Al-Ghazali:

Al-Ghazali wrote his book The Savior from Aimlessness. Unlike Augustine, AlGhazali was a prominent visited by many people seeking study. At a certain time, he felt that all his motivation is by self-interest (fame). At the peak of his career, he asked himself the following question: What am I doing? He started doubting his own knowledge: How much of what I know is true?, how do I know whether what I know is true or not? His knowledge didnt integrate in his personality, so he asked: Where is the starting point in our knowledge? We are all born in context, of pure nature, but then we socialize with Muslims, Christians, etc. So Al-Ghazali asked: How much of what I know is valuable for me? And when does knowledge become true? He felt empty; he felt he had knowledge but not certain knowledge. Our knowledge is materialistic. Al-Ghazali used methodological skepticism: doubt in order to know (oriented skepticism). This was Al-Ghazalis method of arriving at the ultimate knowledge. Then Al-Ghazali became ill and depressed. He said that satisfaction is in the internal world not as most people that try to be satisfied by the external world, so you must experience yourself as an individual not as a member of the society. He asked the question: How can I create knowledge that is beneficial to me? After all these questions, he felt more depressed. He felt an existential crisis: Who am I? Is there god? Is what I know true? Is it beneficial to me or to god? He wrote his book in which he restructured Islam in a new manner. Al-Ghazali was from the ones whom renewed religion. He was skeptic of everything and wanted to make a solid ground for true knowledge that cannot be doubted. He started with the senses; he wanted to know whether they could be a solid ground for true knowledge. He said that senses provide us with information, since we perceive most of our information using our senses. He said that we cannot recognize all the changes that occur around us by perception, because some changes are too small and sometimes our vision is blocked. So he asked the question: How true is the information that we perceive? Al-Ghazali said that what makes our perception correct is our reason. So reason corrects what we perceive. We create the definitions of things and we teach them, but our minds are limited by context. So the truth cannot be based on reason, because reason is based on reality, it is based on assumptions after experience. So our logical conclusions are only temporary. We understand phenomena at the current time but we don't understand the essence of things. For example, when we say that (1+1=2), our minds generate it, but this generation may be false. And thus Al-Ghazali distinguished between noumena and phenomena. While phenomena are what we can see or perceive, noumena are the essences of things. From our experience, we make rules (e.g. the sun will rise tomorrow). What if that wasn't true? We don't know the essence of things. We know that the soul exists, for example, but we don't know what the soul is. Therefore, Al-Ghazali concluded that we can arrive at certain knowledge neither by senses (perception), nor by experience and reason.

So, could there be something that I can depend on to reach certainty? When we sleep our souls join , and when we wake up our souls join , but what is common between dreaming and living? The only thing common is I. The real certain thing is that I exist. This is the methodology of knowing the truth. It is by knowing ourselves. Al-Ghazali found out that there are four different schools of thought that aim at arriving at knowledge: 1- Theologians. 2- Instructionists. 3- Philosophers. 4- Sufis. 1) Theology starts with assumptions. You must believe in certain texts and ideas. The role of theology is thus to be an internal defense of religion, no an external conviction of others. It is used between people that have the same religion or belief. Thus Al-Ghazali felt that theology cannot help him, because he didn't seek an internal defense, but he wanted to reach the real ultimate truth. 2) Knowledge can only be taken from an instructor. He meant or . These believed that each text has an exterior meaning and another interior meaning. They believed that truth has levels. Al-Ghazali disagreed with them, and he felt that even if he agreed with them, he cannot arrive at the ultimate truth using the method of their school. 3) Al-Ghazali also rejected philosophers; he said that they took what is physical and turned it into metaphysical. Their arguments are all based on cause-effect relationships. He said that we cannot understand the metaphysics by just understanding the physics. They said that god is the uncaused cause. Al-Ghazali decided that philosophers are unbelievers, because they believe in these three ideas: a) That the universe is eternal. b) That the heaven and hell are spiritual and not physical. c) That god doesn't know particulars; he knows and cares only about the universe in general. 4) And thus Al-Ghazali found out that the fourth school of thought, Sufism, is the best school that can lead him to arrive at the ultimate truth and certain knowledge.

Ibn Rushd:
He is one of the greatest philosophers in Islam. He is called the third teacher, after the first teacher, Aristotle, and the second teacher, Al-Farabi. Ibn Rushd was a legal lawyer and a famous physician. He combined Greek and Islamic philosophies. He wrote the book : . He also wrote the book: , which was a medical reference for Europe for about 400 years. The purpose of the first book was to refute Al-Ghazali's argument about philosophers. He wrote as a lawyer not as a philosopher, and thus he based his philosophy on a religious not on a philosophical ground, so that he can refute Al-Ghazali's argument using religion. Al-Ghazali says that we can know nothing using reason. Ibn Rushd wanted to show that the Islamic Sharia calls upon us to think rationally and philosophically. He started his argument by the following: The Qur'an commands us to think: This means that god wants us to think of the power of creation. He wants us to contemplate our life, to speculate the universe. When we are commanded to think, we should think in the best possible manner, which is to study teleology. Teleology is the study of the essence (noumena) of things and not the phenomena. For example people have essence (souls) and phenomena (bodies). According to Al-Ghazali, we can only make suggestions of the phenomena, and we can never know the noumena except by the Sufi manner, and thus philosophers cannot arrive at the truth. On the other hand, Ibn Rushd said that we can study noumena, and we can arrive at the truth only through reason and rationality, and we can understand the ultimate truth as it is. Ibn Rushd said that god is the ultimate thought, and we have thoughts, then we can meet with god. Teleology is the study of essence, and the method used in it is logic, then Muslims should adopt logic. Should we adopt logic from non-Islamic cultures (Greek)? Al-Ghazali said that we may adopt all sciences from non-Islamic cultures, but not philosophical and metaphysical sciences, and he refuses logic since it is a human construction. On the other hand, Ibn Rushd said that knowledge is a universal general theme; it is not related to a certain culture. Knowledge is based on accumulation of knowledge of many cultures. So Ibn Rushd is with the exchange of knowledge between different human cultures. Human development requires interaction between cultures.

According to Ibn Rushd, god provided us with 2 means of knowledge: reason and religion. Religion and reason don't contradict each other since their source is one and the same. Question: What happens if it seems to have contradictions between reason and religion when differences exist? Which one should yield or interpret the other? Al-Ghazali said that there is no order of the universe, and god constantly recreates it every second (there's no specific rational order). He also said that religion is the ultimate interpreter. On the other hand, Ibn Rushd said that the universe has an order created by god, and that reason should interpret religion, because religion is symbolic while reason is scientific. We cannot change reason to suit religion, but we can change the interpretation of religion and not the religion itself. Ibn Rushd said that in case of contradiction, we resort to the allegorical interpretation, which is the extension of the significance of the meaning of the text. Al-Ghazali used three charges of unbelief against philosophers: 1) God doesn't know particulars. 2) The universe is coeternal with god. 3) Heaven and hell are spiritual and not physical. Ibn Rushd responded to these charges: 1) When we talk about particulars and generalities we talk about human knowledge which is based on cause-effect relationships. God knows in a different mode and method, not by cause-effect, because he is the cause of everything. People know differently from god and differently from animals. So god doesn't know particulars in the human sense, but he knows everything. 2) There are three kinds of beings: Agent Material Time Extreme No No No Extreme Yes Yes Yes Middle Yes Yes No a) Extreme, being created without agent and material and doesn't exist on time (god). b) Extreme, being created with agent and material and do exist on time (humans). c) Middle, being created with agent and material but doesn't exist on time (universe). God created the universe out of time since time itself is a creation; therefore the universe is coeternal with god. It exists from eternity since it exists out of time. Al-Ghazali says that the universe is created ( )based on agent and material, while Ibn Rushd says that it is eternal (( based on time. Thus there's no real conflict

between both. Both are correct but the difference is in naming and shouldn't lead to charges of unbelief. One focuses on creation and the other focuses on eternity. Note: Creation is a divine end which is eternal.