Film imam al ghazali biography pdf

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Al-Ghazālı̄’s Use of “Original Human Disposition” (fit·ra) and its Background in the Teachings of al-Fārābı̄ and Avicenna muwo_1376 1..32 Frank Griffel* Yale University I n an often read and frequently cited passage on the early pages of his autobiography The Deliverer from Error (al-Munqidh min al-d·alāl ), al-Ghazālı̄ quotes a well-known prophetical h·adı̄th that says all children are born with a certain fit·ra while it is their parents who turn them into Jews, Christians, or Zoroastrians. The passage gives a lively account of al-Ghazālı̄’s early intellectual development during his childhood or teenage years and is aimed to explain to the reader what prompted him to abandon an attitude of “uncritical emulation” (taqlı̄d) that limits most people’s intellectual development. The notion of fit·ra, a term that can be tentatively translated as “original disposition,” plays an important role in this personal development. The passage paints a vivid picture of what set al-Ghazālı̄ on his lifelong intellectual quest for certainty and merits to be quoted in full. Talking about the days of his youth before he was twenty, al-Ghazālı̄ says: A thirst for understanding how things truly are was from the very beginning and from the prime of my life my habit and my practice. It is an inborn capacity (gharı̄za) and a talent ( fit·ra) from God that had been put into my nature (jibilla) not by way of choice (ikhtiyār ) or as a means that accomplishes an end (h· ı̄la). This went so far that already at the young age of a boy the shackles of uncritical emulation (taqlı̄d) fell off me, and the convictions that I had inherited fell apart. This came because I saw the boys of the Christians always growing up embracing Christianity, and the boys of the Jews always following Judaism, and the boys of the Muslims always growing up adhering to Islam. I heard the h·

1. Life

Later Muslim medieval historians say that Abû Hâmid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazâlî was born in 1058 or 1059 in Tabarân-Tûs (15 miles north of modern Meshed, NE Iran), yet notes about his age in his letters and his autobiography indicate that he was born in 1055 or 1056 (Griffel 2009, 23–25). Al-Ghazâlî received his early education in his hometown of Tus together with his brother Ahmad (c.1060–1123 or 1126) who became a famous preacher and Sufi scholar. Muhammad went on to study with the influential Ash’arite theologian al-Juwaynî (1028–85) at the Nizâmiyya Madrasa in nearby Nishapur. This brought him in close contact with the court of the Grand-Seljuq Sultan Malikshâh (reg. 1071–92) and his grand-vizier Nizâm al-Mulk (1018–92). In 1091 Nizâm al-Mulk appointed al-Ghazâlî to the prestigious Nizâmiyya Madrasa in Baghdad. In addition to being a confidante of the Seljuq Sultan and his court in Isfahan, he now became closely connected to the caliphal court in Baghdad. He was undoubtedly the most influential intellectual of his time, when in 1095 he suddenly gave up his posts in Baghdad and left the city. Under the influence of Sufi literature al-Ghazâlî had begun to change his lifestyle two years before his departure (Griffel 2009, 67). He realized that the high ethical standards of a virtuous religious life are not compatible with being in the service of sultans, viziers, and caliphs. Benefiting from the riches of the military and political elite implies complicity in their corrupt and oppressive rule and will jeopardize one’s prospect of redemption in the afterlife. When al-Ghazâlî left Baghdad in 1095 he went to Damascus and Jerusalem and vowed at the tomb of Abraham in Hebron never again to serve the political authorities or teach at state-sponsored schools. He continued to teach,