PhilosophersAl-Ghazali

Al-Ghazali

Reason has limits: certainty comes from experiencing God.

Islamic rational theology (kalam)1058 – 1111 IranTheologian (Ash'arite kalam)Critic of the philosophersSufiJurist
والمشاهدة تدل على الحصول عنده ولا تدل على الحصول به
Observation shows that the burning happens with the contact of fire, not that it happens by it. The Incoherence of the Philosophers, 17.
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ولم يكن ذلك بنظم دليل وترتيب كلام ، بل بنور قذفه الله تعالى في الصدر
This did not come from a constructed proof or an ordered argument, but from a light that God cast into the breast. Deliverance from Error.
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العاقل يعرف الحق ، ثم ينظر في نفس القول: فإن كان حقاً ، قبله سواء كان قائله مبطلاً أو محقاً
The intelligent man knows the truth, then examines the statement itself: if it is true, he accepts it, whether its speaker is in error or in the right. Deliverance from Error.
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شرط المقلد أن لا يعلم أنه مقلد ، فإذا علم ذلك انكسرت زجاجة تقليده
Believing by imitation requires not knowing that one imitates; once one knows it, the glass of that belief is broken. Deliverance from Error.
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وكم من الفرق بين أن تعلم حد الصحة وحد الشبع وأسبابـهما وشروطهما ، وبين أن تكون صحيحاً وشبعان؟
What a difference between knowing the definition of health and satiety, their causes and conditions, and being healthy and satisfied! Deliverance from Error, on Sufism.
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Misconceptions

Nuanced
Al-Ghazali killed science and philosophy in the Muslim world.

He attacks the philosophers' metaphysics, not the sciences. He even judges it a crime against religion to reject mathematics and astronomy (for example the explanation of eclipses) in the name of Islam. He keeps logic and uses it everywhere. Historians of science also point out that Arabic astronomy and medicine went on advancing after him; and Averroes answered him in the 12th century.

Nuanced
Al-Ghazali declared the philosophers unbelievers.

On three points only: the eternity of the world, the idea that God does not know particular things, and the denial of bodily resurrection. On the seventeen others he judges them mistaken, but not outside Islam. The verdict remains heavy: the question raised at the end of the book is whether those who hold these views should be declared unbelievers, and put to death; he answers that unbelief is certain on these three points.

Nuanced
For al-Ghazali, fire does not burn.

He says that the link between fire and burning is not necessary: it is a habit that God keeps up, and could interrupt (a miracle). He even offers a second answer, in which fire does have the nature to burn, but God can change that nature. And he states that believing in necessary natural causes is not, in his eyes, unbelief.

False
Al-Ghazali rejected reason in favour of blind faith.

On the contrary, he rejects belief by mere imitation of parents and teachers, and sets out in search of flawless certainty. His crisis ends when he regains confidence in the truths of reason. What he refuses is the idea that reason alone can reach everything.