Table of Contents:
Al-Ghazālī occupies a position
unique in the history of Muslim religious and philosophical thought by whatever
standard we may judge him: breadth of learning, originality, or influence. He
has been acclaimed as the Proof of Islam (hujjat
al-Islam), the Ornament of Faith (zain
al-din) and the Renewer of Religion (mujaddid).1
Al-Subki (d. 771/1370) went so far in his estimation of him as to claim
that if there had been a prophet after Muhammad, al-Ghazālī
would have been the man.2
To be sure he gathered in his own person all the significant intellectual and
religious movements of his time and lived over again in the inwardness of his
soul the various spiritual phases developed by Islam. He was in turn a
canon-lawyer and a scholastic, a philosopher and a sceptic, a mystic and a
theologian, a traditionist and a moralist. His –position as a theologian of
Islam is undoubtedly the most eminent. Through a living synthesis of his
creative and energetic personality, he revitalized Muslim theology and
reorientated its values and attitudes. His combination of spiritualization and
fundamentalism in Islam had such a marked stamp of his powerful personality
that it has continued to be accepted by the community since his time. His
outlook on philosophy is characterized by a remarkable originality which,
however, is more critical than constructive. In his works on philosophy one is
struck by a keen philosophical acumen and penetration with which he gives a
clear and readable exposition of the views of the philosophers, the subtlety
and analyticity with which he criticizes them, and the candour and
open-mindedness with which he accepts them whenever he finds them to be true.
Nothing frightened him nor fascinated him, and through an extraordinary
independence of mind, he became a veritable challenge to the {581} philosophies
of Aristotle and Plotinus and to their Muslim representatives before him,
al-Farabi and ibn Sina. The main trends of the religious and philosophical thought
of al-Ghazālī, however, come close to the temper of the modern
mind. The champions of the modern movement of religious empiricism, on the one
hand, and that of logical positivism, on the other, paradoxical though it may
seem, would equally find comfort in his works. The teachings of this remarkable
figure of Islam pertaining either to religion or philosophy, either
constructive or critical, cannot, however, be fully understood without knowing
the story of his life with some measure of detail, for, in his case, life and
thought were one: rooted in his own personality. Whatever he thought and wrote
came with the living reality of his own experience.
Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad
ibn Ta’us Ahmad al-Tusi al-Shafi’i, generally known simply by his nisbah al-Ghazālī,
4
was born in 450/1058 at Tabaran, one of the two townships of Tus, now in ruins
in the neighbourhood of modern Meshed in Khurasan.
Al-Ghazālī was not the first
scholar of distinction in his family: there had been another abu Hamid al-Ghazālī
(d. 435/1043), his grand-uncle, who was a theologian and jurisconsult of great
repute,5
possibly a model which he might have set before him in his ambitious youth. But
he was early exposed to Sufistic influences. His own father was a pious dervish
who according to al-Subki would not eat anything but what he could earn with
his own hands {582} and spend as much time as he could in the company of the
divines. Early left as an orphan, al-Ghazālī was brought up and
educated by a pious Sufi friend of his father along with his brother who later
made a mark as a great mystic. While still a boy al-Ghazālī
began the study of theology and canon-law, with the express desire for wealth
and reputation as he himself has acknowledged
6
first in his native town under Shaikh Abmad ibn Muhammad al-Radhkhani al-Tusi
and then at Jurjan under the Imam abu Nasr al-Isma’ili.
After his return from Jurjan he stayed for a
while in Tas and possibly during this period studied Sufism under Ynsuf
al-Nassaj and perhaps even undertook some of the Sufistic exercises. At the age
of about twenty he proceeded to the Nizamiyyah Academy of Nishapur to study
under abu al-Ma’ali al-Juwaini known as Imam al-Haramain, the most
distinguished Ash’arite theologian of the day, only fourth from al-Ash’ari
himself in an apostolic succession of the Ash’arite teachers. The curriculum of
the Academy included a wide range of subjects such as theology, canon-law,
philosophy, logic, dialectics, natural sciences, Sufism, etc. Imam al-Haramain
allowed full freedom of thought and expression to his pupils; they were
encouraged to engage in debates and discussions of all kinds. Al-Ghazālī
gave early proof of great learning and also of a tendency towards
philosophizing. Imam al-Haramain described him as “a plenteous ocean to be
drowned” and comparing him with two other pupils of his observed: “al-Khawafi’s
strong point is verification, al-Ghazālī’s is speculation, and
al-Kiya’s is explanation.”7 In his debates with other students he showed
great suppleness of mind and a gift for polemics. Not long afterwaidil he began
to lecture to his fellow-students and to write books. But al-Ghazālī
was one of those rare minds whose originality is not crushed by their
learning.-He was a born critic and possessed great independence of thought. It
was verily during his studentship at the Nizamiyyah Academy of Nishapur that he
became impatient of dogmatic teaching and freed himself from the bondage of
authority (taqlid) and even showed
the signs of scepticism.
During his stay at Niahapur, he also became a
disciple to the Sufi abu ‘Ali al-Fadl ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Ali al-Farmadhi
al-Tusi, a pupil of al-Ghazālī’s own uncle and of the reputed
al-Qushairi (d. 465/1074). From al-Farmadhi al-Ghazālī learnt
more about the theory and practice of Sufism. He even practised rigorous
ascetic and Sufistic exercises under his guidance but not to the desired
effect. As he himself narrates, he could not attain to that stage where the
mystics begin to receive pure inspiration from “high above.”8
So he did not feel quite settled down in his mind. On the one hand, he felt
philosophically dissatisfied with the speculative systems of the scholastic
theologians and could not accept anything on authority, on the other, the
Sufistic practices {583} also failed to make any definite impression on him for
he had not received any sure results. There is no doubt, however, that the increasing
attraction of the Sufistic teaching, with its insistence upon a direct personal
experience of God, added to al-Ghazālī’s critical
dissatisfaction with dogmatic theology.
Al-Farmadhi died in 477/1084, and Imam
al-Haramain in 478/1085. Al-Ghazālī was then in his
twenty-eighth year, ambitious and energetic; the fame of his learning had
already spread in the Islamic world. He betook himself to the Court of Nizam
al-Mulk, the great vizier of the Saljnq sovereign Malikshah (r.
465/1072-485/1092) and joined his retinue of canonists and theologians. Nizam
al-Mulk by his munificent patronage of scholarship, science, and arts had
gathered round him a brilliant galaxy of savants and learned men. He used to
hold frequent assemblies for debate and discussion and al-Ghazālī
soon made his mark at these and was conspicuous for his skill in debate.
Al-Ghazali’s profound knowledge of
Muslim law, theology, and philosophy so much impressed Nizam al-Mulk that he
appointed him to the Chair of Theology in the Nizamiyyah Academy (established
458-60/1065-67) at Baghdad in 484/1091. He was then only thirty-four. This was
most coveted of all the honours in the then Muslim world and one which had not
previously been conferred on anyone at so early an age.
As a professor in the Academy, al-Ghazālī
was a complete success; the excellence of his lectures, the extent of his
learning, and the lucidity of his explanations attracted larger and larger
classes including the chief savants of the time. Soon all Islam acclaimed his
eloquence, erudition, and dialectical skill and he came to be looked upon as
the greatest theologian in the Ash’arite tradition. His advice began to
be sought in matters religious and political, and he came to wield influence
comparable to that of the highest officials of the State. Apparently, he
attained to all the glory that a scholar could by way of worldly success, but
inwardly he began to undergo an intellectual and spiritual crisis.9
{584} His old doubts and scepticism began to assail him once again and he
became highly critical of the very subjects that he taught. He keenly felt the
hollowness of the meticulous spinning of casuistry of the canon-lawyers.10
The systems of the scholastic theologians (Mutakallimin)
had no intellectual certainty, for they depended entirely on the acceptance
of their initial dogmatic assumptions on authority. He denounced their
over-emphasis on the doctrinal, for it led to a faulty representation of
religion by reducing it to a mere mould of orthodoxy and catechism of dogmas.
The disputes of the scholastics amongst themselves he considered as mere
dialectical logomachies which had no real relation with religious life.11
Al-Ghazālī turned once again to the study of philosophy, this
time as diligently and as comprehensively as he could,12
but found, like Kant, that it was impossible to build theology on reason alone.
Reason was good so far as it went, but it could not go very far. The Ultimate,
the Supreme Truth, could not be reached through it. Becoming keenly aware of
the theological limitations of reason, he fell into a state of scepticism and
lost his peace of mind. The hypocrisy of his orthodox teaching became
unbearable and he found himself to be in a false position.
But all was not lost: he had some assurances
that he could be delivered from this state of despair through the Sufi way. It
was not that he now discovered that in Sufism lay the possibility for a direct
encounter with reality; this fact he had been realizing over a period of years.
He had made a theoretical study of Sufism and had even ventured into Sufistic
exercises; only he had not advanced far enough into them. If he could
consecrate himself to the Sufistic way of life through spiritual renunciation,
sustained asceticism, and prolonged and deep meditation, he might have received
the light he sought. But this meant in his case giving up his brilliant
academic career and worldly position. He was by nature ambitious and had great
desire for fame and self-glorification. On the other hand, he was the most
earnest seeker after truth. Besides, he had the anxiety to reach a secure faith
which was accentuated by his thought of life after death. He remained in the
throes of a severe moral conflict and in a spiritual travail for about six
months beginning from Rajah 488/July 1095. He collapsed physically and
mentally; appetite and digestion failed and he lost his power of speech. This
made it easy for him to {585} to renounce his post as a professor. He left
Baghdad in Dhu al-Qa’dah 488/ November 1095, ostensibly on a pilgrimage to
Mecca; actually he went into seclusion to practise the ascetic and religious
discipline of the Sufis in order to secure certainty for his mind and peace for
his soul. He gave away all his fortune except some “trust funds” to maintain
his family and proceeded to Syria.
For two years from 488/1095 to 490/1097 he
remained in strict retirement in one of the minarets of the mosque of the
Umayyads in Damascus, undergoing most rigorous ascetic discipline and
performing religious exercises. He moved to Jerusalem for another period of
meditation in the mosque of `Umar and the Dome of the Rock. After having paid
his visit to the tomb of Abraham at Hebron, he went on pilgrimage to Mecca and
Medina; then followed a long period of retreat at different places in holy
shrines and mosques and wandering in deserts.13
After eleven years the life of a wandering dervish and scholar came to an end
and he finally returned to his native town, Tus, in 499/1105.14
Of his inner spiritual experiences in their
experimental actuality, after he left Baghdad, al-Ghazālī
tells us almost nothing except that there were revealed to him in his periods
of solitude things innumerable and unfathomable. Apparently, these experiences
culminated in his acknowledgment of the authority of the Prophet and the
complete submission to the truth revealed in the Qur’an. The first public sign
of his recovery to orthodoxy is perhaps al-Risalah
al-Qudsiyyah, written during his retreat in Jerusalem, where in all
probability he was before 492/1099, for in Sha’ban of that year
Jerusalem was captured by the Crusaders. This has heen inserted as Qawa’id al-`Aqa’id in the third chapter
of the second book of his massive magnum
opus Ihyā’ ulm al-Din (The Revivification of the Sciences of Religion)
in which he began to set down what he had learnt through his long periods of
self-discipline and meditation.15
During his wanderings he not only kept on writing other {586} books besides Ihyā’ but also resumed teaching
from time to time. He keenly felt it incumbent upon him to crush heresy and
unbelief around him and to call people back to the truth and moral power of
Islam, both through writing and teaching: he virtually assumed the role of a
moral and religious reformer. He began to devote himself more and more to the
study of the traditions of the Prophet and make an extensive use of them for
the purposes of edification and spiritual guidance.
On his return to Tus he once again gave
himself to the life of retirement and contemplation, but very soon Fakhr
al-Mulk, the son of his old patron, Nizam al-Mulk, who was the vizier to Sultan
Sanjar, urged him to accept the chair of theology at the Maimunah Nizamiyyah
College at Nishapur which he did after some hesitation in Dhu al-Qa’dah
499/August 1106. But he did not stay there long and retired once more to his
home in Tns and established a madrasah at
which he began to teach both theology and Tasawwuf
. At the instance of the learned and the common people of Baghdad he was
once again summoned by the Grand Vizier al-Said to take up teaching in the old
Nizamiyyah Academy of Baghdad but al-Ghazālī chose to remain
at Tus. There he lived in peace with some personal disciples having charge of
his madrasah. Every moment was filled
with study and devotion till his death on the 14th of Jumada II 505/the 19th of
December 1111. It was a beautifully complete and round life in which the end
came to the beginning.
The most important thing about al-Ghazālī’s
system of thought is its method which may be described as that of the courage
to know and the courage to doubt. The best expression of it is given in his
famous autobiographical work, al-Munqidh
min al-Dalal (The, Deliverer from Error), which he wrote some five years
before his death.16
In al-Munqidh al-Ghazālī makes {587} a critical examination
of the methods of the various schools of thought current in his time in a
manner closely similar to that of Descartes’ (d. 1060/1650) in his Discours de la methods (1047/1637).
All kinds of knowledge, al-Ghazālī
held, should be investigated and nothing should be considered dangerous or
hostile. For himself he said that he had embarked on the open sea of knowledge
right from his adolescence setting aside all craven caution: “I poked into
every dark recess and made an assault on every problem, I plunged into every
abyss. I scrutinized the creed of every sect and I fathomed the mysteries of
each doctrine. All this I did that I might distinguish between the true and the
false. There was not a philosopher whose system I did not acquaint myself with,
nor a theologian whose doctrines I did not examine. If ever I met a Sufi, I
coveted to probe into his secrets; if an ascetic, I investigated into the basis
of his austerities; if one of the atheistic zindiqs,
I groped into the causes of his bold atheism.”17
Such was the courage of al-Ghazālī to know. He was free from
the parochialism of the dogmatic theologians of his day who would rather
consign the books of the atheists and philosophers to flames than read them.
But prepared though he was to listen to every creed and doctrine, he would
accept none and doubt all. For one thing, he came to the conclusion that the
greatest hindrance in the search for truth was the acceptance of beliefs on the
authority of others and blind adherence to the heritage of the past. He
remembered the traditional saying of the Prophet: “Every child is born with a
sound disposition (fitrah); it is his
parents who make him a Jew or a Christian or a Magian”18
and he was anxious to know what that sound disposition was before it suffered
the impress of the unreasoned convictions imposed by others. Indeed, he wanted
to reconstruct all his knowledge from its very foundation and was led to make
the following reflections: “The search after truth being the aim which I
propose to myself, I ought in the first place to ascertain what are the bases
of certitude. In the second place I ought to recognize that certitude is the
clear and complete knowledge of things, such knowledge as leaves no room for
doubt, nor any possibility of error.”19
As one might foresee, this proposed test for certitude only led him to a series
of doubts. No part of the knowledge he had acquired {588} hitherto could stand
this rigorous test. He further observed, “We cannot hope to find truth except
in matters which carry their evidence in themselves, i. e., in sense-perception
and necessary principles of thought; we must, therefore, first of all establish
these two on a firm basis.” But he doubted the evidence of sense-perception; he
could see plainly as Descartes did later that they so often deceive us. No eye
can perceive the movement of a shadow, still the shadow moves; a small coin
would cover any star yet the geometrical computations show that a star is a
world vastly larger than the earth.19a
Al-Ghazālī’s confidence in
sense-perception having been shaken, he turned to the scrutiny of what he
called the necessary principles, but he doubted even these. Is ten more than
three? Can a thing both be and not be at the same time or be both necessary and
impossible? How could he tell? His doubt with
regard to
sense-perception made him very hesitant to accept the infallibility of reason.
He believed in the testimony of senses till it was contradicted by the verdict
of reason. Well, perhaps there is above reason another judge who if he appeared
would convict reason of falsity and if such a third arbiter is not yet apparent
it does not follow that he does not exist.
Al-Ghazālī then considers the
possibility that life in this world is a dream by comparison with the world to
come; and when a man dies, things may come to appear differently to him from
what he now beholds.20
There may be an order of reality different from this spatio-temporal order
which may be revealed to a level of consciousness other than the so-called
normal consciousness such as that of the mystics or the prophets. Such was the
movement of al-Ghazālī’s thought, which though formulated a little artificially
in the Munqidh was dramatic enough to
make out a case for the possibility of a form of apprehension higher than
rational apprehension, that is, apprehension as the mystic’s inspiration or the
prophet’s revelation.21
{589} Al-Ghazālī’s method of doubt or sceptical attitude did
certainly have its historical antecedents. The Ash’arites’ system of atomism,
by reducing all categories except substance (jauhar)
and quality (‘ard) to mere
subjectivities, virtually amounted to a form of scepticism.22
Even earlier the Mu’tazilites like al-Nazzam (d. 231/845) and abu
al-Hudhail
(d. 266/840) had formulated the principle of doubt as the beginning of all
knowledge.23 But with
al-Ghazālī this was as much a matter of an inherent trait of
his intellectual disposition as a principle. One may be tempted to say that his
keenly alert and sensitive mind, though, exposed from early youth to all the
various intellectual and spiritual movements of the times such as
scholasticism, rationalism, mysticism, etc., was not fully captured by any one
single movement. Ambitious and self-confident, he had been in a way playing
with the various influences rather than affected exclusively by anyone of them.
His restless soul had always been trying to reach for what it had not attained.
In his sincere and open search for absolute truth, he possibly remained
oscillating for a long time between the moments of belief and disbelief-moments
when he might have found comfort in his religious convictions with complete
submission to the teachings of the Qur’an and the moments when his doubts and
scepticism might have overwhelmed him, clamouring for indubitable certainty. It
is certainly very difficult to map the exact chronology of the spiritual
development of such a complex mind as that of al-Ghazālī’s.
The usual method of working out the history of the mental development of an
author on the basis of the chronological order of his works is not possible in
the case of al-Ghazālī for our knowledge of his works is
incomplete. both with regard to their extent and relative order, not to speak
of exact dating.24 None of his
works, not even {590} al-Munqidh which
has often been compared with the Confessions
of Augustine allows us a peep into the inward workings of his soul.25
It is merely a schematized description of his spiritual development and not an
existential study of the “phenomenology” of his soul: he has simply arranged in
a logical order what must necessarily have come to him in a broken and sporadic
form.
Nevertheless, al-Munqidh is our most valuable source to determine al-Ghazali’s
relative position with regard to the various schools of thought around him. He
had been moving through them all these years, studying them very closely in his
quest for certainty, and of them he now gives us a critical evaluation in a
summary fashion. He divides the various “seekers” after truth into the four
distinct groups: Theologians, Mystics, Authoritarians Ta’limites), and
Philosophers.
His criticism of the theologians is very mild.
He himself had been brought up in their tradition and was thoroughly saturated
into their system. It is doubtful if he ever parted company with them
completely. He did not cease to be a theologian even when he became a mystic
and his criticism of the philosophers was essentially from the standpoint of a
theologian. Only he was dissatisfied with the scholastic method of the
theologians, for it could not bring any intellectual certainty; their
doctrines, he deemed, however, to be correct. His belief in God, Prophecy, and
Last Judgment were too deeply rooted in him to be shaken altogether; his
scepticism with regard to them, if at all, was a temporary phase; he only very
much desired a confirmation of these fundamental beliefs either on some
philosophical grounds or through some sort of first-hand experience.
So far as the mystics were concerned, al-Ghazālī
found himself hardly in a position to level any criticism against them except
for the extravagantly pantheistic utterances or antinomian tendencies of some
of the intoxicated Sufis.26
They were essentially men of feeling (arbab
al-ahwal) rather than men of words (ashab
al-aqwal) and he had himself early realized the importance of experiences
and states rather than that of definitions and dogmas. The claims of the
mystics he knew could not be challenged by one who lacked their experiences.
Al-Ghazālī held a very poor opinion of the pretensions of those whom he called the party of ta’lim or authoritative instruction also known as Ismail῾iyyah and Batiniyyah.27 Theirs was a kind of Muslim popery or Montanist movement. {591} They renounced reason and held that truth can be attained only by a submissive acceptance of the pronouncements of an infallible Imam. This doctrine indeed was a part of the propaganda of the Fatimid Caliphate (297/909-555/1160) with its centre in Cairo and, thus, had its moorings in the political chaos of the day. Al-Ghazālī’s examination of the Taclimites was certainly due to his love for thoroughness in his search for truth, but perhaps he also wanted to make clear his position with regard to an ideology having political strings behind it.
It was the fourth class of the seekers of
truth, namely, the philosophers, who engaged his attention most of all and
troubled his mind more than anyone else.
1.
Introduction.-Al-Ghazālī’s critical examination of the
method and doctrines of the philosophers is the most exciting and important
phase of his intellectual inquiry. He was not at all against philosophical
investigation as such. His early interest in philosophy is evidenced by the
treatises that he wrote on logic such as MiÐyar
al-`Ilm fi Fann al-Mantiq: “The Touchstone of
Science in Logic” (quite an elaborate treatise) and Mihakk al-Nazar fi al-Mantiq:
“The Touchstone of Speculation in Logic” (a smaller work). In the history
of Muslim thought his is the first instance of a theologian who was thoroughly
schooled in the ways of the philosophers; the doctors of Islam before him
either had a dread of philosophy, considering it a dangerous study, or dabbled
in it just to qualify themselves for polemics against the philosophers. But al-Ghazālī
very strongly realized that to refute a system before literally inhabiting it
and getting thoroughly immersed into its very depths was to act blindly. “A
man,” he tells us, “cannot grasp what is defective in any of the sciences
unless he has so complete a grasp of the science in question that he equals its
most learned exponents in the appreciation of its fundamental principles and
even goes beyond and surpasses them . . . .”28
In all intellectual honesty he refrained from saying a word against the
philosophers till he had completely mastered their systems.
He applied himself so assiduously to the study
of the entire sweep of Greek philosophy current in his time and attained such a
firm grasp of its problems and methods29
that he produced one of the best compendia of it in Arabic entitled as Maqasid al-Falasifah (The Intentions of
the Philosophers). This compendium was such a faithful exposition of
Aristotelianism that when it {592} came to be known to the Christian
scholastics through a Latin translation made as early as 540/ 1145 by the
Spanish philosopher and translator Dominicus Gundisalvus,30
it was taken to be the work of a genuine Peripatetic. Albert the Great (d.
679/1280), Thomas Aquinas (d. 673/1274), and Roger Bacon (d. 694/1294) all
repeatedly mentioned the name of the author of the “Intentions of the
Philosophers” along with ibn Sina and ibn Rushd as the true representatives of
Arab Aristotelianism.31
But never did Arab Aristotelianism find a more vigorous foe than al-Ghazālī.
His compendium in philosophy was merely propaedeutic to his Tahāfut al-Falasifah (The
Incoherence of the Philosophers)32
in which he levelled a devastating attack on the doctrine of the Muslim
Peripatetics with a dialectic as subtle as any in the history of philosophy.
Al-Ghazālī, for the purposes of his scrutiny, divided the
philosophers into three main groups: The materialists (dahriyyun),33 the naturalists or the deists (tabi’iyyun), and the theists (ilāhiyyun). The materialists
completely dispensed with the idea of God and believed that the universe has
existed eternally without a creator: a self-subsisting system that operates and
develops by itself, has its own laws, and can be understood by itself. The
naturalists or the deists, struck by the wonders of creation and informed of a
running purpose and wisdom in the scheme of things while engaged in their
manifold researches into the sciences of phenomena, admitted the existence of a
wise Creator or Deity, but rejected the spirituality and immortality of the
human soul. They explained the soul away in naturalistic terms as an
epiphenomenona {593} of the body and believed that the death of the latter led
to the complete non-existence of the former. Belief in heaven, hell,
resurrection, and judgment they considered as old wives’ tales or pious
fictions.
Al-Ghazālī discussed the
theists at length for they, according to him, held a comparatively more final
position and exposed the defects of the materialists and the naturalists quite
effectively, thus saving him from doing so for himself. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle
he listed as theists but concentrated on Aristotle who had criticized all his
predecessors and even had refuted his own teacher, excusing himself of this by
saying: “Plato is dear to us. And truth is dear, too. Nay, truth is dearer than
Plato.”34
As far as the transmission of Aristotle’s
philosophy in Arabic was concerned, al-Ghazālī found that none
of the Muslim philosophers had accomplished anything comparable to the
achievements of al-Farabi and ibn Sina. These two were Aristotle’s most
faithful and capable translators and commentators; the works of others were marked
with disorder and confusion. Thus al-Ghazālī came finally to
concentrate on that philosophical thought of his day which had emerged from the
writings of these two theistic philosophers (particularly ibn Sina) and applied
himself to its examination in a systematic manner. He divided the philosophical
sciences into mathematics, logic, physics, politics, ethics, and metaphysics,
and went into their details in order to see if there really was anything false
or untenable. He was most scientific in his approach: ready to accept whatever
he found to be based on the evidence of factual data or susceptible of proof by
argument in conformity with the principles of reason. He had least hesitation
in accepting as true much of what the philosophers taught with regard to their sciences
of mathematics, logic, and physics; he even had no serious quarrel with them in
the spheres of politics and ethics. The most grievous errors of the theistic
philosophers, he found, consisted in their metaphysical views which, unlike
mathematical and natural sciences, were not grounded in compelling reason or
positive inquiry but on conjecture and fanciful speculations. Had their
metaphysics been so very well grounded in sound reasoning as their mathematical
sciences were, they would have agreed amongst themselves on metaphysical issues
as they did on the mathematical ones. But, above all, what al-Ghazālī
saw to his dismay was that the philosophies of al-Farabi and ibn Sins, at
points did violence without any philosophic warrant or justification to the
principles of religion as enunciated in the Qur’an. His empirical and
theological spirit revolted very strongly against this. The positive facts of
religion could not be sacrificed for sheer metaphysical speculations, nor could
they be interpreted externally from the point of view of a preconceived system
of philosophy. These had to be interpreted intrinsically and reckoned on their
own grounds. The Muslim philosophers had failed to take this empirical
standpoint. They had also been slow in realizing that notwithstanding a great
breadth of outlook that the {594} study of Greek philosophy had brought to the
Muslims, there was in the ultimate analysis quite a gulf between the
inspiration of the Qur’anic teachings and the spirit of Hellenism.35
Carried away by their enthusiasm to bring a reconciliation between philosophy
and religion, al-Farabi and ibn Sina, according to al-Ghazālī,
had so compressed the dogmas of Islamic religion within the moulds of
Aristotelian and Plotinian systems as to fall either into a morass of
inconsistencies or get implicated into heretical positions.
All this al-Ghazālī brought
out with most accomplished understanding and admirable skill, and with a
“transcendental” dialectic as subtle as that of Kant’s in his Tahāfut al-Falasifah which indeed
is the most important of all his works from the point of view of our present
study. Within less than a hundred years it called forth the most stimulating
rejoinder (entitled Tahāfut
al-Tahāfut) from the celebrated ibn Rushd and then a rejoinder of a
rejoinder from Muslih al-Din Mustafa ibn Yusuf al-Bursawi generally known as Khwajah Zadah, a Turkish theologian who died in 893/1488.36
These works, particularly the first two, taken together epitomize the essential
problems arising from the impact of classical philosophy on the teachings of
religion.37
2. Method and Problems of Tahāfut.-It
is generally believed that al-Ghazālī wrote his Tahāfut al-Falāsifah during
the period of his doubts, but in fact the work is essentially of a polemical
nature and shows in him an odd combination of scepticism and ecstatic
assurances. The general effect of the teaching of the philosophers, al-Ghazālī
felt, was so ruinous to the religious and moral life of the masses that his
well-nigh apostolic humanism revolted against it and he dedicated himself to an
open warfare against the philosophers. There is no doubt about the theological
inspiration and the polemical spirit of the Tahāfut
but then we add most emphatically that neither of them seriously affects
the great philosophical value of this work.38
The modern reader cannot fail to be struck with clear anticipations of Hume (d.
1190/1776), Schleiermacher (d. 1250/1834), Ritschl (d. 1307/1889), and others,
and even of the logical positivists of our day in some of the arguments and the
general motif of the Tahāfut. His general position may
be briefly described to be that the truths {595} of the positive facts of
religion can neither be proved nor disproved, and to do otherwise leads the
philosophers to take more often than not quite nonsensical positions.
Al-Ghazālī assails the philosophers
on twenty points39
(beginning
with creation and ending with the last things) and endeavours to show that
their dogmas of the eternity and the everlastingness of the world are false;
their assertion that God is the creator of the world is dishonest for it is
flagrantly inconsistent with their dogma of the eternity of the world; that
they fail to prove the existence, the unity, the simplicity and the
incorporeality of God or God’s knowledge either of the universals or of the
particulars; that their views with regard to the souls of the celestial
spheres, and the spheres’ knowledge of the particulars and the purpose of their
movement are unfounded; that their theory of causation which attributes effects
to the very nature of the causes is false; and that they cannot establish the
spirituality of the soul, nor prove its immortality; and, finally, that their
denial of the resurrection of the bodies in the life hereafter is
philosophically unwarranted. Al-Ghazālī charges the
philosophers with infidelity on three counts, viz.,
(1) eternity of the world;
(2) denial of God’s
knowledge of the particulars, and
(3) denial of bodily
resurrection.
For the rest their views are heretical or born
of religious indifference. But in all they are involved in contradictions and
suffer from confusion of thought.
The problem which al-Ghazālī
considers the most important is that of the eternity (qidam) of the world to which he allots the greatest space, almost
a quarter of his book. This has been one of the most challenging and
uncompromising problems in the conflict between religion and philosophy. The
advocates of orthodoxy considered the eternality of the universe to be the most
pernicious thesis of the philosophers and vehemently combated against it. Al-Ash’ari
(d. 324/935) wrote a refutation of it in his Kitab al-Fusul which probably is the earliest scholastic treatise
dealing with this question,40
and ibn Hazm (d. 457/1064) made the doctrine a dividing line between the
orthodox and the heterodox sects. The orthodox could not possibly concede the
philosophers’ claim of the eternality of the world, for with them there is
nothing eternal but God; all else is created (hadith). To make anything
co-eternal with God is to violate the strict principle of monotheism, for that
infringes the absoluteness and infinity of God and reduces Him to the position
of an artificer: a Demiurge. Virtually, the doctrine drives one to the
materialists’ position that the world is an independent universe, a self-subsistent
system, which develops by itself, and can be understood by itself. All this was
hard to swallow for a theologian like al-Ghazālī.
The philosophers like al-Farabi and ibn Sina
as Muslims did not deny that {596} God is an eternal creator of the universe,
but as true Aristotelians believed that God’s activity consists merely in
bringing forth in the state of actuality the virtual possibilities inherent in
the prime matter which was alleged to be co-eternal with Him. This was in
conformity with the Aristotelian notion of change not as a passage from
non-being into being, which would make it unintelligible, but as a process by
which what is merely “potential being” passes over, through “form,” into
“actual being.”41
So God as
an eternal creator constantly combines matter with new forms; He did not create
the universe out of sheer nothingness at a definite time in the past. As a
corollary they believed in the infinity of time.
Al-Ghazālī, on the other
hand, in accordance with the obvious teachings of the Qur’an, firmly holds the
position that the world was created by God out of absolute nothingness42
at a certain moment in the past which is at a finite interval from the present.
He created not only forms but also matter and time along with them which had a
definite beginning and hence is finite.
The two positions as outlined above readily
remind one of Kant’s thesis and antithesis in the first antinomy43
which present an impossible problem in the sense that conditions requisite for
their verification or falsification are de
facto impossible. One is tempted to say that al-Ghazālī
does recognize the impossibility of the problem for he clearly proclaims that
he does not intend to defend his own position but only to refute that of the
philosophers. This is true in general of all the other disputations in Tahāfut al-Falāsifah. The
arguments of the philosophers are presented with very considerable
plausibility, but the dialectical skill and philosophical acumen which al-Ghazālī
employs to refute them are also overwhelming. Though the whole discussion is
surcharged with a polemical spirit, yet one cannot fail to see that al-Ghazālī’s
standpoint throughout remains highly scientific and logical; he does not
succumb merely to verbal quibbles. He clearly says that he does not have any
quarrel with the philosophers on the usages of terms.44
Al-Ghazālī’s quarrel with the
philosophers is because many of their particular arguments are logically false
and the various positions that they take in their system as a whole are inconsistent
with one another, but, above all, because some of their basic assumptions are
unfounded. These assumptions, al-Ghazālī proves most
powerfully, can neither be demonstrated logically, nor are they self-evident
through “intuition.” Such, for example, is the assumption that every event has
a cause or that causes produce their effects necessarily. The {597} Muslim philosophers have accepted
these assumptions merely in the dogmatic tradition of Aristotelian philosophy.
The faulty reasonings of the philosophers or the inconsistencies in their
positions are remediable but not so the uncritical acceptance of their
assumptions. Al-Ghazālī for himself is not prepared to accept
any part of the Aristotelian system except the first principles of logic and
rules of syllogism-nothing else until and unless it has logical coerciveness
about it. On the other hand, he is not prepared to reject any of the doctrines
of religion until and unless it is disproved with a similar logical rigour and
cogency. Nothing is “possible” in philosophy till it is logically necessary,
and nothing is “impossible” in religion till it is logically self-contradictory.
Apparently, this is a double-faced criterion to judge variously the truths of
philosophic assumptions and those of religious assumptions, but from the point
of view of philosophy of religion it is perfectly justified. Philosopher qua philosopher has to accept the facts
of religion as given by religion; this is the sine qua non of any empirical philosophy of religion. Thus, in
spite of the fact that al-Ghazālī’s whole polemic against the
philosophers derives its inspiration from the Asst `arite theology, his method
remains in its essentials purely philosophical, fulfilling in its own way some
of the most important requirements of the modern and even contemporary
approaches to the problems of the philosophy of religion.45
These few observations with regard to al-Ghazālī’s
method in the Tahāfut were
necessary before we could enter into some of the detailed arguments which he
gives in the refutation of the philoapphera’ various positions.
3. Eternity of the World.-The proof of the philosophers for the
eternity of the world starts with certain assumptions with regard to the
notions of cause and will. These they take to be true axiomatically: (1) Every
effect has a cause. (2) Cause must be the action of some external force other
than the effect. (3) Cause or an act
of will when executed must immediately lead to the effeet.46
For world’s coming from non-existence to existence there certainly should have
been some cause; this cause could not be a physical cause for ex hypothe-si none yet existed. If this
cause arose from an act of will by God at some specific time, then the divine
will itself should have been determined by some other cause. This cause which
led God to change His mind should certainly be outside His mind; but again this
was not possible, for nothing outside Him yet existed. Thus, one is forced to
conclude that either nothing ever arose from the being of God-which is not
true, for the world does existor that the world must have been in existence
from all eternity, as an immediate effect of His eternal will.
Al-Ghazālī declines to
subscribe to any one of the assumptions as stated {598} above and shows that
belief in the origination of the world from the eternal will of God at a
specific moment of time as chosen by Him involves no violation of the fundamental
principles of logic. The assumptions of the philosophers, that every effect has
a cause and that a cause is a force external to its effect, do not have a
logical coerciveness about them. It is quite legitimate to believe that God’s
will does not have any cause or at least that this cause does not lie outside
His will but in itself. Similarly, it is not logically necessary that the
effect should follow a cause immediately, for it is not logically contradictory
to hold the notion of “a delayed effect.” It is possible to think that God’s
will is eternal and yet an object of that will has occurred at some period in
time. Here a distinction should be made between the eternity of God’s will and
the eternity of the object of His will. God, for example, can eternally will
that Socrates and Plato should be born at such and such a time and that the one
should be born before the other. Hence it is not logically illegitimate to
affirm the orthodox belief that God eternally willed that the world should come
into being at such and such a definite moment in time.
But the philosophers point out a real
difficulty here. According to them, it is impossible to find out a
differentiating principle for God’s eternal choice of a particular moment for
the creation of the world. All moments of time are completely similar; how is
it possible to choose between two completely similar things? Why, in short, was
the world not created earlier or later than when it was created? One of the
answers to this is that there arises no question of world’s being created
earlier or later, for time yet was not; time too was created along with the
creation of the world, i. e., both world and time are finite in duration. Al-Ghazālī
adds further that should one assume with the philosophers that time is
infinite, then at any present moment that infinite time has been brought to an
end and a time that has an end is not infinite but finite. It is noteworthy
that this is exactly the argument given by Kant in the thesis of his first
antinomy.
Al-Ghazālī’s real standpoint,
however, is that God just arbitrarily chose one particular moment rather than
another for world’s coming into being. We need ask no more about this choice,
for God’s will is completely undetermined. His will does not depend upon
distinctions in the outside world, for it is itself the producer of all the
distinctions therein. This creating of the distinctions in fact is the true
significance of God’s will. God chooses a particular moment for the creation of
the universe as He chooses a particular direction for the movement of the
spheres of the (Ptolemaic) heaven, in some cases from east to west, in others
from west to east (as described in the Aristotelian astronomy) even when the
reversal of directions would have made no difference. There is no way to explain
God’s choice either in one case or the other.
The
difficulty posed by the philosophers arises because of their misguided attempt
to understand the nature of divine will altogether in the terms of man’s will.
Certainly, God’s will is not like man’s, as God’s knowledge is not like man’s
knowledge. So far as God’s knowledge is concerned, the {599} philosophers
avowedly admit that it differs from man’s knowledge in so many respects that in
their final position it becomes indeed an inexplicable mystery. God, according
to them, possesses the knowledge of all the universals without this knowledge
necessitating plurality, without its being additional to His essence, and
without its multiplying in proportion to the multiplicity of the objects known.
Some of them assert after Aristotle that God is the knower, the knowledge, and
the known, and that the three are one. Should we judge all this by what applies
to man’s knowledge, it will be found to be an utter impossibility. While the
philosophers admit that God’s knowledge cannot be compared with man’s
knowledge, they insist upon drawing a comparison between God’s will and man’s
will. This is exactly what al-Ghazālī calls the incoherence of the
philosophers and, according to him, their thought-system taken as a whole
reveals quite a number of such incoherences. Indeed, the philosophers’ very
notion of eternal creation is self-contradictory and meaningless. Is it sense
to speak of a creation of that which exists eternally? If God and the prime
matter are both eternal existents, does it make sense to say that one is the
cause of the other? Can the relation between two existents qua existents be
regarded as a causal one?
Further, the philosophers put different
constructions upon their notions of space and time. They assume time to be
infinite and space to be finite, and yet consider time to be co-implicant of
movement in space. Al-Ghazālī insists rightly that one who
believes in the finitude of space must in consistency assume the existence of
finite time, particularly when one holds the Aristotelian position that space,
time, and movement in space are all related to one another.47
And if they insist that it is impossible to think of empty space, they should
equally realize that it is impossible to conceive of an empty time.
These are just a few of the inconsistencies of
the philosophers pointed out by al-Ghazālī in the course of
his disputation with regard to the eternity of the world and they could be
mentioned here only very briefly, considering the space at our disposal. One
further point of criticism may, however, be added for its importance in the
history of modern philosophy. Prior to its origination, the philosophers hold,
the world must have either been possible (mumkin),
or impossible (mumtani’), or
necessary (wajib). It is impossible
that it should have been impossible; for that which is impossible in itself is
never brought into existence. Again, it is impossible for it to have been
necessary in itself, for that which is necessary in itself is never deprived of
existence. It follows then that the existence of the world must have always
been possible in itself, otherwise it would never have come to be. This
possibility cannot inhere in possibility itself, nor in the agent, nor in
no-substratum, for the possible is that which is in the process of becoming actual. Hence the subject of
possibility is some substratum which is susceptible of possibility, and this is
matter. Now, this matter cannot be considered to have been originated. If it
had been originated, the possibility of its existence would have preceded its
{600} existence. In that case possibility would have existed in itself, but
possibility existing in itself is unintelligible. Hence matter is eternal and
it is only the passing over of the forms to matter which is originated.
In rebutting this highly sophisticated
argument of the philosophers al-Ghazālī points out in Kantian
fashion that possibility like impossibility is a purely subjective notion to
which nothing need correspond in reality. If possibility requires an existent
to correspond to it, so would impossibility require something to correspond to
it, but avowedly there is no existing thing in concrete reality to which
impossibility may be referred. Hence possibility like impossibility is merely a
concept; the assumption of an existing substratum to which this concept may be
related is to have a metaphysical jump from mere thought to actual existence
and is to commit as we understand now an ontological fallacy.
4.
Theory of Emanation.-The entire argument of the
philosophers with regard to the eternity of the world is, thus, full of
contradictions and unproved assumptions, but the most manifest of their
inconsistencies and the sheer baselesaness of their assumptions become signally
conspicuous when they come to explain the origination of the world from the
being of God in the terms of the Plotinian Theory of Emanation. Plotinus
considers the world to be a necessary outflow from the being of God like light
from the sun48 or better
as Spinoza described it later like the properties of a triangle from a
triangle.49 Muslim
philosophers’ subscription to this view according to al-Ghazālī
is the clearest evidence that their verbal avowal of creation is a mere
dissimulation and duplicity. The problem of emanation with the philosophers,
however, arises because of their over-emphasis on the abstract unity and absolute
perfection of God. Creation through an act of volition implies both will and
knowledge, and these cannot be predicated of God as attributes apart from His
essence without doing violence to His absolute unity. Further, both will and
knowledge are limitations: will in particular implies a deficiency in a being
who wills, for it means that he desires or wants to have that which he lacks.
Hence the philosophers elaborated an ingenious theory of emanation which
contrives to erect a cosmological staircase between the stable stillness of
God’s unity and the changing and varied multiplicity of the world. This
staircase is constituted of a finely graded series of intelligences and souls
of celestial spheres, each emanating from the other in an hierarchical fashion.
The view that the celestial spheres are perfect and have souls and
intelligences superior to that of man had the overwhelming authority of
Aristotle50 and further
it was possible and even fascinating to conceive of them in terms of angels as
described by the theologians.{601}
The emanationism of the Muslim philosophers in
the final analysis worked under two governing principles: First, it is not
thinkable that from God who is a pure unity anything could proceed except that
which is itself a unity. This gave rise to the formula: from one only one can
follow. Secondly, being has two aspects: it is either necessary (wājib) or possible (mumkin); it is either essence (māhīyyah) or existence (annīyyah). In the case of God
alone are essence and existence identical; in all other beings essence is
separate from existence. From this it follows that all things are possible by their
essence, and they become necessary by the existence given to them by God.
The first emanation from the existence of the
First Principle (al-mabda’ al-awwal), the
Necessary Being (al-wājīb
al-wujūd), i. e., God, is the first intelligence (al-῾aql al-awwal) which is numerically one. Its existence is
possible in itself and necessary through the First Principle; further, it knows
its own essence as well as the essence of the First Principle. From its twofold
existence and two-fold knowledge springs a multiplicity of knowledge and
existence. The first intelligence, in fact, has three kinds of knowledge: of
the First Principle, of its own essence in so far as it is necessary, and of
its possible being. One might ask: What is the source of this three-foldness in
the first intelligence when the principle from which it emanates is one? The
answer is: From the First Principle only one proceeds, i.e., the essence of the
first intelligence by which it knows itself. Now, its knowledge of its
principle is evidently necessary, although this necessity is not derived from
that principle. Again, being possible in itself the first intelligence cannot
owe its possibility to the First Principle but possesses it in its own self.
Though only one should proceed from one, yet it is possible that the first
effect may come to possess not from the First Principle but by itself certain
necessary qualities which express some relation or negation of relation and
give rise to plurality. Thus, from the three kinds of knowledge possessed by
the first intelligence emanate three beings, but only one from each kind. As it
knows its principle there proceeds from it a second intelligence; as it knows
its essence there proceeds from it the first soul of the highest sphere (which
is the ninth heaven); and as it knows itself as possible in itself there
proceeds from it the body of that sphere. In a similar fashion from the second
intelligence emanates the third intelligence, the soul of the stellar sphere
and the body of that sphere. From the third intelligence emanates the fourth
intelligence, the soul of the sphere of Saturn and the body of that sphere.
From the fourth intelligence emanates the fifth intelligence, the soul of the
sphere of Jupiter and the body of that sphere. Now there are, according to the
then current Ptolemaic system, only nine celestial spheres in all including the
sphere of the fixed stars all in concentric circles with earth in the centre.51
So, starting from the First Principle the emanations proceed on till the last
or the tenth intelligence appears and {602} with it the last sphere of the moon
and its soul. The tenth intelligence, also called the active intellect (al-῾aql al-fa῾῾āl),52
acts in our world. It produces the first matter (hayūla) which is passive and formless but which is the basis
of the four elements from which all creatures arise. The composition and
decomposition of the elements is the cause of generation and corruption of all
bodies. But all these transformations take place under the influence of the
movement of the spheres. As the active intellect is the producer of matter, so
it is the dispenser of forms, dator
formarum (wāhib al-şuwar). It gives to each matter its proper
form and it also gives each body a soul (which in fact is its form) when that
body is ready to receive it. Thus, active intellect is also the source of the
existence of the human souls. But the human soul does not feel at home in its physical
abode and yearns for nothing less than the First Principle Himself. Hence it
starts its spiritual journey back to the original source traversing through the
various stages of the intelligences of the spheres. This is a rounded though
brief description of the emanationistic world-view so enthusiastically
elaborated by the Muslim philosophers, by ibn Sina, for example, in both of his
major works on philosophy, viz., Kitāb
al-Shifā᾿ and Kitāb
al-Najāt and by al-Farabi in his al-Madīnat
al-Fāďilah.53
Determinism implicit in this emanationistic
world-view is so opposed to the theistic voluntarism of the Ash῾arite
world-view that al-Ghazālī launches the moat vehement attack
against it. His strictures against this grand cosmological construction made
out of so many various foreign imported ideas are the strongest and the
bitterest of all others that may be found in the entire Tahāfut. All this, he inveighs, is arbitrary reasoning, idle
speculation; a wild guess work; darkness piled upon darkness. If someone says
he saw things of this kind in a dream, it would be inferred that he was
suffering from some disease. Even an insane person could not rest satisfied
with such postulates.54
In our own times, to say nothing of the scientists, F. R. Tennant who may be
described as an eminent “religious positivist” holds the theory of emanation
more or leas in the same estimation. 55
Al-Ghazālī’s criticism of the
emanatiorustic argument consists in showing, on the one hand, that it fails to
account for the multiplicity and composition in {603} the universe and, on the other, that it does not at all
succeed in safeguarding the absolute unity of God. If the formula ever so
glibly repeated that from one only one proceeds should be observed strictly
logically, then all the beings in the world would be units, each of which would
be an effect of some other unit above it, as it would be the cause of some
other unit below it in a linear fashion. But in fact this is not the case.
Every object, according to the philosophers themselves, is composed at least of
form and matter. How does a composite thing such as a body then come into
existence? Does it have only one cause? If the answer is in the affirmative,
then the assertion that only one proceeds from one becomes null and void. If,
on the other hand, a composite thing has a composite cause, then the same
question will be repeated in the case of this cause so on and so forth till one
arrives at a point where the compound necessarily meets the simple. This
contact between the compound effect and the unitary cause wherever it occurs
would falsify the principle that only one proceeds from one. Now, strictly speaking,
all the existents in the universe are characterized by composition and only the
First Principle, i. e., God, alone can be said to possess true simplicity or
unity, for in Him alone there is the complete identity of essence and
existence. This would lead us necessarily to the conclusion that either the
principle of “only one from one” fails to account for the composition and
multiplicity which is apparent in the universe or that even God does not
possess a genuine unity. But the philosophers cloak the issue with their
artificial subtleties and the grandiose constructions they put upon their
emanationistic foundations.
What earthly and even unearthly relation is
there, al-Ghazālī questions rightly, between the first
intelligence’s having a possible existence and the body of the sphere of the
second intelligence which is supposed to proceed from it? Neither logic nor
experience can substantiate this wild supposition and as such it is no more
than pure nonsense. Further, how is it possible that from two kinds of
knowledge of the first intelligence, that is, knowledge of the First Principle
and that of itself, should arise two kinds of existence, first, that of the
second intelligence and, second, that of the soul of the highest sphere? How
can the knowledge of a thing lead to the existence of a thing (as we would now
put it after Kant) without committing an obvious ontological fallacy? How can
the knower emanate from the knowing, al-Ghazālī rightly
wonders, as does F. R. Tennant, and like him deplores that of all the people,
philosophers should believe in such mythical nonsense.56
Even if the
triplicity with which the philosophers characterize the first intelligence
should be taken for granted (which indeed cannot be done) it fails to account
for all that they want to deduce from it. The body of the highest sphere, which
according to them proceeds only from one aspect of the essence of the first
intelligence, is surely not unitary in nature but composite and that in three
ways. {604} First, as stated above, it is composed of form and matter, as
indeed all bodies are according to the philosophers’ own admission. True, form
and matter always exist conjointly in all bodies, yet they are so different
from each other that one cannot be the cause of the other. Hence, form and
matter of the body of the highest sphere require two principles for their
existence and not one. A unitary aspect of the three-fold character of the
first intelligence fails to account for it.
Secondly, the body of this sphere has a
definite size. Its having a definite size is something additional to the bare
fact of its existence. Certainly, it could have come into existence with a
different size, bigger or smaller than what it is. Hence, over and above that
which necessitated the existence of the body of the sphere, there should be an
additional cause to account for the adoption of this particular size.
Thirdly, in the highest heaven, there are
marked out two points as its poles, which are fixed. This fact was admitted by
the philosophers in accordance with the Aristotelian astronomy. Now, either all
the parts of the highest sphere are similar in which case it is impossible to
explain why two points should be chosen in perference to all the others as its
poles; or they are different, some of them possessing properties which are not
possessed by the others. Hence, we require yet another aspect in the first
intelligence to be the cause for differences in the various parts of the
highest sphere which differences alone would justify the choice of two points
therein to be the poles.
In view of what has been stated above, it is
sheer “ignorance” on the part of the philosophers to hold that the body of the
highest sphere has emanated only from one aspect of the essence of first
intelligence. Either the principle that only one proceeds from one is true, in
which case the first intelligence which is not a mere triplicity but a whole
multiplicity remains unexplained, or this principle is an empty formula
signifying nothing, and, thus, making it possible that “many may proceed from
one.” In the latter case the infinite variety and plurality of the world can be
directly derived from the unity of God and there is no need to erect an
emanationistic staircase between Him and the world.
The above principle certainly collapses when
we come to the second intelligence, for it is supposed to be, in one of its
aspects, the cause of the sphere of the fixed stars. These are twelve hundred
or so (according to the then Greek or Arab astronomers’ reekoning)57
and are different in magnitude, shape, position, colour, and in respect of
their special function in nature, etc. Each one of these factors in every
single star needs a separate cause as its {605} determinant (murajjih).
All this necessitates a bewildering multiplicity in the second intelligence and
also indirectly presupposes the same in the first intelligence in so far as the
latter is the emanative cause of the former.
Should the
above arguments fail to convince the philosophers, there is another way to show
that the first intelligence is more than a mere triplicity. Is the
self-knowledge of the first intelligence identical with its essence or other
than it? It is not possible that it should be identical, for knowledge is not
the same thing as that which is known. Hence, the first intelligence is not a
triplicity but a quadruplicity, to wit: its essence, its knowledge of itself,
its knowledge of the First Principle, and its being a possible existent by
itself. To all these four aspects there can be added yet another, namely, its
being a necessary being whose necessity is derived from an external cause. All
this proves that the first intelligence has five aspects and not three, as
arbitrarily assumed by the philosophers. Whether the first intelligence has
five aspects or three, it certainly is not of purely unitary character
according to the philosophers’ own admission. This shows that there is
something in the effect which is not present in the cause, i. e., the First
Principle, and this is scandalous.
Not only does the formula that only one
proceeds from one become shamefacedly invalid right at the outset, but further,
according to al-Ghazālī, the entire emanationistic line of
argument does great violence to the concept of God’s unity and, thus, nullifies
the very purpose for which it is adopted. There is no reason, according to him,
that the very arguments which the philosophers advance to establish the triple
character of the first intelligence should not be applied to God Himself. One
of the aspects of plurality in the first intelligence according to the
philosophers is its being a possible existent by itself. It may be asked: Is
its being possible identical with its existence or other than it? If it is
identical, no plurality would arise from it. If it is other than its existence,
then why should it not be possible to say that there is as much plurality in
the First Principle, i. e., God Himself, for He not only has existence but is
necessary in His existence ? The necessity of existence as such is other than
existence itself. In truth, existence may be considered to be a generic concept
divided into necessary and possible. If one specific difference is an addition
to existence per se in one case, it
should be considered so in the other also. If the philosophers insist that the
possibility of existence is other than existence in the case of the first
intelligence, through the same argument they should admit that necessity of
existence is different from existence in the case of the First Principle.
Similarly, al-Ghazālī asks: Is the first intelligence’s
knowledge of its principle identical with its existence and with its knowledge
of itself or other than the two ? If it is identical, then there will be no
plurality in its nature. But if it is other than the two, then such a plurality
exists also in the First Principle, for He too knows Himself as well as what is
other than Himself. Thus, al-Ghazālī contends that either there can
be no plurality in the first intelligence or if it is there, then it is for the
same reasons in the First Principle too, and, therefore, the beings
characterized by diversity and plurality {606} would directly proceed from Him.
Al-Ghazālī forces this conclusion upon the philosophers
through their own logic.
For himself al-Ghazālī
believes that: “The First Principle is an omnipotent and willing agent; He does
what He wills, and ordains as He likes, and He creates the similar and
dissimilar things alike, whenever and in whatever manner He wills? The
impossibility of such a belief is neither a self-evident truth, nor a matter of
inferential knowledge.”
58
Al-Ghazālī frankly and rightly confesses that the problem of
God’s relation with the universe in the final analysis remains ever beyond the
comprehension of human understanding. The inquiry into the manner in which the
world proceeded from God’s will, he urges, is “an idle and aimless venture.”
The modus operandi of God’s creative
activity is wholly inexplicable and this inexplicability is inevitable; indeed,
if it were explicable, it would not be “creative.” Explanation in all its forms
establishes some connection or similarity with what is experienced, whereas
God’s creativity is an activity through which the experients and what is
experienced by them come to be. How can human comprehension envisage the mode
of God’s act of creation when it is itself the creature of that act?
The philosophers try to avoid the charge of
plurality with regard to the First Principle so far as His knowledge is
concerned by affirming that the First Principle does not know anything other
than Himself and that His self-knowledge is the same thing as His essence; so
the knowledge, the knower, and the object of knowledge are all one in Him. This
indeed was originally the position of Aristotle according to whom God is
describable as thought thinking itself. In Aristotle’s own words, ` . . . it
must be itself that thought thinks, and its thinking is thinking on thinking.”
59
This view of God as reflective thought, reflective in the literal sense of
turning back upon itself, has been subjected to severe criticism by al-Ghazālī.
According to him, self-knowledge of a literal and direct sort is An
impossibility. He argues with Plotinus that self-knowledge even in the case of
God implies an epistemological subject-object dualism and, therefore, would
impede the philosophers’ thesis of the absolute unity of the First Principle.
Not only the Aristotelian conception of God as thought thinking thought does
not absolve the philosophers from introducing plurality in the First Principle,
but further lends them into many more difficulties with regard to their
emanationistic world-view. Consider, for example, the relative positions of the
First Principle and the first intelligence in terms of their knowledge. The
First Principle which is the emanative cause of the first intelligence does not
know anything other than Himself, whereas the latter knows not only its cause
but further knows itself and the three {607}
effects which
proceed from it, viz., the second intelligence, the soul of the highest sphere,
and the body of that sphere. It is a
strange theory, al-Ghazālī observes, which makes the effect have the
knowledge of its cause but not the cause of its effect. The necessity of a
cause possessing the knowledge of its effect is more compelling than the
necessity of an effect possessing the knowledge of its cause. In fact, the
philosophers make the first intelligence superior to and “nobler” than the
First Principle in so far as from the First Principle only one thing proceeds,
while from the first intelligence three things proceed. Further, the First
Principle does not know what prodeeds from Him; in fact, He does not know
anything other than Himself, while the first intelligence knows itself, its
cause, and its three effects. Al-Ghazālī feels so bitter at the
Aristotelian conception of God as thought thinking itself that he goes to the
length of saying that the philosophers by limiting God’s knowledge to the
sphere of self-knowledge virtually reduce Him to the status of the dead.
60
5. God’s
Knowledge of the Particulars.
61 Al-Ghazālī
is very emphatic and uncompromising with regard to the all-circumscribing
knowledge of God: “God knows the creeping of the black ant upon the rugged rock
in a dark night, and He perceives the movement of the mote in the midst of the
air.” 62
Ibn Sina also subscribes to the view that God knows everything: “Nothing, not
even as much as a particle of dust in the heavens or on the earth, remains
hidden from His knowledge.”
63
Yet, interestingly enough, al-Ghazālī does not hesitate to
level a charge of infidelity against him on this score for, according to ibn
Sina, though God knows all the particulars, He knows them only in a universal
way. This means that God cannot have the perceptual knowledge of particular things
but knows them by way of a universal knowledge. Ibn Sina realizes the
difficulty of his position and so adds that the understanding of it needs great
intellectual subtlety. The reasons that he advances to deny perceptual
knowledge to God are fully recognized by al-Ghazālī.
Perceptual knowledge is characterized both temporally and spatially, whereas
God is above both time and space and so it is not possible to ascribe
perceptual knowledge to Him. A particular event occurs at a particular moment
of time and suffers change with the passage of time. Change in the object of
perception implies a change in the content of perception itself which obviously
leads to change in the subject of perception, i.e., in the percipient himself.
But change in God is unthinkable; therefore, perception of a particular event
is not {608} possible for Him. Similarly, to distinguish between one particular
object and another in space is possible only through the senses and implies a
special relation of a sensible thing to the percipient as being near to or far
from him or in a definite position, and this is impossible where God is
concerned. Hence, it is not possible for God to have perceptual knowledge of the particulars. His knowledge can only be
that which rises above the particular “nows” and the particular “heres,” that
is to say, is of conceptual or universal nature.
Ibn Sina’s position as briefly outlined above
seems to be very well grounded in sound reasoning and is quite understandable,
yet, according to al-Ghazālī, it is so pernicious to religion
that it altogether demolishes the entire edifice of religious Law (hence his
charge of infidelity). The theory implies that God cannot know any new state
that emerges in John-He cannot know that John has becomes an infidel or a true
believer, for He can know only the unbelief or the belief of man in general in
a universal manner and not in specific relation to individuals. Yes, God cannot
know Muhammad’s proclaiming himself a prophet at the time when he did. And the
same will be true of every other prophet, for God only knows that among men
there are some who claim prophecy, and that such and such are their attributes;
but He cannot know a particular prophet as an individual, for that is to be
known only by the senses. There certainly is a point in what al-Ghazālī
says here for it is really difficult to show any relation between the temporal
and the timeless, yet the above criticism of his is a little wide of the mark
for it is based on a misinterpretation of ibn Sina’s position. By the statement
that God does not have perceptual knowledge of the particulars, ibn Sina
does not mean to say that God does not have the knowledge of the particulars or
that His knowledge is restricted only to that of the universals or general concepts.
Ibn Sina insists that God does have knowledge of the particulars; only this
knowledge comes to Him not through sensuous perception but through intellectual
perception, not from moment to moment but eternally.
Ibn Sina starts with the Aristotelian conception that God has only self-knowledge but adds emphatically that His self-knowledge necessarily implies knowledge of all the existent things in the universe in so far as He is the principal or the ultimate source of them all. There is not a single existent particular which does not proceed from Him directly or indirectly and the existence of which does not become in some way necessary through Him. The coming into existence of particular events and objects is due to the action and interaction of the various causes but ultimately all these have to be traced back to the First Cause. God, the First Cause, has the full prescience of the working of the various causes which originate from Him, and knows the effects produced by them and the time involved in their occurrence and recurrence. Thus, God knows the particular events even when they occur to a single individual under specific conditions and at particular times in so far as they are fully explicable in terms of general laws and all-pervasive causal nexus. This may be illustrated with reference to an analogous human situation. An astronomer {609} who has full understanding of the general laws governing the movements of the heavenly bodies can, through his proper calculations, describe the various phenomena such as the particular eclipses and the conjunctions of the stars. The analogy, however, though helpful, cannot be stretched to an identity, for, strictly speaking, there is nothing in our experience to compare with divine knowledge. Our knowledge is liable to error and is fragmentary, whereas God’s knowledge is infallible and all-embracing, so much