Al-Ghazali, his full name being Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali, was an important and dominant figure among philosophers, theologians, jurists, and mystics in the Sunni Islam religion. Historians put his birth at 1058 or 1059 in the city of Tabaran-Tus; fifteen miles north of modern day Meshed in north eastern Iran. However his personal letters and autobiography state that his birth was around 1055 or 1056 (Griffel 2009, 23–25). Despite this clerical difference, Al-Ghazali was active in a period when Sunni theology had entered a time of passionate disputes among the Shiite Ismalite theology, as well as the Arabic tradition of falsafa.
While Al-Ghazali was still young his father had passed away, despite this he began his initial study in Tabaran-Tus, his hometown, alongside his brother Ahmad. His brother Ahmad would later become a Sufi scholar and popular preacher. Al-Ghazali however, would continue his education with an influential theologian Al-Juwayni, whose focus was Asharite theology, at the Nizamiyya Madrasa located in Nishapur (Al-Ghazali, c.1108 1980). While studying there he was able to gain contact with the court of Grand-Seljuq Sultan Malikshah, as well as grand-vizier Nizam al-Mulk. This point of contact allowed Al-Ghazali to be appointed as a professor to the coveted Nizamiyya Madrasa in Baghdad in 1091 by Nizam al-Mulk. This university is said to be the most prominent during the golden age of Muslim History. Alongside this appointment he would become the close with the caliphal court in Baghdad, also being a confidante of the Seljuq
Sultan. Though he became quite influential in the position, Al-Ghazali unexpectedly resigned his posts in Baghdad in 1095; leaving the city and becoming a wandering ascetic...
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Works Cited
Al-Ghazali (c.1108) al-Munqidh min al-dalal (The Deliverer from Error), ed. J. Saliba and K. Ayyad, Damascus: Maktab al-Nashr al-'Arabi, 1934; trans. W.M. Watt, The Faith and Practice of al-Ghazali, London: Allen & Unwin, 1953; trans. R.J. McCarthy, Freedom and Fulfillment: An Annotated Translation of al-Ghazali's al-Munqidh min al-Dalal and Other Relevant Works of al-Ghazali, Boston, MA: Twayne, 1980.
Gardner, W. R. W. Al-ghazali. Piscataway: Gorgias, 2010. Print.
Ghazzālī, and Richard Joseph. McCarthy. Al-Ghazālī's Path to Sufism and His Deliverance from Error: An Annotated Translation of Al-Munqidh Min Al-dal⁻al. Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 2000. Print.
Griffel, Frank. Al-Ghazālī's Philosophical Theology. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.
Rippin, Andrew. Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2012. Print.
the Accuracy of the Chronicle of Al-Jabarti." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. No. 2 (1970): 283-294. http://www.jstor.org/stable/613005 (accessed November 30, 2013).
Ibn Munqidh, Usama. "From Memoirs." McNeill, William and Marilyn Robinson Waldman. The Islamic World. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1973. 184-206.
Ansary, Tamim. Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes. New York: PublicAffairs, 2009.
In the history of concepts, there is no concern that Al-Ghazali’s figure emerges as one of the best Western thinkers. Considered as the prominent Sunni theologian that ever lived, Al-Ghazali’s polemic againstNeoplatonic thinkers, mainly Ibn Sina, dealt a fatal rage to philosophy within Islamic world. Written following his period of private study of philosophy, and completed in 1094 CE, Tahafut al-Falasifa carried the purpose of pursuing the analysis of reason that inspired his stint of cynicism, and was attempting to illustrate that reason is not self-reliant in the sphere of metaphysics and is incapable out of itself to construct an absolute world-view. Whereas, as Goldziher (1981) explains, Al-Ghazali uniquely held certain beliefs which he refuted in Tahafut, he wanted to demonstrate that reason on its own cannot establish that the world has the creator, two gods are unfeasible, God is not an entity or a body, and that he understand both himself and others, that the spirit is a self-resilient body. This paper will analyze Al-Ghazali’s argument on the eternity of the world, as found in his first areas of debate with philosophers and evaluated against Ibn Rushd’s answers.
He was born in the town of Mecca, which at the time, followed mostly a polytheistic religion (Haleem x). At the young age of six years old Muhammad’s mom passed. Orphaned at this age and his grandfather took care of him till he died as well, two years later. Finally, at the age of eight years old, his uncle took guardianship of Muhammad. Muhammad, being orphaned, had no one to educate him, so he lived an illiterate but very knowledgeable lifestyle (Gabriel 55). Muhammad was employed as a trader by a wealthy and well-respected widow named Khadija. He married Khadija and did not remarry until after her death (Haleem x). Muhammad died at the age of sixty-two in 632ce (Haleem xiii). He was buried where he died (Gabriel
Murata, Sachiko. "Sufi Teachings in Neo-Confucian Islam." Indiana University. N.p., 25 Apr. 2005. Web. 3 Nov. 2013. .
The Islamic tradition, as reflected in Naguib Mahfouz’s Zaabalawi, has over the course of history had an incredible impact on Arab culture. In Mahfouz’s time, Islamic practices combined with their political relevance proved a source of both great power and woe in Middle Eastern countries. As alluded to in Zaabalawi, Mahfouz asserts the fact that not all Muslims attain religious fulfillment through this common tradition, and other methods outside the scope of Islam may be necessary in true spiritual understanding.
Al Ghazali a significant person in Islam has helped shape Islam to be what it is today - a living religious tradition for the lives of its adherents. His contribution to Islam though his theories, knowledge and works have left a positive impact upon the Islamic world that continues into the present. An everlasting impact upon the faith, Muslims and the expansion of Islam to be one of the most popular religious traditions in the present world for the lives of its adherents is seen as Al Ghazali’s
Averroës, and Simon Van Den Bergh. Averroes' Tahafut Al-tahafut: (The Incoherence of the Incoherence). London: Trustees of the "E.J.W. Gibb Memorial", 1978. Print.
Jaoudi, Maria. Christian and Islamic spirituality: sharing a journey. Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1993. Print.
In Persian, Razi means "from the city of Rayy, an ancient town in the south of the Caspian Sea, situated near Tehran, Iran. In this city he accomplished most of his work. In his early life he could have been a jeweler, a money-changer but more likely a lute-player who changed his interest in music to alchemy. At the age of forty he stopped his study of alchemy because its experiments caused an eye-disease, obliging him to search for physicians and medicine to cure it. This was the reason why he began his medical studies. His teacher was 'Ali ibn Rabban al-Tabari, a physician and philosopher born in Merv about 192 (Wikipedia, 2006). Al-Razi studied medicine and probably also philosophy with ibn Rabban al-Tabari. Therefore his interest in spiritual philosophy can be traced to this master, whose father was a Rabbinist versed in the Scriptures. Al-Razi took up the study of medicine after his first visit to Baghdad, when he was at least 30 years old, under the well-known physician Ali ibn Sahl. He showed such a skill in the subject that he quickly surpassed his master, and wrote no fewer than a hundred medical books. He also composed 33 treatises on natural science, mathematics and astronomy.
Al Ghazali, Zainab. Return of the Pharaoh: Memoir in Nasir’s Prison. The Islamic Foundation, 2006. Pp. vii, 188.
G. Esposito, John L (2002) Islam; What Everyone Should Know. New York. Oxford University Press Inc.
In addition to this, al-Kindi adopted a naturalistic view of the prophetic visions. He argued that through the power of "imagination" as it was conceived in Aristotelian philosophy, certain "pure" and well prepared souls were able to receive information about future events. Significantly, he does not attribute such visions or dreams to the revelation of God, but instead explains that imagination enables human beings capture the "form" of something without perceiving the physical entity to which it refers. Therefore, this would seem to imply that anyone who has purified himself would be able to receive such visions. It is precisely this idea, among other naturalistic explanations of prophetic miracles, which Algazel attacks in The Incoherence of the Philosophers.
During Muhammad’s time, he united many areas in Arabia and was able to establish a religious communi...