Some 400 titles are attributed to the influential
Muslim theologian, philosopher, legalist, and mystic al-Ghaz¯ al¯ ı. While many of these are false attributions made to him because of his reputation,
there is no doubt he was extremely prolific in a variety of genres. His most important works are his
spiritual autobiography The Deliverance from Errord (Al’Munqidh min al-Dal¯ al), his theological
work reconciling mysticism with orthodox Islam
called The Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya’
‘Ul¯ um al-D¯ ın), and his refutation of the Aristotelian influence so prevalent in Islamic philosophy in the 11th century, The Incoherence of the
Philosophers (Tah¯ afut al-Fal¯asifah).
Al-Ghaz¯ al¯ ı was born in T¯ us, Persia. Orphaned
as a child, he obtained a good education in his native city, and then in Nishapur, where he was
taught by the leading theologian of the time, alJuwayn¯ ı. When his master died he went to study
in Baghdad, where he was appointed to a teaching
position at the prestigious Niz¯ amiyy¯ ah school. A
popular instructor, he also produced a number of
philosophical and theological texts while there.
However, in about 1095 he underwent a spiritual
crisis, left his family and his prominent position,
and spent the next 11 years in Syria as a poor Sufi
(the mystical branch of Islam), devoting his time
to meditation and mystical devotion. By 1105–06,
al-Ghaz ¯al¯ ı seems to have overcome his personal
crisis, and when approached by the son of one of
his former patrons to return to teach again at
Nishapur, he agreed. Ultimately he retired from
Nishapur to return to his home at T¯ us, where he
taught Sufism, and where he died around 1111.
Al-Ghaz¯ al¯ ı made lasting contributions to world
literature, Islamic theology, and philosophy. His
philosophical interest was sparked by the growth
of Aristotelianism in Islamic philosophy. He became the main spokesman for the Ash’arite (orthodox philosophers’) reaction to Aristotelian
doctrines proposed by Alfarabi and Avicenna. He
admired the sciences of mathematics, natural science, and especially logic, but thought that in the
area of metaphysics the Aristotelians had gone
wrong. Al-Ghaz¯ al¯ ı began his critical attack by writing a summary of the Aristotelian opinions called
The Intentions of the Philosophers (Maq ¯ asid alFal¯ asifah), a summary so objective that European
scholastic theologians, who knew no other work of
al-Ghaz¯ al¯ ı’s, assumed that he was himself an Aristotelian. Al-Ghaz¯ al¯ ı followed this text with his famous The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tah¯ afut
al-Fal¯asifah), in which he refutes 20 philosophical
opinions of the Aristotelians. He singles out three
positions for special condemnation as heretical to
Islam: The philosophers’ denial of the resurrection of the body, a doctrine which al-Ghaz¯ al¯ ı insisted must be accepted literally; the Aristotelians’
belief that God could only know universals, which
he thought denied the doctrine of individual providence; and the philosophers’ belief in the eternity
of the world, which al-Ghaz ¯ al¯ ı thought rejected
the notion that God was the direct cause of all effects in the universe. His powerful refutation
evoked an equally powerful response from the later
12th-century Islamic philosopher AVERROËS,
whose treatise The Incoherence of the Incoherence
was written specifically to respond to al-Ghaz¯ al¯ ı ’s
text.
The Deliverance from Error, al-Ghaz¯ al¯ ı’s autobiographical text, tells of his education and his spiritual and intellectual crisis of 1095, a crisis of
doubt that left him unable to teach and forced his
resignation from his position at Niz¯ amiyy¯ah. He
describes as well his years of wandering and the
mystical illumination he received as a Sufi that led
to the resumption of his faith. Finally, his monumental theological work, The Revitalization of Religious Sciences, sought to unify Islamic orthodoxy
with the growing Sufi mysticism he had experienced himself. The text strives to eliminate some of
the excesses of Sufism while still maintaining that
genuine Sufism is the way to find ultimate truth.
Bibliography
Abrahamov, Binyamin. Divine Love in Islamic Mysticism: The Teachings of Al-Ghazali and Al-Dabbagh.
New York: Routledge-Curzon, 2002.
Al-Ghaz¯ al¯ı. Deliverance from Error: An Annotated
Translation of Al-Munqidh min al Dal-al and
Other Relevant Works of Al-Ghazali. Translated by
Richard Joseph McCarthy. Louisville, Ky.: Fons
Vitae, 1999.
———. The Incoherence of the Philosophers: A Parallel English-Arabic Text. Translated by Michael E.
Marmura. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University
Press, 1997.
———. On Disciplining the Soul and On Breaking the
Two Desires: Books XXII and XXIII of The Revival
of the Religious Sciences. Translated by T. J. Winter.
Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1995.
Hyman, Arthur, and James J. Walsh. Philosophy in the
Middle Ages: The Christian, Islamic, and Jewish
Traditions. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983.
Watt, W. Montgomery. The Faith and Practice of AlGhazali. London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1953.