ON-GOING RESEARCH

 

A biography of Al-Ghazali and Is Thomism The Missing Link? – a comparative study of Al-Ghazali and St. Thomas Aquinas

Although my work for the biography will have a similar structure as the dissertation, and with many of its arguments, I shall predominantly present new material to show Ghazali’s influence in the current era.  Living now in an era darkened by the shadow of the events of September 11 and the Second Gulf War, Ghazali’s influence is even more pertinent to all who exercise power - for good or evil - in our globalised world.  .   

Work to date:

  1. I am still receiving kind and encouraging e-mails many people. But I regret that I cannot reply to questions which necessitate me researching for the answers.  To get polish up my writing I have written both fiction and non-fiction short stories, out on-line my sermons plus contributions from like-minded friends.  The latter may be found on my ‘Living Water’ Web Site at Living Water.

 

  1. Ghazali wrote, ‘(that when) I examined my knowledge, I found that none of it was certain except matters of sense perception and necessary truths.  It further occurred to me, however, that my previous trusts in sense perception and necessary truths was perhaps no better founded than my previous trust in propositions accepted from parents and teachers’.  This was very much the case when I studied under two excellent academics, plus the support of others, who guided me to use my own sense perception to obtain necessary truths from data found in books and on the Internet. Now I see my future work for Is Thomism The Missing Link?  in this way:

·         To learn more about Ghazali’s early life and the culture, and influences, in which he worked.  Ghazali’s childhood is also often glossed over by other writers from lack of evidence.  Additionally I am fascinated by the Seljug Empire and wish to study more about its history, especially why it saw in the young Ghazali a great intellect for the benefit of the University of Baghdad.

·         To reconsider the suggested reasons for Ghazali’s withdraw into the life of a wandering Sufi - especially after a careful re-reading of Ihya.  There is a school of thought Ghazali had become increasingly sceptical about his teaching at the University.  Another school advances that he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.  I wish to investigate if there was a third reason for Ghazali abandoning a brilliant career as a university professor.   

·         To greatly enlarge on Ghazali in the contemporary era.  I am far from happy with the last chapter of my dissertation and feel that it needs greater depth and vision.  For a start no Muslim has challenged any of my claims for the possibility of a global Ummah enhanced by the communication revolution within the last twenty years, such as satellite television and the Internet.  If anything my subsequent reading of orthodox Sunni belief is that the Ummah, by its very nature, has always been thought of within Islam as global.

 

 

31 January 2007

 

The Winchester Al-Ghazali Web Site was originally published as ‘Peter Greenland’s Al-Ghazali Web Site’

on BT Internet in 1999