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Al-Ghazali the Muslim Intellectual

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Originally titled as "Muslim Intellectual: A Study of al-Ghazali" by W. Montgomery Watt when published in 1963. Chapter contents: The function of the intellectual; The world of al-Ghazali (the political background, the religious and intellectual background; al-Ghazali's early life); The encounter with philosophy (the philosophical movement in the Islamic world; the social relevance of philosophical ideas, al-Ghazali's period of skepticism, `The Inconsistency of the Philosophers', the introduction of logic into theology); Truth from the charismatic leader (Ismailite doctrine in its political setting, the intellectual defense of Sunnism); The reappraisal of theology (the achievements of Islamic theology, theologians and governments, al0Ghazali's critique of the scholar-jurists, dogmatic theology from a new standpoint); The bitterness of worldly success (the Sufi movement, the crises of 1095, life as a Sufi, `The Revival of religious sciences'); The intellectual basis of the `revived' community (the intellectual class and the conception of knowledge, the new `Intellectual Structure' of the community); The Achievement (the tension between Philosophy and Theology, the Batinite challenge, the tension between the `Islamic Sciences' and Sufism), Excursus. Prof. Watt noted: "Al-Ghazali has been acclaimed as the greatest Muslim after Muhammad, and is certainly one of the greatest." Regarding al-Ghazali's attack on philosopny, Prof. Watt wrote: "If it is thus impossible to say how much al-Ghazali's attacks contributed to the decline of philosophy, there is no doubt about the success of the positive aspects of his work, namely, the incorporation of parts of philosophy into Islamic theology. From this time onwards the theologians (part from those who rejected rational argument, notably the Hanbalites) made use of syllogistic logic and various Greek metaphysical conceptions" (p. 173). Prof. Watt concluded: "Al-Ghazali seems to have assumed that not merely political decisions but all the outward forms of social life were beyond the ability of a man to control - this fixity of social forms was doubtless the result of the stabilization of the Traditions some two centuries before his time" (p. 179). Regarding the Sharia, Prof. Watt opined: "In his theorizing he sometimes fails to make explicit allowance for the communalism of the Sharia, but he always presupposes it, and in his practice he effects a genuine integration of individualism and communalism. This is part of his title to greatness and of his achievement in `renewing' Islam" (p. 180). A companion book is "The Closing of the Muslim Mind" by Robert Reilly (2010).