Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

Imam Ghazzali (1058 -1111 A.D.)
Abu Hamid Ghazzali was born at Tus in Khurasan (1058). His family gave many jurists of renown to the Muslim world, although his father was not a scholar. Ghazzali was tutored by a mystic, a friend of his father, and in school he showed early signs of , genius. After his theological and juridical studies, he went to Nishapur, where he followed the lectures of the great scholar alJuwayni. As long as his teacher lived, Ghazzali remained in that city, intensively studying philosophy, law, and theology. In his book about those years, Freedom from Error, he wrote., there was no philosopher whose system, I did not study, no Mutakallim whose Kalam I did not follow, not a mystic whose mysteries I did not plunge into, because the glory of knowing the truth of things was the occupation and habit of my life.”
M. Oberman, a German Orientalist who wrote a book on Ghazzali, said: ”There has hardly ever been found in the history of civilization of personality who has mastered in such a high degree the totality of the knowledge of a generation. Ghazzali assimilated all that can be attained by study.” This classical formation and the mystical environment in which he spent his childhood did not affect Ghazzali’s sense of judgment. From his youth he showed a spirit of criticism, and intellectual skepticism, and a thirst for truth. Ghazzali published many works and became famous before his thirtieth year. As an Imam, or leading scholar, he was invited in 1085 to the court of the Saljukid emperor Malik Shah, by his great and scholarly prime minister, Nizam ul-Mulk. This statesman, recognizing Ghazzali’s
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qualities, appointed him professor of law in the Nizamiya University of Baghdad, where he taught for four years, continuing to publish his works. Hundreds of foreign scholars came to attend his lectures and he was consulted on many public affairs by eminent Islamic jurists and by the government.
The caliph of Baghdad, al-Mustazhir, had a high regard for Ghazzali and asked him to write a book condemning the disruptive Assassin sect who had killed several important statesmen and who were trying to destroy the peace and unity of the Muslim world through their anarchistic and heretical propaganda. These years of glory for Ghazzali were accompanied by an inner spiritual struggle. He felt that his own philosophic and scientific assertions did not answer all of his questions satisfactorily, nor did they remove his doubts. He wrote: ”I estimated previously that two things in the world can resist the most rigorous criticism: knowledge obtained by our senses, and the principles of logic. But that was a mere illusion, because the apparently incontestable perceptions obtained by our senses are subject to a different interpretation by our reason.”
Ghazzali was tortured by doubts concerning the value of scientific knowledge and even that of religion. He was constantly telling himself that he preached to others that true religion was manifested not in the observance of rituals, but in purity of soul, detachment from worldly vanities, and the struggle against evil desires. Yet, he himself enjoyed worldly things and perhaps his best actions, even his devotion to knowledge, were dictated by vanity and the desire for public recognition and popularity.
Ghazzali said that these thoughts distressed him, and on many occasions he resolved to leave his chair and retire in seclusion to find the peace of his soul and the certainty of his spirit. However, he added that two factors were struggling within him his resolute intention of seeking the truth and his desire for worldly amusements. In 1095 he reached the crucial stage of his spiritual crisis, which affected his physical health. In his distress, finding no other remedy, Ghazzali turned tp God. He relinquished his brilliant career, his esteemed position, and even his family. Distributing his belongings, he left the imperial city of Baghdad and retired to the Umayyad mosque at Damascus, where he spent tv\o years in ascetic and nnstical practices.
At the end of this time he left Syria as pilgrim to Medina and Makk.ih and for nine years he continued to lead a quiet life devoted

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to theological and philosophical studies, interrupted by periods of meditation. During that period he also travelled to Jerusalem and Egypt. Finally he reached the conclusion that the certainty of truth cannot be obtained through theological speculation of philosophical reasoning. Truth is revealed only by the ”Divine Light” which God places in the heart of His believers. Ghazzali concluded that faith and reason are both natural to man. Each of them is a means to knowledge. They complement each other by virtue of their diversity. Thus, reaching beyond philosophy and theology, and having achieved mystical experience, Ghazzali found a balance between intellect and the senses which renewed his confidence in the value of man. Therefore, his philosophy was humane and well balanced, contrary to the extreme views of some mystics. It was through this approach that he arrived at a synthesis of science and religion.
After this long intellectual and spiritual journey, and equipped with the rewards of his struggle, Ghazzali wrote his masterpiece, ”The Revival of the Sciences of Religions.” Then he returned to Baghdad, where he gave public lectures on philosophy. The Saljukid sultan reappointed him professor at the Nizamiya University in Nishapur, in Ghazzali’s home country of Khurasan. He taught and defended his system against the attacks of the dogmatic philosophers and theologians. And again caravans of students came to hear his lectures and to rediscover the master, full of humility and preaching, not only on the intricate problems of life, society and man, but also advocating the creed of goodness and love. After a short period, he returned to his home, Tus, where he founded a school, and where he lived the last years of his life among his friends and disciples. He died at Tus in 1111 A.D. and as buried near the tomb of the great epic poet Firdousi.
In addition to, ”The Revival of the Sciences of Religions”, he wrote sixty-eight other books. Among them are: The Jewels of Qur’an, On systematic theology: The Faith, and exposition of the Muslim articles of faith; The Precious Pearl, On eschatology; Balance of Action, and ethical treatise based on mysticism; and Elixir of Happiness, written in Persian, his mother tongue. The latter was a concise form of his Arabic masterpiece The Revival of the Sciences of Religions. Other works were: O! Child!, On ethics. The Detailed, the Middle, and the abridged, three books on the Islamic law of the Shafe’ite sect; The Vanity of Philosophers, a criticism of (’•reek philosophy; and the aims of philosophers, and introduction to