He has started by being a philosopher using Aristotle’s logic in order to make Islam more philosophically rigorous than it had been. However he came to feel that philosophy led nowhere
He has started by being a philosopher using Aristotle’s logic in order to make Islam more philosophically rigorous than it had been. However he came to feel that philosophy led nowhere.
In 1095, he felt a fear of judgement and wished to stand correctly before God. He left his teaching post and for 10 years studied the mystical life as represented by Sufism before returning, briefly, to teaching.
Possibly Al-Ghazzali’s major influence was to give Sufism intellectual respectability.
Al-Ghazzali came to see the limitations of the human intellect. He considered that most theologians and philosophers were non-believers and he came to reject all their work that conflicted with the Qur'an.
Al-Ghazzali came to see the limitations of the human intellect. He considered that most theologians and philosophers were non-believers and he came to reject all their work that conflicted with the Qur'an.
In ‘Destruction of the Philosophers’. He rejected the scepticism of many Islamic philosophers including Avicenna (=Ibn Saud) and this led to an anti-intellectualism in Islam.
To submit to God, Al-Ghazzali claimed, came first and was greater than all human knowledge and this submission must be sought no matter what the cost. In this he agreed with the Sufi mystics. Because of the influence of Al-Ghazzali, philosophy came to be treated with suspicion.
Ibn-Arabi restored interest in philosophy in Islam but he also helped explain, in Islamic terms, how God could be experienced.
Ibn-Arabi restored interest in philosophy in Islam but he also helped explain, in Islamic terms, how God could be experienced.
God was the only reality and everything in human experience was therefore an experience of God (there are parallels here with the Jesuit idea, from St. Ignatius, if idea of ‘finding God in all things’).
The gulf between God and the universe is thus bridged and this made sense to the mystics who could see how God could be experienced in every day life. His emphasis on mysticism and the individual lessened the importance of theology and law as approaches to God
Ibn Arabi claimed unity in all religions – he could go so far as to write that love was his only religion. Through mysticism, he claimed, human beings could experience God who shows himself both in nature and in human beings (St. Francis was to take a similar position).
Ibn Rushd (Averroes as he was named in the West) continued in the great tradition of speculative Aristotelian philosophy in spite of the attacks on this tradition by Ibn Arabi. He was probably the last great Muslim philosopher in the Western sense. He grew up in Islamic Cordoba, in Spain, and studied mathematics, law and medicine.
Ibn Rushd (Averroes as he was named in the West) continued in the great tradition of speculative Aristotelian philosophy in spite of the attacks on this tradition by Ibn Arabi. He was probably the last great Muslim philosopher in the Western sense. He grew up in Islamic Cordoba, in Spain, and studied mathematics, law and medicine.
In 1195 he was expelled by the local caliph for holding that REASON MUST PREVAIL OVER RELIGIOUS BELIEF. He was allowed to return three years later, just before he died.
He held that the main use of religion was to provide rules for ordinary people and he rejected the idea of God creating the Universe – instead holding that behind everything lay God.
He also rejected personal resurrection maintaining that the individual soul comes from a unified, universal soul.
Western intellectual thought probably owes more to Averroes than to any other non-Christian individual (except, possibly, for Maimonides in the Jewish tradition) because of his commentaries on the works of Aristotle.
Western intellectual thought probably owes more to Averroes than to any other non-Christian individual (except, possibly, for Maimonides in the Jewish tradition) because of his commentaries on the works of Aristotle.
Some of these works of Aristotle had been lost in the West and were only kept alive in the great Islamic centres of learning so the commentaries of Averroes were of decisive importance.
The great Christian thinker, Albert the Great, who so strongly influenced St. Thomas Aquinas, was himself heavily influenced by Averroes. It was because of Averroes contribution that Aquinas was able to use Aristotle’s philosophy to formulate a distinctly Catholic view of Christian morality and truth.
Rumi was a religious scholar until he met a wandering dervish (who worshipped Allah in dance) named Shams al-Din of Tabriz. Shams put a theological question to Rumi that caused Rumi to faint.
Rumi was a religious scholar until he met a wandering dervish (who worshipped Allah in dance) named Shams al-Din of Tabriz. Shams put a theological question to Rumi that caused Rumi to faint.
When Rumi regained consciousness, his spiritual life had been transformed. For a year or two, Shams and Rumi were constant companions. Within three years of their meeting, Shams disappeared.
Rumi ceased to preach to the general public and devoted the remaining twenty-six years of his life to training his Sufi initiates and writing divinely inspired poetry.
“Passion for that Beloved took me away from erudition and reciting the Koran until I became as insane and obsessed as I am. I had followed the way of the prayer carpet and the mosque with all sincerity and effort. I wore the marks of asceticism to increase my good works. Love came into the mosque and said, "Oh great teacher! Rend the shackles of existence! Why are you tied to prayer carpets? Let not your heart tremble before the blows of My sword! Do you want to travel from knowledge to vision? Then lay down your head! If you are a profligate and a scoundrel, do justice to troublemaking! If you are beautiful and fair, why do you remain behind the veil?” (The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi, p. 3)
