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THE ANTI-PHILOSOPHICAL POLEMIC OF AL-GHAZALI AND IBN
KHALDUN
Majid Fakhry
It is fairly well known today that the reception of Greek
philosophy in the Muslim World, as early as the eighth century, was
rather mixed. There were first those philosophical enthusiasts, as
one may call them such as al-Kindi (d.866) and al-Razi (d. 925), who
welcomed and defended without reservation the new spirit of
philosophical enquiry stemming from the Greeks. Thus, against his
contemporary anti-philosophical bigots who questioned the validity
of Greek philosophy on account of its nefarious foreign origin, al-Kindi
writes: “We should not be loath to value truth from whatever source
it emanates, even if it should come to us from races distant or
nations different from us. For nothing is more worthy of the seeker
of the truth than truth itself, and no one is disparaged by the
truth or belittled by it. Rather does the truth ennoble us all.”[1]
He then goes on to paraphrase Aristotle’s words in Metaphysics II,
993b16, as follows: “We ought to be grateful to the progenitors of
those who have imparted to us a small measure of truth, just as we
are to their offspring, insofar as they have been the cause of their
coming into being and consequently of our discovery of the truth.”[2]
More ebullient in his praise of the Greeks, to whom the rise of
philosophy in ancient times owes so much, Abu Bakr al-Razi, the
great physician and philosopher, has written in his Spiritual
Physic (al-Tibb al-Ruhani), in the sequel of a bitter diatribe
against those romantic poets and their admirers who idolize
eroticism (al-‘Ishq), oppose the philosophers and belittle
them: “Those people, in their ignorance and squalor, believe that
knowledge or wisdom consists in the mastery of grammar, poetry,
eloquence and rhetoric. Little do they know that the philosophers do
not regard any of those pursuits as equivalent to wisdom or those
who have mastered them as particularly wise. The wise man for them
is rather one who has mastered the principles and rules of
demonstration and proceeded next to attain in the fields of
mathematics, the physical and the metaphysical sciences, the utmost
that human capacity can attain.”[3]
In fact, we often find that engrossment in the pursuit of eroticism
is alien to the philosophers and “frequently lures the gross Arabs,
Kurds, Barbarians and Nabateans. We also find that there is no
nation which is subtler in perception than the Greeks, who attach
far less importance to eroticism than other nations.”[4]
It is possible, of course, that al-Razi, who was accused of
anti-Arab feeling (Shu‘ubiya), like so many of his fellow
Persians, went too far in characterizing the Greeks’ aversion to
eroticism or romanticism in general, as well as in disparaging the
above-mentioned other nations. What is certain is that his
philosophical passion and his admiration of the Greeks, especially
Plato, ‘the Master of the Philosophers and their Prince,’ prompted
him to make those extravagant remarks.
Before long the anti-Hellenic, anti-philosophical onslaught was
launched under the banner of Islamic religious orthodoxy by such
jurists and theologians as Malik Ibn Anas (d. 795), Ahmad Ibn Hanbal
(d. 855) and Abu’l-Hasan al-Ash‘ari (d. 935), who rejected in
varying degrees recourse to rational discourse as an alien
importation from the Greeks irreconcilable with Islam. However, the
articulation of this anti-philosophical upsurge was left to the two
outstanding scholars of the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, Abu
Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111) in the East and ‘Abd al-Rahman Ibn
Khaldun (d. 1406) in the West, the six hundredth anniversary of
whose death we are celebrating this week.
By the middle of the eleventh century, the assault on philosophy,
whether in Greek or Islamic garb, was devastating. Al-Ghazali
epitomizes the climactic point in that assault. In his famous
Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-Falasifah),
this learned theologian and mystic attributes to the philosophers
and their teaching the infidelity (kufr) of the naïve masses
who are deluded by such lustrous names as Socrates, Hippocrates,
Plato and Aristotle. He then proceeds in the Preface to expound the
contradictions inherent in particular in the teaching of the “Master
of the Philosophers and the First Teacher” (i.e. Aristotle),
according to them, as interpreted by the foremost philosophizers
of Islam, Abu Nasr al-Farabi and (Abu ‘Ali) Ibn Sina.”[5]
In the substantive part of the Preface, al-Ghazali goes on to
distinguish the various aspects of his critique of the philosophers,
to which the whole Incoherence is devoted. The first part, he
explains, deals with the divergence in philosophical and theological
terminology used by those rival groups, such as designating God as
substance or self-subsisting entity, which is unacceptable from an
Islamic point of view. The second part deals with those physical or
astronomical theories or notions such as the lunar eclipse, which
are unobjectionable because they do not conflict with any of the
‘fundamentals of religion,’ unlike the third part, which deals with
those teachings which are in conflict with those fundamentals, such
as the philosophers’ view of the origination of the world, the
attributes of the Creator and the denial of the resurrection of the
body.
As it turns out, the twenty questions or propositions of the
Incoherence constitute the substance of al-Ghazali’s critique,
in the spirit of Ash‘arism, of the views of Aristotle, confused in
the Arabic tradition with Plotinus, as interpreted by the two
leading Neoplatonists of Islam, al-Farabi and Ibn Sina. Strangely
enough, al-Ghazali says nothing in the Incoherence about al-Kindi,
al-Razi or any of the other Muslim philosophers who preceded him. He
would have then been forced to admit that the former was fully
committed to the utter compatibility of Islam and philosophy, and
the latter to their utter irreconcilability.
From a historical point of view, al-Ghazali may be said to have
ensured by the end of the eleventh century the triumph of Ash’arism
and its anti-philosophical sympathies, while retaining a fair
measure of regard for the discursive methods of the philosophers, as
illustrated by the canons of rational enquiry, embodied in the
science of logic or the organon, which Aristotle was the
first to organize or codify. Three centuries later, the
anti-philosophical assault was launched by one of the great
luminaries in the history of Islamic learning, Ibn Khaldun, who is
unmatched in the range of his erudition, as embodied in Al-Muqaddimah
or Prolegomena, which is in fact a treasure trove of Islamic,
and to a lesser extent, foreign learning from the earliest times, as
befits the genius of its author, a great historian and philosopher
of history.
Ibn Khaldun’s exposure to philosophy, we are told in his
autobiography, al-Tarif bi’ Ibn Khaldun wa Rihlatuhu Sharqan,
was due to his meeting in Fez, prior to his departure to Granada in
1362, with al-Sharif al-Tlimsani, on whom he lavishes unqualified
praise. This scholar, we are told, introduced one of Ibn Khaldun’s
teachers, Ibn ‘Abd al-Salam, to the suspect study of the
philosophical works of Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd, on which Ibn Khaldun
is said to have written commentaries which have not reached us.[6]
However, despite his ventures into philosophical and
semi-philosophical fields, Ibn Khaldun remains essentially a
historian with an empiricist’s outlook and an instinctive suspicion
of the flights of metaphysical fancy.
In a chapter of al-Muqaddimah entitled “Repudiation of
Philosophy and the Perversity of its Advocates,” he begins by
observing that although the philosophical sciences are widespread in
civilized communities, “their religious adversity is very great.”[7]
He then aims his critical shafts at those sciences which are all
grounded in logic and elicit from universal notions certain
particular observations or conclusions. This is how the
philosophers, with Aristotle at their head, go on to assert that the
heavenly spheres are analogous to humans and, like humans, possess a
soul and an intellect – a clear reference to the Neoplatonic view of
reality popularized in Islam by al-Farbi and Ibn Sina and is
ultimately affiliated to Plotinus, rather than Aristotle.
Be this as it may, Ibn Khaldun’s major critique of this Neoplatonic
view of reality centers on the fact that the philosophers, in
addition, refer all existing entities and their activities in the
lower world to the First Intellect, also known as the Active
Intellect, stopping thereby short of the Necessary Being or God.
Moreover, they ascribe to ‘conjunction’ (Ittisal) with this
intellect the final stage in the process of spiritual illumination,
which they identify with ‘scientific apprehension,’ as Aristotle, or
rather Plotinus, has held. They also claim that true happiness is
consequent on this kind of intellectual apprehension or
illumination.
Those claims, according to Ibn Khaldun, are preposterous and are in
conflict with the true view of reality, according to which “the
realm of being is too vast for our comprehension in its totality,
whether spiritual or corporal.” Even Ibn Sina, we are then told, has
admitted this in his treatise on resurrection, entitled al-Mabda’
wa’l-Ma’ad. It follows that as far as what lies outside the
realm of sense, which is the subject matter of metaphysics, the
claim of the philosophers to infer from sensible particulars, by the
process of abstraction, the existence of ‘spiritual entities,’ is
entirely unwarranted. For “we are not able to comprehend spiritual
entities, so as to be able to abstract from them other entities…and
thus we are unable to give any demonstration thereof or even affirm
their existence in principle.[8]
The only exception, according to him, consists in our apprehension
of the human soul and its cognitive states in that ‘inward’ or
mystical experience, which the philosophers generally shy away from.
Even Plato, according to him, acknowledged the limited scope of our
intellects, arguing that metaphysical entities cannot be known with
certainty, but only with probability, which he calls opinion (Doxa).
If this is the case, says Ibn Khaldun, and “if in the sequel of
assiduous study and search, we can only achieve opinion, let us be
content with that opinion with which we started.”[9]
For what is the good of the sciences with which the philosophers are
occupied, if the most they can lead us to is opinion or probability?
That Ibn Khaldun’s motive in launching this attack on the
Neoplatonists is religious or theological is revealed in his
critique of the philosophers’ concept of happiness. As he interprets
that concept, happiness consists according to the philosophers in
the apprehension of existing entities through logical demonstration.
But that concept, according to him, runs counter to the fact that
man’s faculties are of two types, a corporeal and a spiritual type.
The spiritual faculties apprehend both spiritual and corporeal
realities, the former without intermediary, the latter through the
intermediary of the brain and the senses. The spiritual type of
apprehension, he adds, is attended by “an inexpressible enjoyment
and pleasure” due to “the lifting of the veil of the senses” and
dropping all the corporeal means of apprehension; in short, in a
direct mystical way.
Ibn Khaldun is thus categorical that the philosophical sciences are
not conducive to the cognitive ends the philosophers contend they
are conducive to, and are in fact in conflict with the religious
laws (al-Shar‘ia). The only positive purpose those sciences
can serve is to sharpen the mind in pursuit of proof with respect to
disputed propositions, which is the function of logic, the only
philosophical discipline with which Ibn Khaldun, like al-Ghazali,
has no serious quarrel. However, to guard against error or excess
even in that permissible discipline, he recommends that one who
engages in the discipline of logic should first “be fully conversant
with religious ordinances and be acquainted with the (sciences) of (Qur’anic)
exegesis (Tafsir) and jurisprudence (Fiqh).”[10]
Otherwise there is no guarantee that he will escape the hazards of
falsehood. He concludes the discussion by quoting the Qur’anic verse
7:43, which reads: “We would never have been well guided had God not
guided us.”
In the chapter on the ‘science of logic,’ Ibn Khaldun observes
rightly that it was Aristotle “who refined its subjects and
organized its enquiries and chapters” and who is for that reason
referred to as the First Master. He then proceeds to list its
divisions and subject matter in the traditional manner under the
eight headings of the Categories, the Interpretation, the Prior
Analytics, the Posterior Analytics, known in the Arabic sources as
the Book of Demonstration, the Dialectic, the Sophistica, to which
the Rhetorica and the Poetica were actually added in that tradition.
He then proceeds to give a brief account of the reception of logic
in learned circles, including that of the theologians (al-Mutakallimun),
and the reservations regarding its use some of those theologians
have expressed. He then refers to al-Ghazali and his successors who
denied that logic is incompatible with religious belief and affirmed
instead that it is perfectly adequate to the refutation of
propositions which conflict with that belief. They also stressed
that in fact logic is very effective in supporting valid religious
propositions and strengthening thereby, rather than weakening
religious belief, and although not explicit on this point Ibn
Khaldun appears to be in sympathy with this view of al-Ghazali and
his successors among the Ash’arites, but certainly not the
Mu‘tazilites or the Hanbalites.
The only other science which Ibn Khaldun admits is akin to
philosophy is the ‘science’ of theology or dialectic (‘Ilm al-Kalam),
which he defines as that “science which undertakes the defense of
religious articles of faith by recourse to rational arguments, as
well as the rebuttal of those heretics who have departed in matters
of belief from the paths of the forebears (al-Salaf) and the
orthodox.”[11]
The genesis of this science, Ibn Khaldun states, is bound up with
the controversies that arose early among Muslims around the
fundamental articles of faith, associated with the ambiguous verses
of the Qur’an. Those controversies reached their pitch with the
appearance of the Mu‘tazilites, who professed the negation of the
divine attributes and upheld predestination (Qadar), as well
as the creation of the Qur’an. What Ibn Khaldun omits to mention is
that it was precisely the Mu‘tazilites, starting with the founder of
the school, Wasil Ibn ‘Ata’ (d. 748), who initiated that whole
discipline designated as dialectic or Kalam. He observes rightly
that the methods of the philosophers and those of the dialecticians
are analogous, the basic difference between them being that the
philosophers enquire into physical bodies insofar as they move,
whereas the dialecticians enquire into them insofar as they exhibit
or reveal the might of the Creator. In time, however, those two
methods of enquiry became intertwined in the work of al-Ghazali, al-Baydawi
(d. 1268), Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 1209) and others. However, apart
from their willingness to adopt the methods of the philosophers,
those scholars devoted a lot of their energy to the refutation of
the substantive propositions of the philosophers, as we find in the
works of al-Ghazali, already mentioned, in particular.
Although Ibn Khaldun does not have a serious grudge against this
latter group of dialecticians (Mutakallimun), he concludes
the whole discussion in these words: “You should know that this
science, I mean the science of dialectic, is no longer necessary in
our time for students, since atheists and heretics have become
extinct (inqaradu), thanks to the orthodox masters who have
spared us the trouble of rebutting them in their works and
writings.”[12]
ENDNOTES:
[1]
Al-Kindi, Fi’l-Falsafa al-Ula, Cairo, 1948, p. 81
[3]
Abu Bakr al-Razi, Al-Tibb al-Ruhani, Cairo, 1978, p. 60f
[4]
Ibid. p. 60. Al-Razi uses the term A‘rab, plural of A‘rabi,
which Ibn Khaldun also uses, probably to denote the Arabian
Bedouins.
[5]
Al-Ghazali, Tahafut al-Falasifah, bilingual edition by
M.E. Marmura, Provo, Utah, 1997, p. 4
[6]
Al-Maqarri, Nafh al-Teeb, Cairo, 1949, VIII, p. 286f
[7]
Al-Muqaddimah,
ed. D. al-Juwayni, Beirut, 1995, p. 513
[12]
Ibid. p. 437
Majid Fakhry
Washington, DC
January 20, 2006
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