Al-Ghazali's "Moderation in Belief"

Al-Ghazali, Aladdin M. Yaqub

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780226060903
• Topic: Filosofía
• Subtopic: Historia y teoría filosóficas

Centuries after his death, al-Ghazali remains one of the most influential figures of the Islamic intellectual tradition. Although he is best known for his Incoherence of the Philosophers, Moderation in Belief is his most profound work of philosophical theology. In it, he offers what scholars consider to be the best defense of the Ash'arite school of Islamic theology that gained acceptance within orthodox Sunni theology in the twelfth century, though he also diverges from Ash'arism with his more rationalist approach to the Quran. Together with The Incoherence of the Philosophers, Moderation in Belief informs many subsequent theological debates, and its influence extends beyond the Islamic tradition, informing broader questions within Western philosophical and theological thought.
The first complete English-language edition of Moderation in Belief, this new annotated translation by Aladdin M. Yaqub draws on the most esteemed critical editions of the Arabic texts and offers detailed commentary that analyzes and reconstructs the arguments found in the work's four treatises. Explanations of the historical and intellectual background of the texts also enable readers with a limited knowledge of classical Arabic to fully explore al-Ghazali and this foundational text for the first time.
With the recent resurgence of interest in Islamic philosophy and the conflict between philosophy and religion, this new translation will be a welcome addition to the scholarship.

Notes

Translator’s Introduction

1. By saying that these books are original, I do not mean to deny that they are influenced by other works. Tahāfut al-Falāsifa contains expositions of philosophers’ views and arguments and al-Ghazālī’s refutations of them. Some of al-Ghazālī’s polemics are influenced by arguments and positions advocated by other theological schools. Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn is significantly influenced by other Sufi books, especially Abū T.ālib al-Makkī’s Qūt al-Qulūb (The Sustenance of the Hearts), a book that al-Ghazālī in his al-Munqidh min al-Ḍalāl (The Deliverer from Error) says he has read (p. 131).

2. A ḥadīth is a saying or a description of a practice attributed to the Prophet Muḥammad. The Ḥadīth is the corpus consisting of the sayings and the descriptions of the practices attributed to the Prophet Muḥammad. In other words, Ḥadīth is considered to embody the Sunna, which is the collective tradition of the Prophet Muḥammad. The term ‘Hadith’ has been part of the English vocabulary since the eighteenth century. As for the token term ḥadīth, it has not yet, to the best of my knowledge, entered the “official” English vocabulary. However, an increasing number of translators and writers are using the Arabic term ḥadīth instead of the English expression ‘a saying (or, a tradition) of the Prophet Muḥammad’, or more cautiously, the expression ‘a saying (or, a tradition) attributed to the Prophet Muḥammad’. The concept is sufficiently complex to warrant its own term. By using the Arabic term, one hopes that the word ‘hadith’ would one day enter into the English vocabulary as ‘Hadith’ has. It should be noted, however, that some scholars are already using the term ‘Hadith’ to refer to the corpus of ḥadīths as well as to a single ḥadīth or a collection of ḥadīths.

3. The book is famously known in the English-speaking world as Deliverance from Error.

4. ʿAbd al-Karīm al-ʿUthmān’s Sirat al-Ghazālī wa-Aqwāl al-Mutaqaddimīn fīh is a compilation of the classical Arabic biographies of al-Ghazālī.

5. In some biographies, he is called Abū Naṣr al-Ismāʿīlī.

6. The term ‘Esotericists’ (al-Bāṭiniyya) is used to refer to several Shīʿa sects. The most notable of these sects is a group of militant Shīʿa also called al-Ismāʿīliyya. They are called “Esotericists” (as well as “Instructionists”) because they claim that they follow the instructions of infallible hidden imams, who understand the esoteric interpretations of all Qurʾānic verses.

7. I take ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī’s Muʾallafāt al-Ghazālī to be the most authoritative of the chronicles because it is one of the latest and most complete. Badawī had the benefit of studying many other chronicles before he compiled his own; he also makes extensive use of al-Ghazālī’s internal cross-references and of chronicles of some of al-Ghazālī’s works found in the historical sources. The most recent chronicle of al-Ghazālī’s works is George F. Hourani’s “A Revised Chronology of Ghazālī’s Writings” (1984).

8. The problem of reiteration is a legal issue in Islamic law. It concerns the validity of a divorce when a man says to his wife, “If I divorce you three times, you will be divorced,” but then says only once, “You are divorced.” In al-Ghazālī’s day, this was a hotly debated matter among Shāfiʿite scholars. Al-Ghazālī provides in this work a thorough investigation and elaboration of the relevant factors, concluding that in this case the divorce is not valid. Much later in life he returned to this issue and reversed his initial fatwa, declaring that a reiterated divorce was valid.

9. There are cross-references between the Tahāfut and the Miʿyār. According to Badawī, however, the references to the Miʿyār are found in only some of the copies of the former work—suggesting that al-Ghazālī added this cross-reference later, that is, after composing the latter work.

10. The book was written at the request of the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Mustaẓhir bi-Allāh to counter the propaganda of the Ismāʿīlites.

11. Most of al-Ghazālī’s early biographers state that al-Ghazālī studied philosophy and Sufism during his years at the Niẓāmiyya School of Nishapur. All of this is consistent with al-Ghazālī’s chronology of his studies in the Munqidh, so long as he is understood to be chronicling his careful and thorough studies of the various disciplines. Khalidi (2005, pp. xxv–xxvi) and others suggest that al-Ghazālī could not have immersed himself in all these areas of study, taught about three hundred students (as he tells us in the Munqidh), and written several books during four years only. I am not persuaded. Al-Ghazālī was a prodigious writer and reader. The fact that he wrote more than one hundred works, some of which are multivolume, in his relatively short life is a testimony to his extraordinary ability to accomplish much in little time. We may note that he did not start from scratch: he had studied Arabic, law, theology, philosophy, and Sufism before taking up his many ventures in Baghdad.

12. The work is so named because it was written in Jerusalem (al-Quds).

13. It is very likely that al-Ghazālī began writing the Iḥyāʾ during his stay in Damascus and that he completed it sometime after he wrote al-Risāla al-Qudsiyya.

[Religious Preface]

1. ‘Sunna’ has been part of the English vocabulary since the eighteenth century. It designates the body of traditions attributed to the Prophet Muḥammad. I translate ahl al-sunna literally as the followers of the Sunna. It might be objected that this translation is biased since the Shīʿa consider themselves also followers of the Sunna; it is only that these groups have different interpretations of the Sunna as well as different traditions attributed to the Prophet. Ahl al-sunna, it might be said, really refers to the adherents of Sunni orthodoxy, and thus it should be translated as such. All of this is true, but still my translation is defensible. A translation ideally should capture the intent of the author—his meaning, even if this meaning conflicts with historical or ideological facts. When al-Ghazālī, and other defenders of Sunni orthodoxy, use ahl al-sunna, they mean by it the followers of the prophetic tradition, that is, the followers of the Sunna. Since this is a translation of a text written by al-Ghazālī and not a commentary on it, I find it inescapable to adhere to the meanings of the terms as he understood them. He definitely would not think of ahl al-sunna as merely a group adhering to orthodoxy, but rather, true followers of the prophetic tradition. The term ‘orthodoxy’ itself, of course, could connote a system of religious belief that is widely held as right or as the norm. Thus being an adherent of Sunni orthodoxy could simply mean an adherent of the Sunni tradition that is widely held as the right tradition, which is not far from al-Ghazālī’s intended meaning. However, I still would argue that ‘orthodoxy’ could carry with it a connotation of convention, which al-Ghazālī would reject. For him what is conventional or accepted at certain time may not be consistent with the Sunna, and hence it should not be part of the belief or practice of ahl al-sunna.

2. In the original it is sharāʾiʿ (laws), which is the plural of sharīʿa (law). Sharīʿa is usually translated as religi...