al-Ghazālī | The Mantiqi

Shāfiʿī jurist and Ashʿarī theologian whose endorsement of logic as a neutral tool, needed by every scholar, opened the way for logic to become a normal part of Sunni learning.

Life

Al-Ghazālī was born in Ṭūs in Khurasan and studied in Nishapur with al-Juwaynī at the Niẓāmiyya madrasa. In 1091 he was appointed to the Niẓāmiyya in Baghdad; he left his post in 1095, spent years in retreat, returned to teach at the Niẓāmiyya in Nishapur in 1106, and died in Ṭūs in Jumādā II 505/December 1111. The traditional birth year is 450/1058; Frank Griffel argues from his letters and autobiography for ca. 1055–56.

He wrote several books on . Before his retreat he wrote Miʿyār al-ʿilm (“The Standard of ”), Miḥakk al-naẓar (“The Touchstone of Reasoning”) and the logic part of Maqāṣid al-falāsifa (“The Aims of the Philosophers”), a loose Arabic adaptation of Ibn Sīnā’s Persian Dānishnāma. During his retreat he wrote al-Qisṭās al-mustaqīm (“The Correct Balance”), named after a Qurʾānic phrase, and late in life he placed a long introduction on logic at the head of al-Mustaṣfā, his work on legal theory.

His approach was to separate from the philosophers’ metaphysics. In al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl he presents logic as a tool that in itself neither affirms nor denies anything in religion. In his logic books he replaced Peripatetic terms with terms from grammar, theology and law, and drew his examples from law and theology.

Uncertain or disputed

Year of birth: 450/1058 in the traditional accounts and the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi; ca. 1055–56 according to Griffel (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), based on al-Ghazālī’s own statements.

Works

Miʿyār al-ʿilm مِعْيَارُ العِلْمِHandbook of logic.work
Miḥakk al-naẓar مِحَكُّ النَّظَرِHandbook of logic with examples from law and theology.work
Maqāṣid al-falāsifa مَقَاصِدُ الفَلَاسِفَةِExposition of the philosophers’ logic, metaphysics and physics; its logic was translated into Latin (Logica et philosophia Algazelis).work
al-Qisṭās al-mustaqīm القِسْطَاسُ المُسْتَقِيمُPresents the forms of inference as “balances” found in the Qurʾān.work
al-Mustaṣfā min ʿilm al-uṣūl المُسْتَصْفَى مِنْ عِلْمِ الأُصُولِLegal theory, opening with a long introduction on logic.work

Reception

In the introduction to al-Mustaṣfā he calls the introduction to all the sciences and says that the of someone who has not mastered it cannot be relied upon at all (“man lā yuḥīṭu bihā fa-lā thiqata lahu bi-ʿulūmihi aṣlan”). Later defenders of logic, such as the sixteenth-century jurist Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī, cited this statement.

Modern historians (El-Rouayheb; the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi) credit him, with Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, with making a legitimate science for jurists and theologians; after him, works on theology and legal theory often began with a section on logic.

Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ and others opposed this development, and Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ also criticised parts of al-Ghazālī’s legal work.

Sources (5)