A Breath of Philosophy 15: Al-Ghazālī; Is Logic a Science of Heresy or a Criterion of Thinking?

You know that with the series of articles titled "A Breath of Philosophy" we aim to bring academic knowledge to the public sphere in a short and more comprehensible style. I have been trying to convey the topics in a technically comprehensible way, and I hope I have been partially successful. 

Let's continue writing about al-Ghazālī because of the importance of his role in the history of thought: Philosophy, according to Peripatetic scholars, is the attainment of happiness (tahsil al-saade) and logic is the key to happiness (miftahu al-saade).  So what is al-Ghazālī's view of logic, who denounced them? It is precisely at this point that we recognize and appreciate his contribution as a critical threshold in the history of Islamic thought. Because he played an active role in the transition from the widespread opinion that "dealing with the science of logic leads to heresy" to "the knowledge of those who do not know logic cannot be trusted". Al-Ghazālī is the one who worked on the criteria of scientific studies (Miʿyār al-ʿilm) and the basic criteria of reflection (Miḥaqq al-naẓar).  He then thought and wrote on the criterion of following a correct/coherent path (al-Ḳisṭās al-mustaḳīm).  

In this respect, I attach great importance to al-Ghazālī's works on logic, because it can be said that he made a significant contribution to paving the way for different and free thinking by testing the inference in the context of first and second propositions (in'ikās al-adillah), by arguing that the invalidation of the proof does not invalidate the proof itself.  It is especially important in terms of frustrating the efforts of theologians and jurists to reduce the claims of inconsistency against their own inferences to the position of rejecting the first premise by saying "but according to the Qur'an it is so". His inconsistency in identifying the Qur'anic with the Islamic can be read in the context of the Critique of Islamic Reason. However, I guess you won't ask why he dismissed philosophers, whom he was sure of God's existence, unity and creator status, because of their different (tawil) interpretations. We have already discussed them with you. 

Al-Ghazālī was an extremely influential scholar in the introduction of logic to the Islamic world, but we should also remember the context in which these works of logic were written. In this case, in the context of the connection between ideas and events, it is necessary to examine the claims of the Batinī/Karmati doctrine as a branch of the Shi'ite Ismailiyya sect in tandem. Because when these works are read within the political economy of the period, it is also possible to read them in the context of the efforts to legitimize and refute the conflicts between the Abbasids-Fatimids-Buwayhids with religious arguments. 

Especially Sultan Tugrul and Nizam al-Mulk sided with the Sunni paradigm, and al-Ghazālī wrote Feḍāʾiḥu'l-Bāṭiniyya wa fezaili'l-muztazhiriyya, which we can translate as "The Disgraces of the Batinīs and the Virtues of the Caliph Muztazhir Billah's Supporters", at the request of the Abbasid Caliph Muztazhir Billah, We know that he then wrote Kavāsim al-Bātiniyya, which can be considered a kind of summary of it.  Fadaih al- Batiniyya is his second work of refutation after the Tehafut. Although not included in the Tehafut, his views on the authority of revelation and the political function of prophethood are also found here. 

Contribution to the Formation of the Discourse of takfir

The importance of treating the institution of prophethood as a political philosophy and the position of the wise men who undertook the task of adapting its teachings to a virtuous society until the Day of Judgment should be evaluated in the context of the official position of the Abbasid caliph of the time and the understanding of the Imam of the Shi'i Ismālī view, which criticized it seriously. To do so is not to ignore the possibility that he did so in order to eliminate the possible influence of the Shi'i Ismālī doctrine in the region in his takfīr of the philosophers. Moreover, it is said in the sources that one of his own teachers was a Shiite Ismālī. 

As a theologian, he wrote the middle way in the faith (al-'iqtisad fi'l-itikad) and al-Mustaṣfā min ʿilmi al-uṣūl on the methodology of fiqh. However, in Faṣṣalu al-Tefriḳa beyna al-Islâm wa'z-Zendaḳa (trans.: Mawlüt Uyanık - Aygün Akyol, Elis Publishing House Ankara 2021), he says that both philosophers and Ismālīs were secret apostates (zenadika) who had turned away from Islam. Therefore, he aims to provide legal and theological evidence to prove that they can be killed if they attempt to publicly transmit their teachings or spread their views. 

In order to show that this point of view is still active today, we have published Faṣṣalu al-Tafriḳa beyna al-Islam wa'z-Zendaḳa as a reading "On the Foundations of the Discourse/Culture of Takfir in Islam" and published it together with the original Arabic text with an "evaluation" article. Discussing a cosmological issue and theoretically making takfir from the theological point of view, there is also the legal dimension of social marginalization, in which a person's life and property can be confiscated, and his wife and children can be taken as slaves and concubines. 

This must be why al-Ghazali is still influential in the history of thought.  According to him, "Even if these people directly say that they are Muslims and pay attention to the rituals, whether or not a Muslim realizes that he harbors disbelief, he has denied Islam and has become a secret apostate.  This means that he has renounced Islam and is punishable by death. After stating in paragraphs 85-86 of Faisal that the philosophers should be takfir, in paragraph 106 he says that takfir is a sharia judgment, which means the confiscation of his property, the shedding of his blood, and the judgment that he will spend eternity in the fire. (al-Ghazālī, Faisal. 114,122, Frank Griffel, "Al-Ghazālī's Tehafut al-Falasaifa, Islamic Philosophy: Philosophers and Their Works, edited by Khaled el-Rouayheb-Sabine Schmidtke, trans. Mustafa Yalçınkaya, (Istanbul: Litera Publishing 2021, 296 vd)

Which faction/party is the one that achieves salvation?

 After mentioning the hadith "My Ummah will be divided into more than seventy factions, only one of them will be in Paradise", he does not neglect to say that there is another version of this hadith. Here he says that the hadith states that seventy-two of them will go to Paradise and one will go to Hell, and that the so-called heretics are in this category. However, he prioritizes the narration that considers each of the ummah as a party (sect) and sends seventy-two of them to hell. After establishing his system in this way and giving his views on who are heretics and takfir, in the last paragraph of the work, he emphasizes on the hadith that if one of the Muslims accuses his friend of disbelief, he returns to one of these two and says: 

"In the case of takfīr, one may be in a situation of mistakenly believing that what the Prophet brought is a lie, whereas this is not the case, so there is nothing to fall into kufr", and he wants to prevent the sword of takfīr from turning back to himself by saying that what he said can actually be seen in this way. (al-Ghazālī, Faisal, 92 paragraphs, p.1116, 152 prg, p.148) But this is not the case at all, Ibn Rushd says in detail in his work, al-Tahafut al-Tahafut, that what al-Ghazālī says as a judge/judge, philosopher, theologian, jurist, and physician is inconsistent/contradictory, that is, it is aimed at deliberate misdirection and deception. 

Tehafut; Contradictory or (Intentional) Misdirection and Misleading?

The characterization of the inconsistencies of philosophers as takfir in three issues in the Tehafut al-falāsifa, which is basically a cosmological question of when and how the universe was created, was first carried to the field of theology and then to jurisprudence, and we can say that it was a marginalization that was very effective and achieved its goal in its period and has continued its effect until today. What we mean by this is that it feeds today's anti-philosophy to a significant extent.  

In his treatise Faslu al-makâl fi-ma beyn-el-hikmati wa'sh-shariati min-el-ittisal, which is small in volume and large in impact, Ibn Rushd asks about the ruling of doing philosophy, and begins the text by asking whether it is religiously permissible, obligatory, or commanded.  He concludes that philosophizing is obligatory, i.e. wajib, or mendup, i.e. appropriate. He gives the verses on this subject, then examines the concept of tawil in detail and comes to the points where al-Ghazālī dismisses philosophers.  Averroes, one of the greatest commentators on Aristotle, who also studied the physical sciences, states that the difference between the Ash'arite theologians and philosophers on the eternity of the world or its subsequent existence (hudus) is almost a difference of nomenclature.  

He discusses these views in detail and says that al-Ghazālī's inclusion of the issues that should be included in books of demonstration in books for the public with poetry-habitat-methods is not consistent, and that he erred against both religion and wisdom. In fact, he himself admits that he was an Ash'arite with the Ash'arites, a Sufi with the Sufis, and a philosopher with the philosophers under the pretext of warning the temperaments. According to him, the one who explains tawil to the general public to those who are not competent in terms of religion is the one who corrupts the Shari'ah and prevents them from it, so he says that the accusation of blasphemy actually goes back to al-Ghazālī. (Ibn Rushd, Fasl'ul-Makal, trans. M. Uyanık-Aygün Akyol, Ankara: Elis Publishing House 2019, 53-66) 

This is what I mean by reading the arguments in the Tehafut discussions as "mental distractions." I attach importance to Ibn Rushd's criticism of al-Fārābī and Ibn Sinā, whom he sees as his forerunners, as well as the inconsistency/distraction of the counter-criticisms against them. 

Al-Ghazālī, who criticizes and rejects the theological, philosophical and ta'limī teachings while preferring the Sufi method, says that in the final analysis, the attitude of the Sufis, who see the zahīr and the west intertwined, who make jurisprudence functional with its material and spiritual sanctions, and who are the most correct of the paths, is more consistent. Because in this discourse, after comprehending the sharī'ah and rational sciences in depth and acting according to them, the stage of taqashafah is entered. As a result, he says that it has no value and is wrong to say that he has reached his ultimate goal, which is the Truth, and that he is with the Truth, as a result of hulūl, that is, the transfer of the Divine essence or attributes to one or all of the creatures and merging with them, ittihād, that is, the transfer of God's essence or attributes to some or all of the creatures and merging with them, and wüsūl, that is, wandering, and that he has reached the Truth, which is his ultimate goal, and that he is with the Truth.  Okay, he can say that, but the same al-Ghazālī paints a completely different portrait in his work Mishkat. Based on the verse stating that God is the light of the heavens and the earth (al-Nūr 24/35), al-Ghazālī is said to have developed a theosophical and hermetic divinity that resembles the philosophy of Illuminationism later put forward by Suhrawardī. According to him, God is the supreme and true light and the source of all other lights. When he says that all beings, spiritual and corporeal, spiritual and material, are actually reflections of that light, he replaces the concept of emanation with manifestation and the concept of intellect with light. I don't know if saying that one of them writes for the common people and the other for the elite/havas will save the situation, because there is no marginalization and takfir as in Munkız.

It seems to me that it would be appropriate to examine his views in al-Munkiz, in which he says that he stays away from those who claim ittihad and hululul, in comparison with the text of Mishkat al-Anvar, in which he makes a complete metaphysics of light. Because in al-Munkiz he draws a limit to the prudence of the intellect and states that it cannot have the last word in the face of transcendental problems, while in Mishkat he examines the intuition and intellect aspects of a thought and gives precedence to intuition, and in Ihya'u ulumi'd-din he equates the two.  

Conclusion 

In which of his books will al-Ghazālī be prioritized? Will saying that some of his books were written for the general public and some for the elite class eliminate his contribution to the spread of takfir culture and anti-philosophy? Or, in his own words, "All the knowledge and deeds you have done up to now are mere vanity and ostentation; if you do not prepare for the Hereafter now, when will you prepare for it? If you do not cut off these interests now, when will you cut them off?" (Munkiz.prg.97/112), will he be saved from the reckoning in the Hereafter of the scholars who have fallen victim to the discourse of takfir, which has continued until now and to which he has made a significant contribution? Fortunately, there is a Hereafter and my Lord will ask for the reckoning, especially for the rights of the servant (people whose individual rights and freedoms have been violated).  

We continue reading al-Ghazālī, and in the next article we will discuss in more detail the answer to the question "Al-Ghazālī and Tehafut al-Falāsifa: The Inconsistency of Philosophers; Or Deliberate Guidance and Misdirection?".