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tradition and did not cease to be a theologian when he became a mystic.
His criticism of the theologians is mild. He regards contemporary theology
as successful in attaining its aims, but inadequate to meet his own or
anyone special‟s spiritual needs because it did not go far enough in the
elucidation of its assumptions. There was no radical change in his
theological views when he became a mystic, only a change in his interests,
and some of his earlier works in the field of strict rules are quoted with
approval in The Savior from Spiritual Error (al-Munqith).
The Philosophers with whom al-Ghazali was chiefly concerned were
those he calls “theistic”, above all, Al-Faraabi and Avicenna (Ibn Sina).
Their philosophy was a form of Neo-Platonism, sufficiently adapted to
Islamic monotheism for them to claim to be Muslims. The achievement of
Al-Ghazali was to master the philosophers technique of thinking -mainly
Aristotelian logic- and then, subject it to itself and to his originality and find
its internal errors, relying on the proof and logic of Divinity. The conflict of
Greek philosophical techniques with Islamic theology, was in fact not fair
and quite lopsided, in which the masters of Muslim theologian, led by
Ghazali, put these techniques in their place if not to shame! Undoubtedly,
His criticism of the theologians is mild. He regards contemporary theology
as successful in attaining its aims, but inadequate to meet his own or
anyone special‟s spiritual needs because it did not go far enough in the
elucidation of its assumptions. There was no radical change in his
theological views when he became a mystic, only a change in his interests,
and some of his earlier works in the field of strict rules are quoted with
approval in The Savior from Spiritual Error (al-Munqith).
The Philosophers with whom al-Ghazali was chiefly concerned were
those he calls “theistic”, above all, Al-Faraabi and Avicenna (Ibn Sina).
Their philosophy was a form of Neo-Platonism, sufficiently adapted to
Islamic monotheism for them to claim to be Muslims. The achievement of
Al-Ghazali was to master the philosophers technique of thinking -mainly
Aristotelian logic- and then, subject it to itself and to his originality and find
its internal errors, relying on the proof and logic of Divinity. The conflict of
Greek philosophical techniques with Islamic theology, was in fact not fair
and quite lopsided, in which the masters of Muslim theologian, led by
Ghazali, put these techniques in their place if not to shame! Undoubtedly,