Philosophical discourse of al-Gauzily and Ibn Rushdie within Islam
Despite their denial of the philosophy, they did not deny the reason, on the contrary they
highly esteem it and could find the bases form Quran for that, because in the scripture
reasoning, thinking, understanding were offered through the reason. Quran teachings were
based on the omnipotence of the God and does not doubt its truthiness, but nevertheless
they tried to prove it through the rational way. In traditional Islam theologians did not
approve the philosophy, but they esteemed the rational way thinking. But, theologians did
not accept the rational method that offered philosophy and there are some reasons for that:
firstly, although theologians recognize the role of philosophy nevertheless they proved that
faith and practice are achieved by religious values and through the God’s testament.
Secondly, the truth for philosophy raised the issues alien views for Islam. Besides, the fact
that philosophy came from the Greeks and the way the Arabs translated them through the
Christians meant that philosophy was two times alien for the Islamic world.
Islamic bases are considered the foundation of philosophical discourse of al-Gauzily and
Ibn Rushdie. They lived during the khaliphs that revived an antical heritage and also when
Islamic ideology in state was dominated. Intellectuals educated in arabic language should
be appropriate to «adab» measures, according to those demands educated people should
study «secular» studies but also traditional religious teachings[1].
Term “scholastica” that was characteristic to Middle Ages philosophy and was reflected in
islamic, christian, Jews forms. Despite the earlier times of mentioned religions their
scholastic schools derive from Islamic sholastic one. Especially, Jewish scholastics related
to the name of Musa Ibn Maimonid had culminated within the Arabic language. Not only
scholars of countires converted to Islam wrote in Arabic language, but also Jewish
philosophers and contributed greatly to the Arabic-Muslim philosophy. Coming of
philosophy to Europe in Middle ages was also due to «Arabs». Thus, we give contrary
argument to europocentric view of Hegel who said that «there are only two kinds of
philosophy those are Greek philosophy and German philosophy». Translations of works of
Socrates, Aristotel, Plato from arabic langueage to Latin language and its spread to Europe
were due to direct works of such philosophers as al-Khindi, al-Farabi, Ibn Rushdi.
Arabic-Muslim philosophy which bright representatives were such thinkers as Al-Gazali and
Ibn Rushdi was created in arabic countires, non-arabic countires (Iran, Central Asian
countires) and western countries (Andalusia). It was difficult to define of arabic-muslim
philosophy because of the vast territory and diverse culture od Arabic khalifat. One can find
in this philosophical worldview the influence of Aristotel, Plato’s teachings as well as,
mutazalite, asharite, gabarite, kadarite, kalam, Sufism and other Islamic branches and
schools teachings.
If at first times the appearances of given branches were due to the power and everyday
issues, lately the were mostly concerned with theological issues. Mutalzalite among the
Islamic school influenced and gave some direction to the discourse of Al-Gazali and Ibn
Rushdie.
Mutazalite school was existed in VIII – X ғ. centuries. It greatly influenced the kalam
teachings, especially the Sunni kalam and is considered as religious-philosophical school
that could challenge the alien and foreign religious-philosophical trends.
On the one hand, mutazalites helped to keep the true being of Islam among the different
cultures and religions and, from the other hand it argued with other Islamic schools and
enhanced its position. Fikh and hadis scholars recognized the mutazalites who mostly relied
on philosophical methods and won their opponents.There are even some views that
mutazalites influenced Christian and Jewish religious philosophy.
Paved the way for freedom of thought Mutazalism flourished during the two centuries and
then declined and eventually disappeared. There were different reasons for its decline. The
first of which is its specification of the period it appeared on historical arena. They appeared
in a time when majority of that time were not ready to accept the brave views that prove the
bases of faith resorting to reason. At given period to explain the religious issues on the base
of reason was considered as newness and was alien to religious ideology. Another reason
of declining its authority is its inability to choose its “auditory” correctly. They offered the
issues that required deep knowledge not to chosen ones but to the discussion of the
majority, in this case they were far from distinguishing the exoteric issues from esoteric
ones. So, they tried sometimes to make people recognize their worldview with the help of
power, etc by taking advantage their influence on Abbasid caliphs to make the illiterate
people recognize the faith issues which they were not able to understand (especially, we
can note «Creating of Quran»). If from Islamic schools mutazalite and asharite teachings
were the base of the development of discourse for both thinkers, and al-Farabi and Ibn Sina
greatly influenced their discussing.
al-Farabi and Ibn Sina were the first who raised the problem of relation between God and
the world and their beginning led to big argument. According to them God is the only one
that does not need in reason for its being and other things except the God need the reason.
Although one can find these ideas in Ibn Rushdie’s philosophy they were denied by al
Gazali. In this case we are going to discuss the argument of Ibn Rushdie to al Gazali about
the creating of the world. Being the authorative opponent of philosophy al Gazali tried to
disclaim the philosophical thoughts that were doubtful from theological point of view and
knowing the logic rules very well he showed the logical mistakes of philosophers and in
most cases he was a prominent in comparison to theologians. He disclaimed the twenty
thesis of philosophers concerning the creating the world, he considered the seventeen of
them as beyond the religion and the rest as opposite to religion and one can see in his
discourses that concerning the rest three ones they cant find any agreement. These issues
are: to deny the revival of body after its death, to disclaim that God knows about the
individuals and the eternity of the world [2].
Al Gazali in his work «Takhaphut al phalasifa» considers the eternity of the world. Al Gazali
blamed the ones who believe in eternity of the world for nonecclesiastical and that it does
not concede with Islamic worldview and if anybody thinks in this way he is not a Muslim.
Also, according to his worldview belief in God is a belief in his great power, and its ability to
change everything by his will. And philosophers, according to al Gazali want to give the God
the second role. Al Gazali believes that doubt of philosophers concerning the ability of the
God to revive the body and its knowing of the individuals are their big mistake, because by
doing this philosophers limit the power and wisdom of the God.
By discoursing with al Gazali Ibn Rushdie was noting that he is not agree with sone views of
al Farabi and Ibn Sina. For instance, Ibn Rushdie does not support the view of Ibn Sina
about “possibility of being itself” and “needed through other thing”, but to answer the al
Gazali’s question he resorted to Ibn Sina’s and Neo-Platonist teachings.
Considering the issue of creating of the world al Gazali opposed to the issues like eternity
and emanation. He supported traditional views of his time such as “world was created from
nothing before the limited time and the material and form was created”. Firstly, al Gazali
was close to rational studying of the world, but as he found out that philosophy was false for
that he begun to criticize it. In this case one can point out his following peculiarities: he
raised the same issues as philosophers; he answered on the behalf of the philosophers and
given his conclusion he showed his ambiguous feelings towards philosophy, he hated it at
the same time admired.
Al Gazali understood the difficulty reconcile the philosophical thinking with Islam, because
according to philosophical thinking, Creator could create only one thing and was the first in
hierarchical system, al Gazali set forth the God who can create whenever he want and
could create any time and anything it wanted.
He understood its necessary to prove the creating of the world in certain time. He supported
the Asharite views on if God wanted to create the world in future he would do it in the future.
For this philosophers ask why if god wanted to create it in any time it could then why did he
chose it now but not and made it in another time. In this case there should be one thing that
prevent God’s will, as the God is the most powerful its impossible that he is needed in
something.Al Gazali said that there many similarities in the location of Heaven spheres and
one of them are oriented to the West, others to the East, as there is possibility to chose one
thing for another its no room for surprising to choose the time. Ibn Rushdie could not
answer to his argument. At this point he saw the weakness of Aristotle’s concept and Ibn
Rushdie could not conceal this weakness revealed by al Gazali and recognized his
argument.
At the end of the discussing Ibn Rushdie supported the ideas of the creating of the world
from nothing as well as the eternity of the world.
The main important thing in al Gazali’s denial is a the place he gave the magic in the world
structures. He tried to prove the miraculous possibilities of the God in dividing the Moon,
turning the stick to the snake, reviving the death.
Its necessary to reveal the meaning of miraculous (mugjiza) in the prove concepts of Ibn
Sina and philosophers. If miraculous is considered as contrary to natural phenomena then
its difficult for philosophers to recognize it. Philosophers should deny it or as in case of
recognition of miraculous intellectual capabilities of the prophets they should recognize it.
As far as it concern Ibn Sina, he considers the forecast of the future as natural processes.
According to causation laws the information come from the heaven intellections to sphere
souls through the emanation and forecast idea of future events is appeared. If human
imagination will be able to control his external senses he will not lose his way and he is able
to accept the information through the emanation. Thus, miraculous activities of the Prophets
don’t cease the natural process of the events, on the contrary it shows the power of
Prophets imagination [4].
Miraculous things happened when the intellect is refined not imagination power. Most
people have great capacities in reasoning, they can quickly solve the logical tasks and give
enough proves that are convincing. These people need only beginning and they can
continue to develop their knowledge about the world. In comparison to Ibn Sina Ibn Rushdie
gives less convincing proves on miraculous things. He says that ancient philosophers were
tired to avoid the explaining the miraculous things and they did it not because of lack of the
faith in them but they consider miraculous things as one of the principles of religious laws.
Miraculous things are the phenomena that contribute to the achieving of humanism.
Besides the explanation given above to the «miraculous» one can give another explanation:
although there are many possible things in nature human being is able to do. What is
possible for the Prophet is impossible for human, things that can not be explained from
logical point of view should be considered as possible things for the Prophet.
According to Oliver Lyman might use the game methods, etc he might conceal his real
position: miraculous are the natural phenomena, although humans can not do them by
themselves, nevertheless these phenomena are appeared due to the humans. The reason
prophets can make the miraculous things mean that they are unusual [5].
Despite the influence of ancient Greek philosophy on the discourse of al Gazali and Ibn
Rushdie, Islam philosophy it would be wrong to say that Arab Muslim philosophy begun with
the translations of Greek texts, philosophical patterns in Islam theology begun without
philosophy during the elaboration of religious legal norms: philosophical foundation ideas of
some legal methods. To adopt the Greek logics as an argument method in Islam caused
many controversial views. Before coming the Greek logics as an analogy the adoption of
lawmakers it during their philosophical arguing is natural.
To understand the necessity of systemizing of Islamic metaphysics explaned the necessity
of the theology. For instance, it was diffucult to coordinate the idea about that God knows
everything and can do everything, the abilities of the human towards evilwith the
punishment ones. In other words the problem of coordination of controversial issues raised
for theology.
There were differences between the prove and dialectical reasoning in philosophical
researches of the theologians. For instance, if in prove methods premises that are
considered as undoubted and right are used, then in dialectics the general premises but not
proved by logics are used. As theology uses the premises taken from religious doctrine the
philosophers doubt about its truthiness and therefore the reasoning is limited. During the
IX–ХІ centuries philosophers and theologians had been denying each other and have
always debated. These polemics led to the discourse between philosophy and Kalama.
Philosophy and Kalama were the biggest schools of that period. Mainly, their differences
were there research subject. Philosophers were examining the philosophical premises and
theologians worked over the religious texts. Kalama tried to explain the rational bases and
principles of the Islamic faith. For instance, the problem of Omnipotence of the God and to
suffering without sin. The reason it was close to the philosophy led it to use not dialectical
but prove methods, but nevertheless theologians have not resorted to that, it might be they
did not want to use the methods of non religious people. Its very important to note one
thing: the meaning of Kalama. Its name (word, story) is non-random. Its search for thruth is
happening through the questions and answers. The first participant of the discourse gives
the thesis another one asks the question. According to o. Lyman it shows the historical fact,
because at first time Muslim theologians attempted with such terms as «defend and to
rebuff». Islamic theology had to fight with Jewish, Christian and Manilheian intellectual
techniques that were highly developed in comparison with Islamic ones. According to Ibn
Khaldun (1332-1406), «the main task of the theology is to deny the ones who were going to
out of the religion» [5, 28].
Many issues raised in Greek philosophy were understandable for explaining of Islamic
bases because there were already in Quran. All the issues about the ways of avoiding Hell,
social and religious traditions were written in Quran’s sayings. Kalama examined theoretical
abstract issues rather than practical ones. The penetration of the philosophy in every
sphere pushed aside the traditional Islamic sciences and begun to damage the theologians
function.
The discourse between philosophy and Kalama in the medieval Islamic world was not an
exclusion, there were other theological polemics. For instance, mutazalites tried to form the
rational bases of Islam. The main thing in their teachings to show the Muslims the
importance of the reason in cognizing the God. After the mutazalites traditional theological
school asharism came to the power. In order to justify the main principles of Islam al Ashari
proved that there is no need religious authority and reason to substantiate the revelation.
According to Mutazalites : reason is a method of deep understanding of Quran and premise
of the true faith, with the help of reason the issues like God’s existence, essence and
features, prophets and revelation, the difference between moral and evil behavior, nature
structures and its relation with its Creator might be revealed.
Asharites denied these ideas. According to them reason alone is not able to explain the
Islamic principles. As we have noticed both of them highly asses the reason, but they have
different views on many topics.
Although mutazalites had taken some important things from philosophy, we can not say that
they were closer to philosophy in comparison to asharites. For instance, as-Safari was
mutazalite nevertheless it did not stop him to oppose the philosophy. In polemics between
mutazalites and asharites philosophical arguments were used very often , but there was a
theological discourse and this discourse relied not on prove, but dialectical method.
Although they were opposed to each other, nevertheless there was nothing against Kalama
teaching or any views that was not appropriate to it. There aretwo things that were common
for asharites and as well as for mutazalites. Both schools recognize the reason in
understanding the religion. Both of them deny the view , that only philosophical reasoning
especially taken from Aristotle philosophy can explain the religion properly. According to
them philosophical ideas can not explain the religion.
A.D. Kurmanalyeva
Doctor of philosophy, Professor
Chair of religious study and culturology
Al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Sh.S.Rysbekova
Doctor of philosophy, Professor
Chair of religious study and culturology
Al-Farabi Kazakh National University
N.K.Aljanova
Master of religious studies
Chair of religious study and culturology
Al-Farabi Kazakh National University