Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Epigraph
- Contents
- List of plates
- Editorial preface
- List of abbreviations
- Map Literary, political and religious centres in the ʿAbbasid period
- 1 Sunnī theology
- 2 Shīʿī theological literature
- 3 Ibāḍī theological literature
- 4 Quranic exegesis
- 5 The prose literature of Ṣufism
- 6 Philosophical literature
- 7 Arabic lexicography
- 8 Arabic grammar
- 9 Islamic legal literature
- 10 Administrative literature
- 11 Arabic biographical writing
- 12 History and historians
- 13 Faṭimid history and historians
- 14 Mathematics and applied science
- 15 Astronomy
- 16 Astrology
- 17 Geographical and navigational literature
- 18 The literature of Arabic alchemy
- 19 Arabic medical literature
- 20 Al-Kindī
- 21 Al-Rāzī
- 22 Al-Fārābī
- 23 Ibn Sīnā
- 24 Al-Bīrūnī and the sciences of his time
- 25 Al-Ghazālī
- 26 Christian Arabic literature in the ʿAbbasid period
- 27 Judaeo-Arabic literature
- 28 The translation of Greek materials into Arabic
- 29 Didactic verse
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
25 - Al-Ghazālī
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2014
- Frontmatter
- Epigraph
- Contents
- List of plates
- Editorial preface
- List of abbreviations
- Map Literary, political and religious centres in the ʿAbbasid period
- 1 Sunnī theology
- 2 Shīʿī theological literature
- 3 Ibāḍī theological literature
- 4 Quranic exegesis
- 5 The prose literature of Ṣufism
- 6 Philosophical literature
- 7 Arabic lexicography
- 8 Arabic grammar
- 9 Islamic legal literature
- 10 Administrative literature
- 11 Arabic biographical writing
- 12 History and historians
- 13 Faṭimid history and historians
- 14 Mathematics and applied science
- 15 Astronomy
- 16 Astrology
- 17 Geographical and navigational literature
- 18 The literature of Arabic alchemy
- 19 Arabic medical literature
- 20 Al-Kindī
- 21 Al-Rāzī
- 22 Al-Fārābī
- 23 Ibn Sīnā
- 24 Al-Bīrūnī and the sciences of his time
- 25 Al-Ghazālī
- 26 Christian Arabic literature in the ʿAbbasid period
- 27 Judaeo-Arabic literature
- 28 The translation of Greek materials into Arabic
- 29 Didactic verse
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
One of the greatest thinkers of the classical Islamic age and the man who influenced Islamic thought after the sixth/twelfth century more than any other was Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī. Led by Muʾtazilites and philosophers such as Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā, Islamic thought had maintained certain modes of rationalism for 300 years; al-Ghazālī redirected it towards mysticism.
Today there are signs of al-Ghazālī's influence in the works of his successors including those of the great shaykh, Muḥyī ʾlDl-Dīn b. al-ʿArabī (560–638/1165–1240) who seems, at first glance, to have little in common with al-Ghazālī's conservatism. Al-Ghazālī's book Iḥyāʾ ʾulūm al-dīn (“The Revival of the Religious Sciences”), exceptional for its exalted tone of moral instruction, is still widely read in religious and learned circles and is occasionally reprinted in Cairo and Beirut. Of particular interest also is a shorter work called al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl (“The Deliverer from Error”), which was written towards the end of his life and in which he describes certain periods of his life and summarizes his ideas on philosophy, mysticism and Ismacilism. In both these works, and in others also written in the last years of his life such as Ayjuhā ʾl-walad and al-Qisṭās al-mustacīm (“The Correct Balance”), al-Ghazālī blends mysticism with jurisprudence and theology with philosophy.
PUPIL AND TEACHER
Poor but well-educated, the young al-Ghazālī visited the great cities of his time: Jurjān, Naysābūr, Baghdad and Damascus, in order to gain more knowledge which he could share with others.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Religion, Learning and Science in the 'Abbasid Period , pp. 424 - 445Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990