Introduction to
AL-GHAZĀLĪ
CVSP 205
By Maher Jarrar
© 2015
Reality’s
ultimate principle is One God who is
Goodness
This
He
God created the word out of nothing (= ex nihilo)
is:
✓ Omnipotent (= All-powerful)
✓ Omniscient (= All-knowledgeable)
✓ Omnipresent (= present everywhere)
MONOTHEISM
The term is used to describe the set of experiences,
beliefs and values that affect the way an individual
and/or community perceives reality.

A pattern or a model of thought = A theoretical
framework.

An entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques
shared by the members of a given community.

A generally accepted model for making sense of
phenomena in a given discipline at a particular time.
PARADIGM
◊ A paradigm Refers to the conceptual frameworks
and/or worldviews of a certain culture at a certain time
of history.
◊ The set of values or concepts that represent an
accepted way of doing things within an organization or
community.
A cultural paradigm might overreach
many cultures.
PARADIGM II
° A great Islamic Jurist
‫ فقيه‬, theologian ‫متلكم‬
, and mystic
‫متصوف‬.
° Born in Tūs (Northern Iran).
° Studies in Tūs, Jurjān, and Nīshapūr.
° 1091, appointed for the Chair of Law at the Nizāmiyya
madrasa of Baghdād.
° 1095-1100, serious spiritual crisis upon which he left
Baghdad, giving up his position and renouncing the world.
Al-Ghazālī (1058 – 1111)
• Stayed in Syria and Palestine, wandering and
meditating for about two years which he closed by
performing the pilgrimage to Mecca.
• 1100 he went back to Tūs where he lived in seclusion
dedicated his time to sūfī practices and writing. He also
founded a sūfī khāngāh (retreat centre and madrasa) and
a mosque and taught a number of select novices.
• 1105 he resumed his position at the Nizāmiyyah College
at Nīshapūr.
• 1111 he dies in Tūs. Al-Ghazālī is the author of some 84
books.
Later Life


Skeptics of late antiquity, especially the school which flourished
during the third century AD regard sense experience to be the
criterion of truth about external realities. Their main concern is that
the senses sometimes deceive us.
al-Ghazālī believes that perception through the senses and through
rational data is insufficient to grasp the truth. Things are not always
what they seem to be. Illusions and hallucinations occur in our
perception.
Is there any reason at all to trust the senses?
Deliverance from Error
‫املنقذ من الضالل‬
Higher Perception
al-Ghazālī denies any necessary connection between cause and
effect; as a consequence of his conception of divine omnipotence
he believes that, “God is able to produce any effect without any
intermediate cause at all.”
→
There is a state beyond reason which can only be directly
and innerly experienced ‫ ذوق‬it is the effect of a light which God
cast into the breast, and that light is the key to most knowledge.
→ “Beyond the stage of intellect there is another
stage, where in an eye is opened, by which man
sees the hidden.”
→
“Perhaps, this life is only a state of dream; for
the Prophet said, ‘men are asleep: then after they
die they awake!’ So perhaps this present life is a
sleep compared to the afterlife.”
Higher Perception II
Continuous training, scrupulous observance of
one’s undertakings and doings, with obedience
and abstinence
‫ورع‬
piety and humility ‫تقوى‬. A
process of self examination, of training the self;
it is based on fear ‫ خوف‬and hope ‫ رجاء‬.
Practice
- Are there limits for scientific knowledge?
- Are the material and dimensional features of the
bodies separable from the bodies?
- What is skeptic epistemology? Can we gain data
beyond the world of experience?
- How ca we define faith? And reason?
Questiones
Most of their errors are found in the metaphysical sciences
‫الالهيات‬where they were opposed to the belief of all Muslims in
three specific points in which they should be taxed with
unbelief ‫ جيب تكفريمه‬.
Attack against the philosophers
These are those who argue that:
1) That human’s bodies will not be assembled on the Day of
Judgment, but only disembodied spirits will be rewarded
and punished (‫)ان ا ألجساد ال حُترش وامنا ا ألرواح اجملردة‬.
2) That God, Most High, knows only the universals and not
the particulars.
3) Their maintaining the eternity of the world, past and
future (‫) قوهلم ِب ِقدَ م العامل و أأزليته‬, where as Muslims believe in
the creation of the world ex nihilo (out of nothing) and
that it will cease to be on the Day of Judgment.
Types of philosophers
 What
the philosophers are arguing is the fact
that God’s knowledge is universal, i.e.
contrary to our human knowledge is not
subject to the limitations of time and place.
The particulars and accidental qualities
which set the individual apart from other
individuals are only objects of sense
experience.
Attack II
If a man was born blind and has never been told of shapes or
colors, then one day you suddenly blurt out:
“Hey guess what! There are shapes and colors and stuff that
you can’t perceive but I can!”
The blind man will neither understand them nor
acknowledge their existence. He does not have access to that
stage of sight. This is the essence of IGNORANCE!
Blindness & Ignorance
Therefore there is such thing as prophecy,
and to deny its existence is ignorance since
you did not reach that stage. But Sufis CAN
with fruitional experience. Because that’s
just how they roll.
Prophecy
The Body has remedies to fix. The heart has
remedies as well.
→ Ignorance of God is the heart’s deadly poison.
Obedience to God is the heart’s healing remedy.
Remedy
Sufis uniquely
follow the way of
God! Their mode of
life is best of all,
and their ethic is
purest!


Asceticism is an act of renunciation (rejection; abandonment) of
the world and its goods.
It entails a gradual and at the same time severe training of the
body and the carnal soul in order to rein over desires. Through
mortification (‫ ;)إمـاتَـة‬the soul is punished and chastised for its
desires and its excesses in an endeavor to raise oneself above the
animal drives.
Zuhd or Asceticism
Zuhd aims at:
ˑ The suppression of the vital instincts.
ˑ The struggle against the animal soul and its lust and
all the egoistic impulses.
ˑ And generally against all things which one suspects
will give any kind of pleasure to the soul.
ZUHD

This is achieved through
ˑ Detachment from earthly things.
ˑ Continuous fasting and praying.
ˑ Dhikr ‫ ّاذلكر‬reading and reciting the Qur’ān and meditating its meanings.
ˑ In face of the ephemeral and deceptive external world, a higher inner
world is constructed which oriented toward piety and righteousness.
ˑ This plan cannot be achieved without a deep trust in God's providence,
ّ
i.e., tawakkul ‫التوك‬
The Way
The Carnal Soull
‫النـفس‬
Or the carnal soul ‫ النـفس‬is considered as the seat of the vital drives and is
therefore the real enemy, the constant irritation and hindrance to becoming
detached from the earthly world. It is the very place where egotistical
impulses and vital drives find their satisfaction.
Man has animal drives in common with the beasts. Consequently the carnal
soul is compared with the beasts, especially with a lustful, dirty dog.
This lustful and insatiable dog needs to be locked up, otherwise it causes
damage.
The vital soul does not want to give up its pleasures and its longings to
satisfy its desires; accordingly zuhhād or ascetics attempt to train it
systematically by means of control and self- examination.