
Crisis: a Re-evaluation of writings on his crisis. M. Hozien.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/alghazali.html
Medieval Sourcebook: Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058-1111 CE):
The Remembrance of Death and the Afterlife , from The Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya `ulum al-din)
Acknowleged source –listed at Google ® (downloaded 2/3 May 2002)
http://www.epistemelinks.com/Main/Philosophers.asp?PhilCode=Algh
Philosophers: Main Page
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The Winchester
Al-Ghazali Site was originally published as ‘Peter Greenland’s Web Site’
on BT
Internet in 1999