Who Killed Al-Ghazali?
By Saad Ahmad, New Age Islam
30 April 2025
This essay explores the legacy of Imam al-Ghazali (1111), a pivotal medieval Islamic scholar, and the challenges his philosophy faced from both Islamic and Western thinkers. Al-Ghazali’s critique of rationalist causality in Tahafut al-Falasifah emphasized divine will over reason, influencing figures like Ibn Tufayl, Ibn Rushd, and Ibn Taymiyyah, who responded with varying interpretations of causality and divine guidance. The essay compares Islamic causality with modern Western frameworks, which prioritize measurable truths and dismiss divine intervention. In this context, modern Western thinkers labelled Al-Ghazali’s teachings as irrational, diminishing his legacy. The narrative reflects on the broader tension between cultural heritage and modernity, questioning whether traditional Islamic thought can coexist with contemporary discourse. Ultimately, it posits that the true adversary to Al-Ghazali’s legacy is not individual critics but the erasure of absolute knowledge within rigid, one-directional modern reasoning.
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(Imam al-Ghazi)
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Winter was approaching, and I found myself fleeing from it. I had always despised winter—tumultuous and clamorous. Experiencing it in Delhi was particularly arduous. If, by chance, you behold it here, you are arrested by the ghosts of the past—loyalty, frailty, vindication, and greed—dancing before you, telling their own stories. Legacies and intricacies whisper how they were forged and sustained, how they built and upheld an empire for centuries. They gaze at the horizon with a silent proclamation: Look at the life we once lived.
We were Muslims—defenders of cultures, architects of pluralism, and advocates of syncretism. We established empires, nurtured civilizations, and defined societies. Yet for us, the world was dark. The light that illuminated us was not Tesla’s revolution, but Muhammad’s—a divine luminescence, we were told, bestowed by God Himself. For the Arabs, God is the Everlasting Allah, the Almighty. Alongside this spiritual enlightenment, we followed the enterprise of fiqh, whose rational jurisprudence—particularly the Hanafism—embraced non-ideological secularity from the Ajmayeen (non-Arabs).
In Delhi, every step you take encounters stones and clay whispering questions: Are you a cultural being, a human immersed in culture, or merely an animal existing within it? Heed their call—not as a tribute, but as recognition. They do not belong merely to historical records but to the living breath of a spirited civilization. To the modern sceptic, they may appear irrational; yet, to the observer, the reader, and the seer, their essence is profoundly rational. Museums worship them as objects, yet their stories breathe, reviving memories and reshaping perspectives. They serve as the foundation for towering monuments, but equally as the raw material for crafting ideas lost in time.
Half the world carries the echoes of the Mughals, Mongols, or Turks—whether in material structures or imagined legacies. If you think too deeply, you may find yourself entangled in the same figments of thought where the Mughals once roamed. Their history pervades offices and public spaces, shaping subconscious rhythms—our tongues, when set free, speak words inherited from the air they once shaped. The sensory faculties within us respond to signals cultivated in civilizations long dismissed as uncivilized and savage.
And yet, the narrative surrounding the Arabs has been twisted. The modern world insists: Do not speak of them. They are the most heinous figures upon this earth. They are the embodiment of disaster, a terrorizing nightmare disrupting our present luxury. They are relics, dragging us back into the past. But is this truly the past? If that is what you call history, then I invite you to reconsider.
What makes the past worthy of dismissal? If modernity finds its pride in the lifeless objects that command European admiration, where do the living traditions stand? The Arabs—despite their portrayal as the darkest of creatures, as remnants from nothingness—carry a past too rich to be discarded. So, what shall we discuss? Ideas? Innovation? The supposed superiority of modern thought?
Can one reflect upon these concepts while dressed in kurta pyjama, dhoti kurta, or sherwani? Can traditional attire coexist with modern discourse? My newly discovered love, whom I adore through writing, cherishes her lehnga chunni, churidar pyjama, and salwar suit. Can we engage with modern Western thought without renouncing our cultural aesthetics?
Let us then talk about the modern. Let us talk about the West. Let us dissect its ideas. In the Western world, rights reign supreme, while in the East, duty binds us. The West thrives upon individual freedoms, absent of divine interference, guided by the innate reasoning of nature. It understands only causality—the perpetual chain of actions dictating existence. One thing causes another, which leads to yet another—a drama of causation.
But perhaps, even within this drama, traces of the past remain—woven into the fabric of progress, lingering beneath the surface, whispering stories yet to be heard.
Our world has witnessed the full emergence of reason. Rooted in this reasoning, it has developed a reality saturated with knowledge and awareness—unlike earlier forms of knowledge, which were limited in scope. Today, knowledge is accessible to all; awareness is unprecedented in its reach. This modern knowledge is causal—it defines and determines moving factors.
Modern reason recognizes only one guiding force: a singular interpretation of causality that dictates perception and analysis. Yet, this God of modern reason is not truly independent; it is bound by interpretations, shaped by cause-based inquiries. Its movement is restricted—it cannot act without validation from minds preoccupied with causal frameworks. This approach, rooted in nature or at least aligned with it, extends even to mathematics. The world is deemed mathematical, calculable, a book of nature decipherable through computation. This framework makes modern reason presentable and convincing, transforming realities that were once confined to creative imagery into measurable truths.
Modernity calls for the removal of performative representations of divinity. It seeks to apply causal explanations to everything—memory, imagination, subjectivity, embedded histories. Since God is invisible, belief in the unseen becomes incompatible with rational relativism. In this model, faith in the unknown is dismissed as lacking epistemic value. Wherever God resides—within the heart or the mind—He is perceived as weakening the human spirit, restricting mankind from transcending itself, from becoming the extra-man or the Superman.
This paradigm profoundly affected Muslim intellectuals, leading them to seek solutions to human dilemmas within religious texts but through a perspective shaped by modern causality. If Islamic history is examined through this lens, one might find themselves forced to conclude that it is nothing more than superstition, myth, and an antiquated belief system—rather than an intellectual tradition that once equipped humanity with a profound understanding of history.
Western historiography prides itself on rational foundations: causality, objectivity, and critical analysis. Yet, for the scientific mind, this approach raises concerns—it is one-directional reasoning, failing to acknowledge the multiplicity of perspectives within Islamic scholarship. The modern trend of causal interpretation largely disregards the rational frameworks developed in Islamic tradition. The Islamic system of causality is not merely responsive but systematic and convincing—though its tools of inquiry remain elusive to modern epistemology.
However, the modern regime of causality finds itself fundamentally challenged by the presence of God’s image in Islam. The foundation of modern, Western, geo-cultural, and Eurocentric causality is disrupted wherever divine intervention enters spaces occupied by secular reason.
The remnants of the Mughal Empire, the poetic battles between Farazdaq and Jareer, Abbas ibn Firnas’s aviation experiments, al-Jahiz’s evolutionary observations, al-Tusi’s astronomical advancements, Ibn Shatir’s engagement with Aryabhatta’s heliocentric models, Ibn Muqaffa’s contributions to public administration, al-Razi’s clinical diaries and his remedy for chickenpox—each represents causality in explicit terms. One cannot ignore them. They were poets, scholars, scientists, administrators, and believers simultaneously. Their contributions to the sciences provided the foundation for modern knowledge.
But how does one concept of causality differ from another—such as the contrast between modern Western causality and Islamic causality? How does one interpret causality when faced with figures like Imam al-Ghazali, whose critiques dismantled key pillars of rationalist thought? How does one reckon with the concept of Musabbabul Asbab—the Prime Cause?
How often is Allah, as an Arab deity, categorized as an ethnic god belonging to a particular belief system? How often does the “camouflaged saviour” change its guise, evading divine presence? After philosophy’s shift into technological demonstration, where will it hide next? Will it once again seek refuge in textual reinterpretation?
In response to these questions, I would love to discuss a pivotal medieval intellectual figure: Ibn Tufayl (12th century). His understanding of causality profoundly influenced philosophers from John Locke to Karl Marx, largely due to Edward Pococke’s Latin translation of his work in 1671. Ibn Tufayl, in turn, was responding to Imam al-Ghazali, challenging his rejection of Aristotelian philosophy in Tahafut al-Falasifah—a critique that sought to dismantle the causal framework of knowledge, replacing it with divine will relegated to the margins.
Ghazali insisted that God’s will is independent, capable of intervening anywhere, unrestricted by orthodoxies or rationalities. Nearly a century later, Ibn Tufayl’s work was met with a response from Ibn Nafis (Risalah al-Kamiliyyah fi al-Sirah al-Nabawiyyah), who reinterpreted causality within a framework of divine guidance (Hidayah). Around the same time, Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1328) critically examined al-Ghazali’s approach. Seeking to be more Ghazali than Ghazali himself, he argued that al-Ghazali’s synthesis—combining religion, philosophy, and Sufism—was an implicit concession to Greek epistemology, allowing a manipulable perception of Allah within worldly affairs. Ibn Taymiyyah contended that al-Ghazali had not entirely rejected Neoplatonic Aristotelianism, despite his claims.
Between the intellectual discourses of the medieval Islamic world, Ibn Rushd (d. 1198) emerged as a philosophical respondent to Al-Ghazali’s Tahafut al-Falasifah (The Incoherence of the Philosophers). In Tahafut at-Tahafut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence), Ibn Rushd sought to defend the rationalist tradition against what he perceived as Al-Ghazali’s scepticism toward philosophical inquiry. During his lifetime, Al-Ghazali was troubled by questions posed by Ismaili scholars, leading him to produce further works aimed at “renewing the tradition of critical knowledge in Islam.”
As time passed, another intellectual circle, composed of figures within Western philosophy and Orientalist scholarship, began evaluating Al-Ghazali’s influence on Islamic thought. Scholars such as Ernest Renan and Salomon Munk (both 19th century thinkers) ultimately characterized Al-Ghazali’s teachings as the foundation of an Ummah of irrationality.
In the discourse of reason and belief, we encounter the father of the Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant. Roy Jackson notes Kant’s engagement with Islamic belief, inspiring modern readers with his remark on Kant’s doctoral thesis (1755), which bore the inscription Bismillah hir-Rahman ir-Rahim. Jackson speculates that Kant recognized philosophy as a source of knowledge, but one that could never fully guide a seeker of truth. Kant came before Renan but after the rich philosophical traditions of Islam, though he made no explicit mention of Islamic thought.
Similar to Al-Ghazali and his Arab critics, Kant expressed scepticism toward philosophy’s ability to serve as the ultimate path to knowledge. He questioned whether human intelligence, solely functioning within causal reasoning, could truly serve humanity. Al-Ghazali’s philosophical stance—commonly identified as occasionalism—did not outright reject causality but instead resisted the notion of an independent, self-sufficient form of reason. For Al-Ghazali, mere belief in causality was like the Quranic imagery:
"Their example is like that of one who kindled a fire, but when it illuminated what was around him, Allah took away their light and left them in darkness, unable to see—deaf, dumb, and blind, so they will not return." (Quran 2:17–18)
In Munqidh min al-Dalal (Deliverance from Error), Al-Ghazali metaphorically immerses us in an ocean, where only one fish swim—the fish of unwavering belief. He teaches that the only force capable of liberating us from worldly enchantments and fleeting illusions is absolute faith. True knowledge, he asserts, is that which sincere seekers find through their pursuit. It leaves no room for falsehood; it transforms one into a Mu’min, a Muslim, and one of the Rasikhun (the firmly established in faith). True knowledge cannot be subjected to suspicion—it is strong, rich in context, and rooted in a profound epistemic foundation.
Al-Ghazali’s journey through experience and intellectual rigor brings one closer to the Divine, the One who is nearer to us than ourselves—Allah.
Yet, who diminished Al-Ghazali’s legacy________ Ibn Tufayl, Ibn Rushd or Ibn Taymiyyah? Was it Orientalist scholarship, Western philosophy, or Renan? Or was it someone trained in the rigid framework of one-directional reasoning, embedded within modern academia?
Having delved into the intellectual contributions of Ghazali, one realizes that knowledge is not merely confined to bound texts—it exists beyond the realm of interpretation. When one begins to question the knowledge at hand, one encounters the true adversary—not merely the critics of Al-Ghazali’s occasionalism, but the erasure of absolute knowledge itself.
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Dr. Saad Ahmad, a JNU PhD graduate, is an accomplished academic who served as Assistant Professor at the Centre for Culture, Media and Governance and as Guest Faculty at the Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, both at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He was also part of the Madrasa Discourses Project under the University of Notre Dame’s Contending Modernities initiative from 2017 to 2020.
URl: https://www.newageislam.com/islamic-personalities/killed-imam-al-ghazali-philosophy/d/135371
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