Ghazali and the perils of interpretation.

• Author: Dallal, Ahmad

ABU HAMID AL-GHAZALI (d. 505/1111) is one of the celebrated thinkers of Arabo-Islamic culture. The and high quality of his prolific intellectual career most celebrated thinkers of Arabo-Islamic culture. The scope and high quality of his prolific intellectual career reflect not just his genius and ambition, but, in many ways, mark the culmination of one cultural epoch an the beginning of another. The continuing interest in an discussion of him, which began in his lifetime, assure him a central position in Islamic culture as one of its constitutive elements and authoritative voices. Reflecting highly developed stage in medieval Islamic thought, hi works abound in confrontations between the manifold epistemologies and systems of thought that were adopted and employed by the various political, sectarian, and ideological groups populating the cultural landscape. Richard Frank's Al-Ghazali and the Ash arite School provide perhaps the most authoritative study to date of the place of Ghazali's thought in Islamic theology, and thus merit a full examination on account of the centrality both this study and of its subject matter.

Given the range of his ideas, al-Ghazali has both in spired and puzzled many of his readers, past and present: some have seen him as a champion of Islam, while other have vilified him as its enemy. Others still, like Muhammad mad ibn al-Murtada (d. 1680) in his famous al-Mahajja al-Bayda, (1) chose to mute their partial criticisms Ghazali, and to appropriate him by arguing that, at some point toward the end of his life, he repudiated the objectionable aspectsof his thought. Muslim philosophers are equally represented among al-Ghazali's numerous critics; they grudgingly attempted (and perhaps eventually failed) to contain the damage caused by his attacks, not just from without but also from within their system of thought. On a more traditional level, some argued that, despite his critique of philosophy, al-Ghazali was never able to rid himself of residues of this same philosophy that were ingrained in his thought. (2) In fact, the ambiguity in al-Ghazali's position vis-a-vis philosophy is itself a symptom of the difficult relationship between the so-called "Islamic" and "foreign" sciences in medieval Islamic cultures, one marked at once by ideological rejection as well as epistemological attraction.

Modern scholars have also tried to explain the apparent inconsistencies in the thought of al-Ghazali often by positing a chronology behind his psychological and intellectual profile. According to this approach, al-Ghazali underwent an existential crisis that led to a transformation in his views. While before this crisis al-Ghazali was greatly influenced by philosophy, following it he fell under the spell of gnostic anti-philosophical thought. Perhaps the main limitation of this view is that philosophic influences can still be traced in the gnostic and post-crisis works of al-Ghazali. Yet another standard method for solving inconsistencies in al-Ghazali's thought has been to question the attribution to him of some of the problematic works. (3)

Understandably, therefore, the various readings of the thought of al-Ghazali, whether direct and expository interpretative and reconstructive, have been able to cite evidence in support of each position. Reading al-Ghazali is further complicated because it involves dealing with a whole cultural legacy with its numerous trends and schools. In a famous reference reflecting past and present difficulties in assessing the works of al-Ghazali, Ibn Taymiyya says:

... due to his intelligence and sincere quest, he [al-Ghazali] became aware of the confusion in the method of the theologians and philosophers. God granted him comprehensive belief--as he says about himself--and he then hoped to explicate the totality [of his belief]. He found the views of the masters and the Sufis closer to the truth, and more worthy of confirmation, than the views of the philosophers and the theologians.... Thus he believed that the explication of the totality [of belief] can be attained solely through this method [of the Sufis]. He had no other method available to him: the special, exalted prophetic path was blocked before him due to the little knowledge he had of it, and due to the obscurities he inherited from the philsophers and the theologians.... Because of this, he was often critical of these obstacles and the [related] method of knowledge. This, however, was only due to the [particular kind of] knowledge he adopted, which shielded him from the truth of the pursuit of the [prophetic] message. For this, in fact, is not knowledge; it is only philosophical and theological dogma.... A group of people who recognized [al-Ghazali's] virtues and religiosity denied the attribution of these books [e.g., Bidayat al-Hidaya and al-Madnun bihi ala Ghayri Ahlihi to him.... Those, however, who are familiar with him and his circumstances know that these are all his own words, because they are aware of the similarities between the various elements of his discourse. Moreover, he and people like him, as I said earlier, are restless and they do not adhere to one firm view, because they have such intelligence and craving [for knowledge] that they hope to discover the method of the elect.... He was inclined to philosophy, but he presented it in the guise of Sufism and Islamic terminology. Because of this, Muslim scholars have responded to him, including the closest of his companions, Abu Bakr ibn al-Arabi, who said: "Our master Abu Hamid entered the stomach of the philosophers, then when he wanted to come out he could not do so." (4) Despite differences in style and judgment, the main points of the argument above bear a striking resemblance to the central thesis of Richard Frank's Al-Ghazali and the Ash arite School. Both agree that 1) despite his attacks on philosophers, al-Ghazali was greatly influenced by philosophy; 2) that he was critical of traditional methods of acquiring knowledge, including those of the various religious sciences and theological schools; 3) that students of al-Ghazali's works are often confused, and either deny the attribution of certain works to him, or else argue that there are inconsistencies in his writings; 4) that despite these ostensible inconsistencies, and although al-Ghazali did not write a coherent exposition of his own theological views, elements of his theology can be traced in his various works; and 5) that al-Ghazali chose to conceal his real theological views by manipulating language, and by deliberately using traditional religious idioms to introduce his own unconventional ideas.

To be sure, there are also differences between Ibn Taymiyya's assertions and Frank's analysis of the works of al-Ghazali. Ibn Taymiyya does not illustrate any of his allegations, and simply refers his reader to several books and authors who have written responses to al-Ghazali. In contrast, Frank provides a readable, thorough, and systematic interpretation of al-Ghazali's thought. The main difficulty in Frank's close readings is that his representations of al-Ghazali's thought are often open to alternative interpretations. I will devote the remainder of this review to demonstrate this point, but before I do so it will be useful to outline Frank's methodology.

Frank plows through the Ghazalian corpus, explores its various layers, and tries to establish the nature of the relationship between these layers. The result provides a detailed analysis of the thought of al-Ghazali and its relation to the traditional teachings of the Ash arite school. Although many of Frank's final conclusions are not new, what makes this book unique is the way in which he painstakingly reconstructs the thought of al-Ghazali.

Owing to the abstract nature of the subject, studies of theological and philosophical topics tend to be dry and difficult to follow. Yet in this book, Frank presents the material in a lucid and systematic manner, while managing to convey the complexity of the original debates and systems of thought, all fully informed by his intimate knowledge of the Islamic theological tradition in general and the Ash arite tradition in particular.

By working back and forth through them, rather than taking a strictly chronological approach in his analysis, Frank tries to discern a consistent system of thought underlying al-Ghazali's texts. Grounding his interpretations on close textual readings, he examines and reinterprets many texts by al-Ghazali He then uses his renditions of these texts to reconstruct al-Ghazali's whole system of thought. His focus, therefore, is on al-Ghazali's intentions as revealed in constituted texts, and not on any preconceived notions of what these intentions may be. Moreover, Frank (p. 87) argues that "... one should not try to separate his [al-Ghazali's] work (or parts of his works) into esoteric and exoteric, as if some were addressed to the religious scholars at large and others, containing his 'real position' to some elite fraternity. His works are, rather, to be viewed together as the essentially consistent, albeit rhetorically modulated, address to his fellow Shafi is and to the ulama at large." (5) In only one instance, Frank (p. 91) maintains that "al-Ghazali seems manifestly to deny what he in fact believes." He adds, however, that this is an exception, the rule being that al-Ghazali generally tends not to say things he does not believe in. According to Frank, therefore, al-Ghazali's texts may not be interpreted under the assumption that they mean the opposite of what they say. However, al-Ghazali's work may be "rhetorically modulated," and the meanings Frank assigns to the texts, or what he considers to be intentional ambivalence on the part of al-Ghazali, are often based on his estimation of the intended audience of the particular work under examination.

AL-GHAZALI'S "HIGHER THEOLOGY" vs TRADITIONAL ASH ARITE THEOLOGY

Frank (pp. 100-101) attributes the...