Finland is a land of forests, lakes, and meadows. \u00a0\u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the things that I most admire about the great Muslim thinker al-Ghazali (d. AD 1111) is the care with which he sought to understand the arguments of those with whom he disagreed.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
He is most famous, probably, for two multi-volume works. \u00a0One is the Ihya\u2019 \u2018Ulum al-Din<\/em> (\u201cThe Revival of the Religious Sciences\u201d), which is very much a work of Islamic theology. \u00a0The other is the Tahafut al-Falasifa<\/em> (\u201cThe Incoherence of the Philosophers\u201d), a brilliant work on the philosophy of religion that I have taught several times in classes on medieval Islamic philosophy and that we actually published in dual-language form (including a new translation by the late Professor Michael Marmura) in Brigham Young University\u2019s late and (by me, at least) lamented Islamic Translation Series. \u00a0(In my Integrated Humanities 242 class [\u201cIntroduction to the Humanities of Islam\u201d], which I\u2019m teaching this current term, we read a translation of al-Ghazali\u2019s famous brief autobiographical memoir, al-Munqidh min al-Dalal<\/em> [\u201cThe Deliverer from Error\u201d].)<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, before he wrote his devastating critique of the Islamic philosophers (the \u201cIncoherence,\u201d whose Latin title,\u00a0Destructio Philosophorum,<\/em> conveys something of its historical effect), al-Ghazali wrote another, shorter, book called Maqasid al-Falasifa<\/em> (\u201cThe Aims of the Philosophers\u201d). \u00a0One of my dreams, before I was drop-kicked from the Islamic Translation Series (which I had founded), was to publish a translation of the Maqasid<\/em>.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was al-Ghazali\u2019s summary of the teachings of the philosophers to whom he would eventually reply. \u00a0So scrupulously accurate did he attempt to make it, though, that it was actually used in Latin translation by Christian European readers as a textbook introduction to the Islamic philosophical tradition. \u00a0Only when he felt that he understood their teachings at least as well as they themselves did was al-Ghazali ready to begin his critique of al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Ibn Rushd (Averro\u00ebs), and their general movement.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an example that all controversialists should strive to emulate. \u00a0Too often, people are attacked on the basis of distortions of their positions, caricatures of what they actually think. \u00a0Straw men, as it were. \u00a0That is true in politics, of course. \u00a0But it\u2019s also too often true in academic disputes, to say nothing of religious ones. \u00a0However, the scoring of cheap points is really no score at all. \u00a0Not in the real sense, though \u2014 yes \u2014 it may well persuade a manipulated audience.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from Helsinki, Finland<\/p>\n
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\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 One of the things that I most admire about the great Muslim thinker al-Ghazali (d. AD 1111) is the care with which he sought to understand the arguments of those with whom he disagreed. \u00a0 He is most famous, probably, for two multi-volume works. \u00a0One is the Ihya\u2019 \u2018Ulum al-Din (\u201cThe Revival of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3823,5961,5964,66,419,5967],"class_list":["post-78474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-al-ghazali","tag-ghazali","tag-incoherence-of-the-philosophers","tag-islam","tag-islamic-philosophy","tag-tahafut-al-falasifa"],"yoast_head":"\n
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