A Reflection on the Contribution of Al-Ghazali in the Study of Religion
In his famous book, Al-Munqidh min ad Dalal (Deliverance from Error), Abu Hamid Muhammad Al-Ghazali gives a personal account of his life-long search for a knowledge of God that is sure and dependable. He speaks therein of his attempts “to extricate the truth from the confusion of contending sects”, and he refers to that deep desire within him for “climbing from the plane of naïveté and secondhand belief (taqlid) to the peak of direct vision.”1
Al-Ghazali found himself immersed in a world of competing religions and philosophies, as well as claims within in his own Muslim faith. Not only were there the religions of Judaism and Christianity, with their own philosophies and sects, but there were also philosophers and sects within Islam itself all vying with one another as to their claim to have the truth.
Within his own Muslim faith, Al-Ghazali outlined four different classes of “seekers”: The Theologians (Mutakallimun) who “claim that they are exponents of thought and intellectual speculation”; the Batiniyah who as “the party of authoritative instruction (ta’lim) alone derive truth from the infallible iman”; the Philosophers “who regard themselves as the exponents of logic and demonstration”; and the Sufis or Mystics, who “claim they alone enter into the presence (of God) and possess vision and intuitive understanding”.2
Al-Ghazali mentions that he took two years of his life (during his busy time of teaching over 300 students in Baghdad) to study the writings of each of these four claimants in Islam. He had already dismissed Judaism and Christianity with surprisingly little discussion, somewhat convinced that neither religion could hold the truth value that Islam could. He devoted his Al Munqidh addressing himself to his Muslim brothers, outlining for them his search within the competing schools of Islam to find the sure and irrefutable truth.
Al-Ghazali sought to arrive at a truth beyond which there is no doubt, a sure and experienced truth, “a knowledge of what things really are”, a knowledge that is as sure as “10 is more than three”.3 In his Al Munqidh, Al-Ghazali sounded a personal note when he wrote of his adolescence as a time in which “the bonds of mere authority (taqlid) ceased to hold me, and inherited beliefs lost their grip on me, for I saw that Christian youths always grew up to be Christians, Jewish youth to be Jews, a Muslim youth to be Muslim.”4
Thus, Al-Ghazali set out to discover for himself the true “Fitra”, i.e. the common shape of the person before any contending religion or philosophy influences him. He wanted to know the difference between what is truly real, and what is man-made, i.e. what distinguishes that which is true, from that which is mere convention. He wanted to leave no presumption unexamined. It was in this vein that he challenged the Islamic philosophers in his famous Tahafut al-falasifa(The Incoherence of the Philosophers).5 In this work, he attempted to expose twenty errors of the philosophers by examining their presumptions and refuting them using their own logic.
However, toward the end of this very personal and thorough study of the presumptions of the philosophers and the sects, and at the height of his illustrious teaching career, which was already becoming well renown, Al-Ghazali, in the words of his translator and commentator, W. Montgomery Watt, “had to meet a crisis”. Watt continues: “It had physical symptoms but it was primarily religious. He came to feel that the only thing that mattered was avoidance of Hell and attainment of Paradise, and he saw that his present way of life was too worldly to have any hope of eternal reward”6
Thus, after several months of real internal struggle, one that left him with no other choice, because God closed every other escape, Al-Ghazali left Baghdad for the life of a wondering ascetic. In the Al Munqidh, he describes this 10-year period of his life as that which finally gave him the religious assurances he was searching for, i.e. a knowledge born from experience (dhawq), an immediate experience of God accompanied by ecstasy and moral change.7
Since the time of his childhood, after Al-Ghazali’s father died, he was entrusted, along with his brother (also a famous theologian and preacher), to the care of the Sufis who raised them both in the tradition of mysticism. It is, thus, no surprise that of the four “contending sects” within Islam, which Al-Ghazali critiques, i.e. the theologians, the batiniyah, the philosophers, and the sufis, that once he became the mature teacher, and the experienced ascetic, he sided with the Sufis as the only ones who were capable of giving a surety to faith. They were, in his own words, “men who had real experience, not men of words.”8
By siding with the Sufis, Al-Ghazali, whose influence on the Muslim world is arguably second only to Muhammad, wedded forever mysticism (not philosophy) and Muslim faith. Had Al-Ghazali’s strongest critic, Ibn Rushd, the well-known “Averroes” of Andalusian Spain, been successful in his critique of Al-Ghazali’s Tahafut, then perhaps philosophy rather than mysticism might have been the suitor with Muslim faith.9 Nonetheless, it was Al Ghazali, not Ibn Rushd who prevailed in Islam, and who had the enduring influence.
Interestingly enough, Ibn Rushd had the far greater influence on Western thought, which was, in general, more responsive to philosophical concerns than to mystical ones. Al-Ghazali marked Islam with his mystical and experiential emphasis along with his strong case for a traditional orthodoxy of Islamic faith. This influence insured Muslim faith’s independence from the world of philosophy, and a deeper dependence on the truth of prophecy as found in the Qur’an.
On the other hand, Ibn Rushd, by means of St. Thomas Aquinas and others, guaranteed that the place of philosophy would always be to serve as “handmaid” to theology. Thus, Christianity, with its own concept of revelation different from Islam, was to take a more amiable response to the philosophy of Aristotle - especially as it came down through the hands of Ghazali’s critic, Ibn Rushd, nicknamed the Aristotle’s “Commentator”.10
Al-Ghazali, in his Tahafut makes the point that philosophy cannot give one the true and certain knowledge of God, only prophecy can.11 This assertion is similar to the Christian claim that the world cannot know God fully unless he first reveals himself.12 Philosophy can take us only so far into the Mystery of God, revelation must fill in the rest.13
Islam and Christianity differ in the exact form that this revelation takes: in Christianity the person and mission of Jesus is the fullness and completion of revelation; in Islam it is the Qur’an and the prophecy of Muhammad that is the fullness and completion of revelation. Christianity would make the case that philosophical metaphysics assists theology in the apprehension of the truths of revelation. Al-Ghazali, and proponents of Islam, would maintain that prophecy is the only means of our knowledge of God, and, in fact, philosophy may be harmful to the faith of the believer in the truth of prophecy.
Al-Ghazali takes the discussion one step further. He makes the point that only personal experience, such as that obtained by the mystics, can give one the certainty of the truth of prophecy. This writer must admit a certain envy of the Islamic Tradition, for, if it follows the urging of Al-Ghazali, it will wed belief in prophecy, to an insistence on the mystical element of faith. This combination of the “science” or “art” of mysticism and the “science” or “art” of theology also seems useful for Christians as well. Perhaps it may reawaken them to their own mystical tradition, which is like an unearthed treasure waiting to be rediscovered.
At least, to this author, Al-Ghazali’s insight into the primacy of experiential knowledge when it comes to God is one of his lasting contributions for Islam, and likewise, for Christianity. Could Christians consider their own tradition of mysticism at least as important in theology as the place that philosophy holds? Who is to say that theology needs only one “handmaid”, philosophy? Could the study of Christian mysticism also round out the theological discipline? Nonetheless, the question remains, what kind of mysticism? With the variety of claims as to religious experience, from locutions, channeling, visions, and trance states to different kinds of spiritual consolations, desolations, and discernment of spirits, ect., who or what is to distinguish what is real from what is illusion, what is mere convention, from that which is true?
This important question has been dealt with over the ages by Christian and Islamic mystics alike. The question can be posed in this way: how can we protect ourselves from all the illusions that easily come to us in our sincere search for that ever illusive ever sought after union with God? Al-Ghazali answers this question by advocating a strict (and at times seemingly legalistic) adherence to the reasonableness of the Qur’an and the Sunna. John of the Cross, a Christian mystical writer, priest, and Carmelite friar, who like Al-Ghazali was also a formidable ascetic and accomplished mystic, also favors an adherence to orthodox faith, but the faith he recommends is Christian revelation.
John of the Cross urges his fellow seeker to adhere to the truth of Christian revelation, detach from all earthly passions and presumptions, and seek a loving union of the will with God. This, he maintains will support one in a search for mystical union with God, and protects from illusions.14 However, are we now back full-circle to Al-Ghazali’s adolescent quandary: “ ... for I saw that Christian youths always grew up to be Christians, Jewish youth to be Jews, and Muslim youth to be Muslim”?15
Perhaps a little philosophy is not so harmful after all. Could the mystic of every religious tradition benefit from some sort of common ground, a philosophical discipline with regard to the mystic way, an acceptable “given” when it comes to the nature of God, and the form that union with God would take?16 After all, God did make man with both heart and mind. Could both be applied in the mystic search for Him?
If both mind and heart are necessary for the true seeker, then Al-Ghazali, mystic and philosopher, has, like his coreligionists, even Ibn Rushd, his strongest critic, benefited not only Islam with his insights, but Christianity as well. Al-Ghazali, perhaps unknowingly, has left all seekers the clues to finding that sure knowledge and experience of God.
It is hoped that both Muslims and Christians might find herein some wisdom for the quest, and that a Christian-Muslim interdisciplinary study of mysticism might be promoted for the benefit of all.17
1: Al-Ghazali, Al-Munqidh min ad Dalal, as translated by W. Montgomery Watt, The Faith and Practice of Al-Ghazali (Chicago:Kazi Publications,1982) 19.
2: Ibid.,26.
3: Ibid.,21.
4: Ibid.
5: see Michael E. Marmura, Al-Ghazali, The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Provo,UT:Brigham Young University Press,1997) for an English/Arabic text.
6: Watt, The Faith, 11.
7: Ibid.,55.
8: Ibid.,55.
9: see Ibn Rushd, Tahaful al-Tahafut as translated with copious notes by Simon Van den Berg, Averroes’ Tahaful al-Tahafut (London:Luzac,1954)2 vols.
10: The influence of Ibn Rushd on Christian theology cannot be overemphasized. It is interesting that he had little influence on Muslim thought, but Christian thought is forever indebted to him; for other works on Ibn Rushd see Oliver Leaman, Averroes and His Philosophy (Oxford:Clarendon Press,1988), Fadlou Shehadi, Metaphysics in Islamic Philosophy (Delmar,NY:Caravan Books,1982), and George F.Hourani, Averroes on the Harmony of Religion and Philosophy (London:Luzac,1961).
11: Al-Ghazali, in his introduction to the Tahafut states clearly that he is not out to defend any theological doctrine. On the contrary, his task is to show that, contrary to their claims, their theories contradicting religious principles have not been demonstrated.
12: For a thorough and official exposé on Faith and Reason according to Catholic theology see John Paul II, encyclical letter, Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason) (September 14,1998) AAS 91 (1999).
13: For an understanding of what is meant by Christian faith in John of the Cross see Karol Wojtyla, Faith, According to John of the Cross (San Fransisco:Ignatius Press,1981). The original text is the doctoral thesis presented by the present Pope, John Paul II in 1948.
14: For a reasoned approach to the claims of Christian faith see G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, The Romance of Faith (New York:Doubleday,1990). This Christian classic, written in 1908, is easy and enjoyable reading, even if one does not agree with his claims.
15: Watt, The Faith 21.
16: Perhaps the work of Martin Buber, the famous Jewish philosopher who is an eloquent spokesman for the personalist philosophical school of thought may be of some help here. See Martin Buber, I and Thou trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York:Scribner’s Sons,1970)
17: The contribution to the inter-religious study of mysticism by Evelyn Underhill is certainly noteworthy. Likewise, Margaret Smith’s efforts should not go unnoticed; see especially her Al-Ghazali the Mystic (London:Luzac,1944).