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Al-Ghazali, the
Transcendence of
God, and the
Primacy of Law in
Islam
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy, Dr. Sebastian Mahfood
Spring 2011
Thesis:
“The total transcendence of
God and the occasionalism
and Sufism of al-Ghazali
necessitate the primacy of
sharia within Islam”
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy, Dr. Sebastian Mahfood
Spring 2011
How is one to know
the will of God?
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
Two Sources
Christianity recognizes two sources of knowledge
about God; direct revelation (completely in Christ),
and the natural order discernable by reason.
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
Two Sources
“Beyond the witness to
himself that God gives in
created things…God has
revealed himself fully by
sending his own Son”
-Catechism of the Catholic Church
no. 70 & 73
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
How does man come to know what God
wills?
&
Revealed Divine Law
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
Natural Law
Natural Law as Participation in the Eternal Law
“…the light of natural reason,
whereby we discern what is good
and what is evil, which is the
function of the natural law, is
nothing else than an imprint on us
of the Divine light. It is therefore
evident that the natural law is
nothing else than the rational
creature's participation of the
eternal law.”
-Summa Theologica II.91.2
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
Natural Law as Participation in the Eternal Law
Christianity affirms that rational man
is capable of discerning what God
wills, not only by direct revelation, but
by a “participation” in the Eternal
Law that springs from the mind of
God. In other words, affirming
Natural Law as a discernable source of
knowing God’s will means that the
rational creature is capable of knowing
what God wills without God directly
revealing it.
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
Natural Law as Participation in the Eternal Law
Thus, discernment of the natural law
presupposes that God is in some way
knowable by the rational creature and
that the natural world bears some
similitude to God. If He is in no way
knowable, then neither can his will be
discerned apart from direct revelation.
The next question that arises then is
“to what extent is man capable of
knowledge about God?”
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
The Primacy of Religious Law (sharia) in Islam
In his chapter in The
Cambridge Companion to
Classical Islamic Theology,
Abd-Allah notes that “Islam is
‘ruled by law’. It is not
theocratic but nomocratic in
nature, and the religious law
which underpins this is allembracing” (237).
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
The Primacy of Religious Law (sharia) in Islam
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
The emphasis on religious law
(sharia) in Islam stems from a
number of sources and its
relationship to both kalam and
falsafa as understood by various
Arabic philosophers and Islamic
jurists is not always
consistent. Nevertheless, nearly
all seem to afford sharia a
primacy within the practice of
Islam.
The Primacy of Religious Law (sharia) in Islam
Being a scholar within Islam
meant primarily to be an
expert in law, and jurists were
seen not only as legal
practitioners but as “successors
to the Prophet” (Abd-Allah
237). In other words, there is
an inherent relationship
between sharia and Quranic
revelation.
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
The Primacy of Religious Law (sharia) in Islam
One such legal scholar was
Abu Hamid Muhammad
ibn Muhammad Ghazali
(d. 1111).
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
al-Ghazali
(Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad Ghazali)
Al-Ghazali was schooled in madrasas, the
religious colleges that focused on Islamic law
and would later write a major work on
Islamic law, The Choice Essentials of the
Principles of Religion (Marmura 138).
His strong background and focus in Islamic
law seems to have a kind of ripple effect
throughout his later thought.
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
al-Ghazali
(Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad Ghazali)
Abd-Allah makes a point of saying that
after al-Ghazali, any separation between
law and kalam that had previously existed
among Arabic philosophers all but
disappeared, to the extent that “…many
jurists and jurisprudents came to regard
kalam as the principal underpinning of
legal speculation, even to the extent that
they regarded jurisprudence as a branch of
theology” (247).
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
al-Ghazali
(Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad Ghazali)
The fact that Islamic jurisprudence
came to be regarded as a branch of
kalam seems to indicate that there exists
an essential connection between law and
an understanding of God’s very nature.
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
al-Ghazali & the Ash’arites
Al-Ghazali subscribed to the Ash’arite
school of thelogy and to Sufi mysticism.
The Ash’arites were primarily concerned
with the concept of the attributes of
God, and primarily the will of God.
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
al-Ghazali & the Ash’arites
Ash’arite theology posits atomism, the
notion that the material world is a
collection of indivisible and
unconnected parts that requires being
continually and directly held together
by God.
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
al-Ghazali & the Ash’arites
Because of this, Ash’arite theology further
posits that, since God is the only cause in
the world (there are no secondary causes),
the world is annihilated and created in every
event since each and every event or effect
requires a new act of creation by God. If
God did not directly will and cause an
effect, it could not have occurred. This is
known as “occassionalism”. (Nasr, 130)
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
al-Ghazali & the Ash’arites
For al-Ghazali, even what seem to be real
secondary causes are in fact instances of God’s
direct causation. Marmura explains, “The
connection of [cause and effect] is due to the
prior decree of God who creates them side by
side” (146).
There is no real necessary causal connection
between things, since, because of God’s power
and freedom of will, any effect perceived of as
necessarily following a cause could have been
otherwise.
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
al-Ghazali & the Ash’arites
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
Al-Ghazali gives his famous example of
fire igniting cotton. What we see is the
fire touching the cotton and then the
cotton being reduced to ashes. We
wrongly assume that there is thus a
necessary causal relationship between
fire burning and the cotton being
burned. In fact, these two events merely
occur alongside one another, while it is
God Who intervenes directly causing the
cotton to ignite (Marmura 146).
al-Ghazali & the Ash’arites
This seems to be the necessary
conclusion of atomism. If the material
world is merely a collection of unrelated
and disconnected parts (atoms), then
groupings of atoms (such as what we
might call “fire”) can no more act on
another grouping of atoms (what we
might call “cotton”) than can two
individuals in separate rooms shake
hands. God’s direct intervention is
necessary.
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
al-Ghazali & the Ash’arites
Nasr insightfully points out that this resembles the
atheistic atomism of the scientific “enlightenment”,
though in a “vertical” form, while modern
materialism posits only “horizontal” causes.
In Ash’arite theology, God is necessary
for causation since there are no
secondary (“horizontal”) causes, while in
atheistic scientism, ONLY secondary
causes exist and there is no God, and
hence no need for “vertical” causes.
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
al-Ghazali & the Ash’arites
This seems to remove any possibility for recognizing real
“natures” in things since things have no real causality.
God’s total freedom of will and power to cause an
event other than what He has previously habitually
caused to be so renders the human intellect incapable
of assuming that it can know what God wills through
insight into the natural order.
Hence, direct revelation from God is
necessary for the human intellect to come
to knowledge of what God wills.
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
al-Ghazali & the Ash’arites
For what I believe to be the Natural Law
implications of this, see Daniel Petruccio’s project:
http://prezi.com/qj7l8wbohzuv/copy-of-arabicphilosophy-project-dan-petruccio/
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
al-Ghazali
Al-Ghazali went through a period of
skepticism about the ability to trust his sense
and his reason. What can man be certain
of?
While he admits that this skepticism lasted
only about two months, it could be seen one
wonders if his distrust of both reason and his
senses led al-Ghazali toward reliance on the
will of God, also a special point of focus for
the Ash’arites.
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
al-Ghazali
This is consistent with the Ash’asrite
adherence to the second horn of Euthyphro’s
dilemma, namely that a thing is good because
God wills it. “The Good” is wrapped up in
and dependent upon what God wills. This
seems to necessitate a focus on sharia not only
in personal devotion but in all spheres. So a
question arises then, “what is it about God’s
will that demands such a singular focus?”
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
al-Ghazali
This brings us back to importance of law
within Islam. If “the Good” is completely
contingent upon the will of God (as we even
seen with causation in the natural world),
and God’s will is completely free and
unbound, then, as Bernard G. Weiss writes,
“…any reversals of divine commands [are]
theoretically impossible. Quite obviously, this
way of thinking was inhospitable to the
development of any notion of natural law in
Islam (35).
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
al-Ghazali the Sufi
Al-Ghazali seemed to view both reason and
faith as inadequate to come to knowledge of
God, leading him to see direct experience with
God as the highest form of knowledge about
God (Fakhry, 256), or what the Sufis called
“taste” (dhawq).
Al-Ghazali added a particular nuance to Sufi
mysticism, re-interpreting the Sufi notion of
individual annihilation (al-fana) in God with
“closeness” (qurb) (Marmura, 140).
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
al-Ghazali the Sufi
For the Sufi mystics (and indeed for the
majority of the Arabic philosophers),
God is completely unlike anything that
can be known by the human intellect.
Toby Mayer writes, “…in common with
other mystical theologies, [Sufism]
strongly inclined to…expressing God
through denial, not affirmation,
through ‘unsaying’ rather than ‘saying’
(259).
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
al-Ghazali the Sufi
Also for this reason, abd-Allah
notes that “the jurists of Islam
were more comfortable with sufism
than with rationalistic theology”,
since its foundation for the need
for mystical experience is the same
as that of law, the transcendence
of God (253).
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
al-Ghazali the Sufi
This approach is also seen in other Arabic
Philosophers such as in the negative
theologies of al-Sijistani, al-Kirmani (see
Cambridge Companion to Arabic
Philosophy pp. 81-85). Universally, the
Arabic philosophers sought to avoid
attributing to God similitude to anything
else.
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
al-Ghazali the Sufi
While we might think of legalism and mysticism
as naturally opposed to one another, Sufi
mysticism also placed importance on law. As
we have seen, al-Ghazali, was both a lawyer
and a Sufi. For the Ash’arites, God’s will is so
free that there is no necessary relationship
between human action and reward and
punishment. Rather, the divine law exists in
order to give human beings a glimpse of what
God will reward and what He will punish. But
God is not bound to do so.
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
al-Ghazali the Sufi
The law then, exists as a kind of promise,
ensuring for human beings that this
particular action will be rewarded and
that will not. It is not in the human
capacity to know this other than by divine
decree, since there is no necessary
relationship between human action and
divine rewards and punishments and since
God is totally free.
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
Sufism, Occasionalism, and Jurisprudence
Converge in al-Ghazali
These unlikely foci of the
theology
of
al-Ghazali
converge harmoniously if we
recognize what they seem to
have in common: the nonsimilitude of God to anything
else.
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
In Brief…
• Al-Ghazali embodied the threads running
through kalam and falsafa that
necessitated the primacy of sharia within
Islam.
• Sufism posits the unknowability of
God save from direct experience
(taste).
• Ash’arite occassionalism denies
secondary causality, necessitating
direct causation by God for all events.
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
In Brief…(cont.)
• The Ash’arite focus on the
Divine attributes, especially the
will of God, derives from their
voluntaristic occassionalism.
• Islamic legal scholars (such as alGhazali) were more confortable with Sufi
theology than rationalistic forms of
kalam because the Sufi focus on the
inexpresibility of God highlighted the
need for God’s will to be known through
law.
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
Conclusion
The total transcendence of God and al-Ghazali’s
occassionalism and Sufism blended perfectly in this
Islamic legal scholar, such that these ideas converge
to emphasize the necessity of sharia within Islam.
God, being totally “other” than anything else, is
unknowable apart from His direct intervention
(hence the Sufi emphasis on direct experience),
while occasionalsim means that His will is
inexpressible in anything other than direct speech,
thus sharia is the only true source concerning
knowledge of God’s will.
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011
Bibliography
Abd-Allah, Umar F. “Theological Dimensions of Islamic Law.” In The Cambridge Companion to
Classical Islamic Theology, edited by Tim Winter, 237-257. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2008.
Butterworth, Charles E. “Ethical and Political Philosophy.” In The Cambridge Companion to
Arabic Philosophy, edited by Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor, 266-286. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Fakhry, Majid. A History of Islamic Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.
Griffel, Frank. Al-Ghazali’s Philosophical Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Marmura, Michael A. “Al-Ghazali.” In The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, edited by
Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor, 137-154. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2005.
Mayer, Toby “Theology and Sufism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic
Theology,
edited by Tim Winter, 258-287. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Bibliography (cont.)
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the Land
of Prophecy. New York: State University of New York Press, 2006.
Weiss, Bernard G. The Spirit of Islamic Law. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2006.
Ryan C. Mayer
Arabic Philosophy
Spring 2011