You know how you find yourself in a social media group, added by one of those people who “really get you” and you’re simply waiting for enough time to pass before you can exit group inconspicuously? Those groups with endless forwards of interesting articles and funny-ass memes that you totally didn’t think of but kinda wish you did? (Who am I kidding, I love this group!) Anyway, so I’m in this group and someone posts this link to an article in The Nation (what kind of douchey outfit calls itself The Nation on the Internet?) about Imam Al Ghazali’s well-documented beef with philosophers, especially Ibn Rushd; posing the Muslim world made a wrong turn following Al Ghazali and shunning Ibn Rushd (who is still very respected amongst Sunni clerics and scholars) [Article link here)
Having the previous day gone through a summary of Al Ghazali’s biography, I couldn’t pass the chance to read the article and make fun of the authors nose for no reason. (#TeamGhazali) and I had this in response to the post on said social media group”
Interesting article. It is interesting that the author casts Al Ghazali’s introduction of logic into Islamic jurisprudence and theology as a detriment to Islam based on his views of divine will yet Al-Ghazali stated that one must be well versed in the ideas of the philosophers before setting out to refute their ideas.
Al Ghazali and Ibn Rushd’s essential disagreement was on the nature of the meaning of existence and can be in modern times condensed as the contradictory views propounded by creationists and proponents of the Big Bang theory.
To say that the Muslim world made a wrong turn by following Al Ghazali makes it seem like the Sufi Ash’arite shool of thought is the dominant school of Islam today and to advocate a turn to Ibn Rushd is suggesting that Muslims should accept a completely non-divinistic view of life, and here is the kicker, as well as the Qu’ran, is a tad contradictory. Maybe, like what Ayatollah Khomeini did with Taqlid, we should also forge beyond Al Ghazali and Ibn Rushd and see where that takes the Ummah of the Nabi (S).
Like I said, interesting article 🙂
While that’s wordy for a phone forum, I had held back. Down the rabbit hole I had gone, trying to 140 character my response to this turd of an op-ed but by God I will had my say here, in this corner of the Internet of mine!
Codified Expressions 