Al-Ghazālī’s Moderation in Belief By Alladin M. Yaqub, trans. (with an interpretive essay and notes) (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2014. 344 pages.)

Abstract

Al-Ghazali (Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Tusi al-Ghazali,
1058-1111) is one of the most important thinkers in the history of Islamic and
Arabic thought. He lived and wrote at the height of the intellectual ferment of
Islam. Originally from Tus (in modern day Iran), he traveled extensively
throughout the Muslim world. Al-Ghazali was a leading religious intellectual
during his lifetime; he was a jurist (faqīh), a theologian (mutakallim), as well
as a Sufi. Three of his most famous works are: The Incoherence of the Philosophers,
Deliverer from Error, and Revivification of the Religious Sciences. The
first work contains al-Ghazali’s famous and devastating attack on philosophy,
and while it deals in large measure with theology and theological claims, it is
principally a refutative work. In this book, al-Ghazali investigates philosophical
doctrines and criticizes philosophers for holding many heretical opinions,
especially for three blasphemous views that are deserving of death: the belief
in the pre-eternity of the world (in effect denying God’s creation of the world),
the denial of God’s knowledge of particulars, and the denial of the resurrection
of bodies and their assembly at the Day of Judgment. This work is largely ...