About Imam al-Ghazali

[TapeMonkey]

I've heard this a number of times and it sounds like salafi mischief for me, but I'm not fully sure. Did Imam al-Ghazali renounce sufism later in his life? Someone commented (in another forum) about him renouncing it but that they don't translate those books into English (oooh, a Sufi conspiracy). If not, what are those supposed books and where the refutation of that stance?

Also, a questionable statement a history of islam teacher made was that al-Ghazali was a mutaizlite. I mentioned The Incoherence of the Philosophers and he said that was written earlier in his life, but that later he changed his mind (all this drastic mind changing!). I always viewed the Ash'ari school as sort of anti-mutazilah.

Thanks in advance!

P.S. Fitting that my 100th post be the first time I started a thread.

[AbuZaid]

As Salaam Alaikum

There is a difference in the Sufism of the west and the Sufism practiced by the earlier scholars.
Here is a brief on note on this.

Initially Tasawwuf was something inherent in the Ibaadah of the people during the time of the Prophet SAW. This means that they would worship Allah in such a way that they knew that Allah was watching them. Therefore every act of worship brought them to a closer level to Allah SWT. In the later eras, the concept of Tasawwuf and Ihsaan became less inherent in ones worship therefore to bring it back the scholars introduced what is known as Ilm At Tasawwuf. This took two turns. The first turn went the wrong direction, because of which the people involved within them only took Tasawwuf as an important thing and left everything else. The other turn it took was towards the right direction and people started to learn Tasawwuf and made it part of their worship.

The difference was that the first group started to neglect the concept of Iman and Amaal (actions) claiming that this spirituality is enough to be successful in this world and the hereafter. The other group did not think this rather they understood that Tasawwuf is something which needs to be there in Islam and in ones actions for them to be accepted.
The concept of Tasawwuf in Islam is the example of a person praying and after his prayer he feels like a different person. On the other hand if Tasawwuf is not there then after ones prayer one will feel the same as he/she has been feeling before. Basically ones Iman doesn’t increase.

After understanding this, the conclusion is:

Imam Ghazali was of the people of Tasawwuf who took the right approach. Not the deviant sects who only focus on spirituality and that’s it.
When the Salafi people object him, they say mistake him for the deviant sect and not the sunni sect. The main reason they say this is because when they hear "Imam Ghazali is a soofi" or when they read such terms in his books their mind tends to turn towards the Sufis of nowadays which are predominantly knows as the whirling dervishes' etc. therefore they call him misguided.

Imam Ghazali did not turn away from what he used to say because it was Haqq and why would he turn away from the Haqq.

Regarding Imam Ghazali being a Mutazili, it is false and it is known that he focused much of his life on battling the Mutazili. It is well known from the style he used in his books. He used a lot of logic, which was the belief of the Mutazili. (I.e. they believed that everything in Islam had to be in accordance to logic and if it wasn’t then it is not Islamic.)

If Imam Ghazali did make these dramatic changes of opinions in his life then it should have been well known and noted down in the known texts of himself or others.

Wallahu Alam
Abu Zaid Uthman Bin Mahmood

[Simon Iskander]

:salam:

There is a video lecture here by Shaykh Abdul Hakim Murad about Imam al-Ghazali (the title of the lecture is 'The Beginning of Guidance'):

http://www.islamicrealm.com/html/online.htm

:insh: it may help in answering some of your questions.

:jazak:

:ws:

[salahuddin]

I've heard this a number of times and it sounds like salafi mischief for me, but I'm not fully sure. Did Imam al-Ghazali renounce sufism later in his life? Someone commented (in another forum) about him renouncing it but that they don't translate those books into English (oooh, a Sufi conspiracy). If not, what are those supposed books and where the refutation of that stance?

Also, a questionable statement a history of islam teacher made was that al-Ghazali was a mutaizlite. I mentioned The Incoherence of the Philosophers and he said that was written earlier in his life, but that later he changed his mind (all this drastic mind changing!). I always viewed the Ash'ari school as sort of anti-mutazilah.

:salam:

I've never heard the argument in the first paragraph before. it sounds ludicrous, if it were true why do so many of the ahl-us-sunna wa'l jammah ulema consider him to be one of the greatest ever Islamic scholars? Can they all have coincided on the same mistake? It's ridiculous.

The second point is untrue; Imam Ashari was a Mutazilite in the early part of his life, but he moved away from this stance, hence why he was in such a good position to discredit the entire Mutazilite philosophy.

Ihya Ulum ud-Din is one of the greatest works in Islam, but don't take my word for it, ask any (non-Salafi!) scholar.

Wa salaam

[TapeMonkey]

:salam:

I've never heard the argument in the first paragraph before. it sounds ludicrous, if it were true why do so many of the ahl-us-sunna wa'l jammah ulema consider him to be one of the greatest ever Islamic scholars? Can they all have coincided on the same mistake? It's ridiculous.

The second point is untrue; Imam Ashari was a Mutazilite in the early part of his life, but he moved away from this stance, hence why he was in such a good position to discredit the entire Mutazilite philosophy.

Ihya Ulum ud-Din is one of the greatest works in Islam, but don't take my word for it, ask any (non-Salafi!) scholar.

Wa salaam

I recently read an article by G.F. Haddad which mentioned the first point some (although it specifically mentions, after quoting something that "this refutes the belief that Imam Ghazali renounced sufism..." I couldn't see how the previous actually refuted that). Also, the second point was made in a college "History of Islam and the Middle East" class by a very secular Shi'a. When I sort of brought up his assertion in class, his point was that Imam Ghazali wrote the Incoherence earlier on rather than later (thanks to the Abdal Hakim Murad speech linked to above, I know that's not true).