Al‑Ghazzāli’s critique of philosophy

Abstract

There is a stereotype that the reason why the Muslim world lags behind the West is that the secular in Islamic countries is subordinated to the religious power and science to religion. A very common point of view in academic circles is that a major role in the decline of rationalism in the Muslim world and the rise of mysticism belongs to the famous Islamic thinker and theologian Abū Hāmid al‑Ghazāli. Those who consider him an anti-philosophic irrationalist most often refer to his well-known book al‑Munqudh min al-Dalal (Rescuer from Misguidance) according to which all philosophers bear the stigma of unbelief and godlessness. The present article attempts a new approach to the study of al‑Ghazzāli’s critique of philosophy and rationalism in general. In the recent years, a number of scholars provided new evidence showing that al‑Ghazzāli never criticized reason and rationality as such, but rather the position which claimed for human reason the status of absolute validity. In fact, al‑Ghazzāli followed precisely the rationalist line in the Islamic theology (Kalam) and himself became a major representative of Islamic peripatetism most perfectly embodied in the doctrines of Avicenna. Thus, Al‑Ghazzāli’s theory of mystical cognition is based on Avicenna’s teaching.