Abu Hamid Muhammad Al-Ghazali – författare

Although Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali lived a relatively short life (1058-1111), he established himself as one of the most important thinkers in the history of Islam. The Incoherence of the Philosophers, written after more than a decade of travel and ascetic contemplation, contends that while such Muslim philosophers as Avicenna boasted of unassailable arguments on matters of theology and metaphysics, they could not deliver on their claims; moreover, many of their assertions represented disguised heresy and unbelief. Despite its attempted refutation by the twelfth-century philosopher Ibn Rushd, al-Ghazali's work remains widely read and influential.

Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali's philosophical explorations covered nearly the entire spectrum of twelfth-century beliefs. Beginning his career as a skeptic, he ended it as a scholar of mysticism and orthodoxy. The Niche of Lights, written near the end of his illustrious career, advances the philosophically important idea that reason can serve as a connection between the devout and God. Al-Ghazali argues that abstracting God from the world, as he believed theologians did, was not sufficient for understanding. Exploring the boundary between philosophy and theology, The Niche of Lights seeks to understand the role of reality in the perception of the spiritual.

Centuries after his death, al-Ghazali remains one of the most influential figures of the Islamic intellectual tradition. Although he is best known for his Incoherence of the Philosophers, Moderation in Belief is his most profound work of philosophical theology. In it, he offers what scholars consider to be the best defense of the Ash'arite school of Islamic theology that gained acceptance within orthodox Sunni theology in the twelfth century, though he also diverges from Ash'arism with his more rationalist approach to the Quran. Together with The Incoherence of the Philosophers, Moderation in Belief informs many subsequent theological debates, and its influence extends beyond the Islamic tradition, informing broader questions within Western philosophical and theological thought. The first complete English-language edition of Moderation in Belief, this new annotated translation by Aladdin M. Yaqub draws on the most esteemed critical editions of the Arabic texts and offers detailed commentary that analyzes and reconstructs the arguments found in the work's four treatises.Explanations of the historical and intellectual background of the texts also enable readers with a limited knowledge of classical Arabic to fully explore al-Ghazali and this foundational text for the first time. With the recent resurgence of interest in Islamic philosophy and the conflict between philosophy and religion, this new translation will be a welcome addition to the scholarship.

The Bane of Tongue (Kitab afat al-lisan) is Book 24 of the Imam al-Ghazali’ s magnum opus, I?ya? ?ulum al-din, The Revival of the Religious Sciences. Within the architecture of this monumental work, Afat al-lisan is the fourth book of the third quarter, The Ways to Perdition (Rub? al-muhlikat), in which al-Ghazali sums up in ten books (or chapters) all the human shortcomings and vices traditionally believed to lead a person into a state of loss in this world and the Next, and which in certain respects overlap with the Judeo-Christian notion of the seven deadly sins.In Book 24, al-Ghazali divides the banes (afat) or defects of the tongue, from the least to the most offensive, into twenty short chapters, each of which comprises a psychological/spiritual analysis of how and why the particular defect might exist in a person’ s soul, examples of how it manifests itself in behavior, and practical suggestions for eliminating it from one’ s personality. The misuse of the gift of speech and language is certainly not something new, as this work, composed nearly 950 years ago, amply shows, but in this age of internet-based communication, it has taken on a new and more destructive dimension.

Diese Spätschrift besticht durch ihre Knappheit, Geschlossenheit und Prägnanz. In der literarischen Form der Belehrung eines fragenden Schülers demonstriert al-Ghazali unter Verwendung der Licht-Metaphorik den Grundsatz seiner Lehre, nach der uns gewisse Erkenntnis weder durch die Sinne zufällt, noch durch die gezielte Anstrengung unseres Erkenntnisvermögens erzwungen werden kann. Allein die Erleuchtung, die uns im Erlebnis der Evidenz zuteil wird, gibt Gewißheit.

Diese erste deutsche Ausgabe der philosophischen Autobiographie al-Ghazalis (1059–1111) ist besonders geeignet, einen originären Zugang zu den klassischen Quellen der arabischen Philosophie zu eröffnen. Zum einen gibt al-Ghazali Aufschluß über den Denkweg, der ihn dazu führte, in seiner bekannten Widerlegung der Philosophen der Adaption der Grundlehren der griechischen Philosphie entgegenzutreten. Zum anderen ist die von einem arabischen Religionsphilosophen aus den Originaltexten erarbeitete Übersetzung besonders darum bemüht, der Gefahr zu entgehen, arabisch Gedachtes in einen vermeintlich sinngemäß entsprechenden deutschen Text zu übertragen, der de facto nur einem tradierten abendländischen Denkschema angeglichen wäre. Dabei zeigt sich, dass die geläufige Einordnung al-Ghazalis unter die dogmatischen Vertreter einer rechtgläubigen« Verteidigung des Koran einer Prüfung nicht standhält.

The truth about ascension, climbing higher, says: I stumbled up the ladder lame. Words have two aspects of meaning. One aspect is in indicating physical things, such as the concept of stairs and ascension. The second aspect is the indication of the meanings of corporeal objects and their spirits, either through the use of language or through metaphor and metaphor. And since the traveler seeking to know the Lord of the Most High is seeking to rise above the darkness of ignorance and lower the lowly from the depths of the ignorant, and the proofs and evidence that lead to the level of knowledge are similar to the physical ladder that leads to physical height, and the components of the proofs and the premises of the analogy and its parts are a material for him from which he is composed, imitating the sides of the ladder, so the naming There is no quarreling in it that is more useful. God Almighty said (He has no motive than God, the One who has ascents to whom the angels and the spirit ascend).Whoever has proof of the impossibility of a direction for the Creator, the Most High, to ascend to Him, seeks a rational meaning in order to apply the word to him. God Almighty condemned Pharaoh for believing that the causes and ascents were physical, in the Almighty''s saying, "And Pharaoh said, ''O Haman, build for me a tower, that I may reach the causes.''" And God Almighty said, "And thus will He beautify." Pharaoh''s evil deeds are obstructing him from the path. The evidence is that creation leads to their Lord, and turning away from them is what is expressed by being withheld.