i Islam and Rationality © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004307490_001 Frank Griffel - 978-90-04-30749-0 Downloaded from Brill.com05/26/2020 05:34:31AM via University of Toronto ii Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science texts and studies Edited by Hans Daiber Anna Akasoy Emilie Savage-Smith VOLUME 98 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ipts Frank Griffel - 978-90-04-30749-0 Downloaded from Brill.com05/26/2020 05:34:31AM via University of Toronto iii Islam and Rationality The Impact of al-Ghazālī. Papers Collected on His 900th Anniversary. Vol. 2 Edited by Frank Griffel LEIDEN | BOSTON Frank Griffel - 978-90-04-30749-0 Downloaded from Brill.com05/26/2020 05:34:31AM via University of Toronto iv Cover illustration: Colored reproduction of a water-painting, probably lost, by the artist André Sevruguin (also: Sevrugian, 1894–1996) from Ernst Diez’ Die Kunst der islamischen Völker (Berlin Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion 1915). It shows the ruins of a building that we think is the mausoleum of al-Ghazali in his hometown Tabaran-Tus in Iran. For more information on the building see p. 173 of this book. This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 0169-8729 isbn 978-90-04-30695-0 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-30749-0 (e-book) Copyright 2016 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Frank Griffel - 978-90-04-30749-0 Downloaded from Brill.com05/26/2020 05:34:31AM via University of Toronto ContentsContents v Contents Preface vii List of Figures and Tables xvi List of Contributors xvii Keys and Conventions xx Part I Al-Ghazālī’s Works and His Thought 1 Al-Ghazālī on Error 3 Taneli Kukkonen 2 Al-Ghazālī’s Concept of Philosophy 32 Ulrich Rudolph 3 Problems in al-Ghazālī’s Perfect World Objections and Counter-Objections to His Best Possible World Thesis 54 Stephen R. Ogden 4 Al-Ghazālī’s Teleology and the Galenic Tradition Reading The Wisdom in God’s Creations (al-Ḥikma fī makhlūqāt Allah) 90 Ahmed El Shamsy 5 Al-Ghazālī and Kalām The Conundrum of His Body-Soul Dualism 113 Ayman Shihadeh 6 Al-Ghazālī’s Veil Section Comparative Religion before Religionswissenschaft? 142 Anna Ayşe Akasoy 7 Is There an Autograph of al-Ghazālī in MS Yale, Landberg 318? 168 Frank Griffel Frank Griffel - 978-90-04-30749-0 Downloaded from Brill.com05/26/2020 05:34:31AM via University of Toronto vi Contents Part II Al-Ghazālī’s Influence 8 Intuition, Intellection, and Mystical Knowledge Delineating Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Cognitive Theories 189 Damien Janos 9 Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Use of al-Ghazālī’s Mishkāt in His Commentary on the Light Verse (Q 24:35) 229 Jules Janssens 10 Ottoman Perceptions of al-Ghazālī’s Works and Discussions on His Historical Role in Its Late Period 253 M. Sait Özervarlı 11 Al-Ghazālī’s “Demarcation of Science” A Commonplace Apology in the Muslim Reception of Modern Science— and Its Limitations 283 Martin Riexinger 12 The Revival of the Religious Sciences in the Twenty-First Century Suʿād al-Ḥakīm’s Adaptation of al-Ghazālī’s Revival 310 Kenneth Garden Indices General Index of Names and Subjects 335 Index of Passages in Works by al-Ghazālī 340 344 Index of Verses in the Qurʾan Contents Contents Preface Frank Griffel List of Figures and Tables xvi List of Contributors Keys and Conventions Part 1 1 Al-Ghazālī’s Works and His Thought Chapter 1 Al-Ghazālī on Error 3 Taneli Kukkonen Chapter 2 Al-Ghazālī’s Concept of Philosophy 32 Ulrich Rudolph Chapter 3 Problems in al-Ghazālī’s Perfect World 54 Objections and Counter-Objections to His Best Possible World Thesis 54 Stephen R. Ogden Chapter 4 Al-Ghazālī’s Teleology and the Galenic Tradition 90 Reading The Wisdom in God’s Creations (al-Ḥikma fī makhlūqāt Allah) 90 Ahmed El Shamsy Chapter 5 Al-Ghazālī and Kalām 113 The Conundrum of His Body-Soul Dualism 113 Ayman Shihadeh Chapter 6 Al-Ghazālī’s Veil Section 142 Comparative Religion before Religionswissenschaft? 142 Anna Ayşe Akasoy Chapter 7 Is There an Autograph of al-Ghazālī in MS Yale, Landberg 318? 168 Frank Griffel Part 2 187 Al-Ghazālī’s Influence Chapter 8 Intuition, Intellection, and Mystical Knowledge 189 Delineating Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Cognitive Theories 189 Damien Janos Chapter 9 Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Use of al-Ghazālī’s Mishkāt in His Commentary on the Light Verse (Q 24:35) 229 Jules Janssens Chapter 10 Ottoman Perceptions of al-Ghazālī’s Works and Discussions on His Historical Role in Its Late Period 253 M. Sait Özervarlı Chapter 11 Al-Ghazālī’s “Demarcation of Science” 283 A Commonplace Apology in the Muslim Reception of Modern Science— and Its Limitations 283 Martin Riexinger Chapter 12 The Revival of the Religious Sciences in the Twenty-First Century 310 Suʿād al-Ḥakīm’s Adaptation of al-Ghazālī’s Revival 310 Kenneth Garden Indices General Index of Names and Subjects Index of Passages in Works by al-Ghazālī Index of Verses in the Qurʾan Frank Griffel - 978-90-04-30749-0 Downloaded from Brill.com05/26/2020 05:34:31AM via University of Toronto PrefacePreface vii Preface One of the conditions of being a servile follower of other people’s views (muqallid) is that one does not realize that one is a muqallid. Once one finds this out, the glass of servile following (taqlīd) is shattered; an irrepa- rable rift and disorder that cannot be pieced together or reassembled (…). al-Ghazālī, al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl, 15. ⸪ On 14 Jumāda II 505 / 18 December 1111, al-Ghazālī died, approximately 56 years old, in his birthplace Ṭābarān in the district of Ṭūs in northeastern Iran. Almost 800 years later, in 1908, the Indian Muslim reformer Shiblī Nuʿmānī (1857–1914) addressed his followers in India and spoke about the merits of this great mas- ter and what the Islamic scholars (ʿulamāʾ) of the modern age could learn from his example. Nuʿmānī was a teacher and educational reformer at the turn of the 20th century. He began his distinguished career as a professor of Arabic and Persian at the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College in Aligarh, the cradle of Muslim modernist thinking on the South-Asian Subcontinent. In 1892, Nuʿmānī was a founding member of the Nadwatul Ulamāʾ, the association of reformist Muslim scholars in India, and four years later one of the driving forces when the organization founded its own school, the Dārul ʿUlūm Nadwatul ʿUlamāʾ in Lucknow in northern India. In his vision for this reformed school, Nuʿmānī was inspired by the example of Sayyid Aḥmad Khan (1817– 98), the founder of the Aligarh College, yet in comparison to him he had a more traditionalist agenda. One of the objectives of the new Dārul ʿUlūm in Lucknow was to teach the traditional discipline of kalām – rationalist Muslim theology and philosophy – in accord with the traditional madrasa curriculum in India. This curriculum, the so-called Dars-i Niẓāmī, was created in the early 18th century and included books on Qur’anic studies, ḥadīth studies, Muslim * The author is grateful to Waleed Ziad who helped him with the Urdu texts used in this preface and translated Urdu passages into English. Frank Griffel - 978-90-04-30749-0 Downloaded from Brill.com05/26/2020 05:34:31AM via University of Toronto viii Preface jurisprudence (fiqh), theology, philosophy and many other Muslim sciences.1 Nuʿmānī and his colleagues at the Dārul ʿUlūm Nadwatul ʿUlamāʾ believed in the merits of this two-hundred year old course of study. However, they updated it with new texts covering advancements in the natural sciences. The goal was for students to develop skills that would be in harmony with traditional Muslim education in India and could at the same time answer to the religious chal- lenges of the modern era and its sciences.2 For Shiblī Nuʿmānī, being a Muslim in India at the early 20th century meant, first of all, being confronted with modern sciences that were developed in Europe and that were introduced into India through translations from English. He, however, did not think that this situation was particularly new for Muslims. Centuries before, Islam had already been challenged by a potent force of ideas that came from outside. In the era following the Abbasid revolution of 750 CE, the “Greek sciences” and Greek philosophy were introduced to Arabic litera- ture and Muslim culture. The intellectual leader who, according to Shiblī Nuʿmānī, responded most productively to the challenges coming from the tra- dition of Greek philosophy and who created a reconciliation between Islam and these set of ideas was al-Ghazālī. Al-Ghazālī, according to Nuʿmānī, was the outstanding model of a success- ful joining of old and new, of the coming together of Islam’s traditions with Greek science and with philosophy (falsafa).3 In his Urdu address of 1908, Nuʿmānī describes al-Ghazālī as the scholar who should be credited that the Greek sciences and Greek wisdom took root in Islam.