AL-GHAZĀLĪ AS AN ISLAMIC REFORMER (MUSLIH): An Evaluative Study of the Attempts of the Imam Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī at Islamic Reform (Islāh) by MOHAMED ABUBAKR A AL-MUSLEH A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Theology & Religion School of Historical Studies The University of Birmingham July 2007 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT Notwithstanding the enduring and rich “legacy of islāh (Islamic reform),” the study of it is relatively scarce and remarkably limited to the modern times. The present study attempts to shed some light on this legacy by evaluating the contribution of an outstanding pre-modern Muslim scholar, al-Ghazālī. Surprisingly, some studies create an absolutely positive picture of him, while others portray him in an extremely negative light. Thus, this study raises the question of whether it is justifiable to classify him as a muslih (Islamic reformer). In light of the analysis of the concept “islāh” and the complexity of al-Ghazālī’s time, the study demonstrates his life- experience and verifies that he devoted himself to general islāh at a late period of his life, after succeeding in his self-islāh. Further, the study assesses his islāhī teachings in general, namely those formulated in the Ihyā’, and evaluates the claimed effects of his attempts at islāh. The study also highlights a number of strengths and weaknesses of al-Ghazālī’s efforts and critically discusses some of the criticism directed at him. By weighing up the points for and against al-Ghazālī, this study concludes by asserting that classifying him as a muslih appears to be fairly justified. DEDICATION To the one who has sacrificed much for me; to the one who has added a sweet taste to my unsettled life; to my wonderful and supportive wife, Aisha Al-Emadi. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Praise belongs to Allāh, the One who has blessed me in my entire affair. Without His help, nothing can be accomplished. Next, I must thank my supervisor, Dr. Bustami Khir, for his valuable feedback throughout the four years of my PhD programme, and for treating me as his younger brother and not just as a student. Thanks to Abū Fatimah, Shihab al-Mahdawi, for introducing me to Dr. Khir. I would like also to express my grateful thanks for all those who have helped or encouraged me, in any way, during my work on this study. To start with I sincerely thank my respected teacher at the University of Qatar, Dr. ‘Abd al-‘Azīm al-Dīb, who suggested that I should base my thesis on al-Ghazālī. I must also thank Mr. Muhammad Hozien, the webmaster of al-Ghazali website, whom I owe a great deal because he has made my search for sources on al-Ghazali much more easy by providing many of them online and in PDF, in fact discovering his website through Google was a great treasure for me. My friend Mokhtar Ben Fredj deserves warm thanks for always being forthcoming. I want also to thank Dr. Abdulla al-Shamahi for lending me some useful sources. I should not forget to thank Dr. Eve Richard and Mr. David Oakey, from the English for International Students Unit at the University of Birmingham, for reading parts of my thesis and for their useful feedback on my English. Mr. Elfatih Ibrahim, who has proofread the entire thesis, deserves special thanks. My deepest gratitude is to all my family and relatives, namely my respected blood parents and my parents in law, for their continuous praying and sincere wish for my success. Finally, it is beyond the ability of my words to express my heartfelt thanks to my darling wife for her continuous support and great patience throughout my exhausting higher education life. CONTENTS • Contents List of Transliteration i Introduction 1 I.1 A Thematic Background 1 I.2 The Literature on al-Ghazālī 3 I.3 The Problem 7 I.4 The Hypothesis 8 I.5 The Methodology and the Structure 8 I.6 The Scope 11 Chapter 1: Analytical Definition of Islāh 12 1.1 Introduction 12 1.2 Islāh in the Arabic Language 15 1.3 The Islamic Perspective of Islāh 20 1.4 Phrasing the Definition of Islāh 30 1.5 Islāh and Reform: Degree of Equivalence 31 1.6 The Relationship between Islāh and Other Concepts 32 Chapter 2: Setting the Historical Context 41 2.1 Introduction 41 2.2 The Overall Condition of Islamdom 42 2.3 The Political Setting 43 2.4 The First Crusade and the Muslim Response 70 2.5 The Religio-Intellectual life 71 Chapter 3: The Life-Experience of al-Ghazālī 88 3.1 Introduction 88 3.2 Dependent Learning and Premature Authorship 90 3.3 Highly Distinguished Scholarly Career 96 3.4 Epistemological Crisis 98 3.5 Independent Examination of the Seekers After Truth 104 3.6 Serious Inspection of the Inner State 113 3.7 Seclusion and Self-Islāh 120 3.8 Striving for General Islāh 127 Chapter 4: Survey of al-Ghazālī’s Islāhī Efforts 134 4.1 Introduction 134 4.2 Al-Ghazālī’s Diagnosis of Fasād 135 4.3 Al-Ghazālī’s Islāhī Attempts to Eradicate the Roots of Fasād 155 4.4 Al-Ghazālī’s Islāhī Treatments of the Phenomena of Fasād 173 CONTENTS • Chapter 5: Assessment of al-Ghazālī’s Islāhī Teachings 201 5.1 Introduction 201 5.2 Originality 201 5.3 Clarity 208 5.4 Deepness 215 5.5 Balance between Individualism and Collectivism 216 5.6 Realism and Practicality 221 5.7 Islamic-Justification 228 Chapter 6: The effects of al-Ghazālī’s Attempts at Islāh 244 6.1 Introduction 244 6.2 The Impact of al-Ghazālī’s Islāhī Teachings on his Pupils 245 6.3 The Claimed Studentship of Ibn Tūmart under al-Ghazālī 249 6.4 The Influence of the Ihyā’ 252 6.5 Al-Ghazālī’s Effect on Sufism 260 6.6 The Effect on the Movement of Philosophy 264 6.7 The Effect of al-Ghazālī’s Quarrel with the Bātinīs 268 6.8 The Influence of al-Ghazālī on the Successive Islāhī Movement 268 Conclusion 270 Appendix: The Chronological Sequence of the First Crusade and the Muslim Response: 277 Bibliography 292 Transliteration List . The transliteration system follows the Transliteration Scheme for Arabic Scripts, approved by the Library of Congress and the American Library Association, available online: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/arabic.pdf . Terms which have become very common in English usage—such as names of dynasties and others widely used un-technical terms—particularly those which appear in most of the extended English dictionaries are written as they appear in the dictionaries. Romanization of Constants Romanization of Short Vowels ’ = ء a = ــَـ b = ب u = ــُـ t = ت i = ــِـ th = ث j = ج h Romanization of Long Vowels = ح kh = خ d = د ā = ــَـ ا dh = ذ ī = ــِـ ى r = ر ū = ــُـ و z = ز s = س sh = ش s = ص d = ض t = ط z = ظ ‘ = ع gh = غ f = ف q = ق k = ك l = ل m = م n = ن h = ھـ w = و y = ي i INTRODUCTION • INTRODUCTION **************** I.1 A Thematic Background: “Yet thy Lord would never destroy communities for doing wrong while as its members were muslihūn” (Q.11:117). This translated Qur’ānic āyah (verse)1 reveals one of the Divine norms relating to the life of communities; the efforts of the muslihūn,2 i.e., those who fulfil islāh which may be translated roughly as reform,3 are safeguards for the whole of their communities from general destruction.4 This signifies, from a Qur’ānic point view, the necessity of ongoing islāh in any community. This necessity increases when ifsād (spreading or causing corruption), the opposite of islāh, increases, because the spread of fasād5 (corruption) in a community is a real threat to all its members, as the Qur’ān warns.6 Furthermore, the mission of the prophets, according to the Qur’ān, is to fulfil the duty of islāh, as Prophet Shu’ayb clearly stated: “I desire only al-islāh, as far as I am able” (Q.11:88). Thus, islāh is an essential duty in the Islamic doctrine. By attempting to correct the aspects of fasād, the muslihūn undertake a prophetic mission and fulfil a vital Islamic duty. Therefore, it is not surprising to see that in 1 For translating this and other Qur’ānīc quotations, I have consulted the following translations of the Qur’ān: (1) Arberry J. Arberry, The Koran: Interpreted, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982; (2) A. Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur’ān: Text, Translation and Commentary, Bierut: Dār al-Qur’ān, n.d.; (3) M. A. S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur’an: A new translation, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004; and (4) N. J. Dawood, The Koran: Translated with Notes, London: Penguin Books Ltd, 1999. My translation, however, largely follows Arberry’s most poetic translation, but with frequent amendments to his, especially when I think there is misunderstanding of the original text. 2 Sing.