Abu
Hamid Ibn Muhammad Ibn Muhammad al-Tusi al-Shafi'i al-Ghazali was born
in 1058 C.E. in Khorasan, Iran. His father died while he was still
very young but he had the opportunity of getting education in the
prevalent curriculum at Nishapur and Baghdad. Soon he acquired a high
standard of scholarship in religion and philosophy and was honored by
his appointment as a Professor at the Nizamiyah University of Baghdad,
which was recognized as one of the most reputed institutions of
learning in the golden era of Muslim history.
After
a few years, however, he gave up his academic pursuits and worldly
interests and became a wandering ascetic. This was a process (period)
of mystical transformation. Later, he resumed his teaching duties, but
again left these. An era of solitary life, devoted to contemplation
and writing then ensued, which led to the author- ship of a number of
everlasting books. He died in 1128 C.E. at Baghdad.
Ghazali's major contribution lies in religion, philosophy and Sufism.
A number of Muslim philosophers had been following and developing
several viewpoints of Greek philosophy, including the Neoplatonic
philosophy, and this was leading to conflict with several Islamic
teachings. On the other hand, the movement of Sufism was assuming such
excessive proportions as to avoid observance of obligatory prayers and
duties of Islam. Based on his unquestionable scholarship and personal
mystical experience, Ghazali sought to rectify these trends, both in
philosophy and Sufism.
In
philosophy, Ghazali upheld the approach of mathematics and exact
sciences as essentially correct. However, he adopted the techniques of
Aristotelian logic and the Neoplatonic procedures and employed these
very tools to lay bare the flaws and lacunas of the then prevalent
Neoplatonic philosophy and to diminish the negative influences of
Aristotelianism and excessive rationalism. In contrast to some of the
Muslim philosophers, e.g., Farabi, he portrayed the inability of
reason to comprehend the absolute and the infinite. Reason could not
transcend the finite and was limited to the observation of the
relative. Also, several Muslim philosophers had held that the universe
was finite in space but infinite in time. Ghazali argued that an
infinite time was related to an infinite space. With his clarity of
thought and force of argument, he was able to create a balance between
religion and reason, and identified their respective spheres as being
the infinite and the finite, respectively.
In
religion, particularly mysticism, he cleansed the approach of Sufism
of its excesses and reestablished the authority of the orthodox
religion. Yet, he stressed the importance of genuine Sufism, which he
maintained was the path to attain the absolute truth.
He
was a prolific writer. His immortal books include Tuhafut al-Falasifa
(The Incoherence of the Philosophers), Ihya al-'Ulum al-Islamia (The
Revival of the Religious Sciences), "The Beginning of Guidance and his
Autobiography", "Deliverance from Error". Some of his works were
translated into European languages in the Middle Ages. He also wrote a
summary of astronomy.
Ghazali's influence was deep and everlasting. He is one of the
greatest theologians of Islam. His theological doctrines penetrated
Europe, influenced Jewish and Christian Scholasticism and several of
his arguments seem to have been adopted by St. Thomas Aquinas in order
to similarly reestablish the authority of orthodox Christian religion
in the West. So forceful was his argument in the favor of religion
that he was accused of damaging the cause of philosophy and, in the
Muslim Spain, Ibn Rushd (Averros) wrote a rejoinder to his Tuhafut.
