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- Title
THE MERITS OF THE BĀṬINIYYA: AL-GHAZĀLĪ'S APPROPRIATION OF ISMAʿILI COSMOLOGY.
- Authors
ANDANI, KHALIL
- Abstract
The life, career, and thought of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (450-505/1058- 1111) have continued to captivate scholars of Islamic thought for the last several decades. Being well versed in Ashʿari kalām, falsafa, and Sufism, al-Ghazālī is often credited with formulating a unique synthesis of these divergent streams of Islamic theology and philosophy. At the same time, al-Ghazālī is remembered for his refutations of the Philosophers and the Ismaʿilis in texts that, composed in 487/1094, shortly preceded al-Ghazālī spiritual crisis in the last decade of the eleventh century. In this paper I revisit the pivotal question of the Ismaʿili influence upon the cosmology of al-Ghazālī and argue that al-Ghazālī appropriated certain features of the Ismaʿili cosmology present in the Persian Ismaʿili thought of Nāṣir-i Khusraw (d. ca. 481/1088) in particular. The paper has four sections. I first present an overview of Nāṣir-i Khusraw's life, works and Neoplatonic worldview in the context of the Ismaʿili daʿwa. Second, I determine some of the Ismaʿili sources to which al-Ghazālī had access by examining some of the Ismaʿili doctrinal material presented in his Faḍāʾiḥ al-bāṭiniyya and by tracing this material back to eleventh-century Ismaʿili treatises. My analysis concludes that Nāṣir-i Khusraw's works were among the sources for al-Ghazālī knowledge of Ismaʿili doctrines and esoteric interpretations-of which al-Ghazālī possessed detailed knowledge. Third, I demonstrate some important commonalities between al-Ghazālī 'twoworlds' cosmology, epistemology, and theory of prophecy as presented in his Mishkāt al-anwār ('The Niche of Lights') and al-Mishkāt al-anwār ('Deliverance from Error') and Nāṣir-i Khusraw's two-worlds Ismaʿili cosmology and doctrine of prophecy. Fourth, I analyse al-Ghazālī higher theology and cosmology in the 'Veils' section of the Mishkāt in which he presents the true God as existing beyond both the 'First Mover' (the second-highest spiritual being corresponding to the Moon in the physical world, equivalent to the Neoplatonic Universal Soul) and the 'Obeyed One' (highest spiritual being corresponding to the Sun in the physical world, equivalent to the Neoplatonic Universal Intellect). I argue that al- Ghazālī derived this higher theology model from Nāṣir-i Khusraw's Neoplatonic Ismaʿili cosmology according to which God transcends both the Universal Intellect and Universal Soul. These two Neoplatonic hypostases, in the view of Nāṣir-i Khusraw, are what the mutakallimūn and the falāsifa respectively conceive and worship as their God-a critical idea that al-Ghazālī incorporates into the Mishkāt. In making this argument, I engage the prior conclusions of Hermann Landolt, Frank Griffel, and Daniel De Smet concerning the two groups in the Veils section who respectively worship the First Mover (symbolized by the Moon) and the Obeyed One (symbolized by the Sun) as their God. I present evidence showing how Nāṣir-i Khusraw had already used this exact same polemical approach of equating the theological positions of the mutakallimūn and falāsifa of his day with the worship of Neoplatonic hypostases symbolized by the physical Sun and Moon. I conclude that al-Ghazālī most likely appropriated Ismaʿili cosmology, theology, and polemical tactics from Nāṣir-i Khusraw and reformulated them in the Mishkāt al-anwār as part of his own mystical theology. Even if this conclusion is not absolutely certain, the results of this study call for a reassessment of the degree of Ismaʿili influences on the thought of al-Ghazālī.
- Subjects
METAPHYSICAL cosmology; ISLAMIC theology; MUSLIM theologians; SUFISM; THEORY of knowledge
- Publication
Journal of Islamic Studies, 2018, Vol 29, Issue 2, p181
- ISSN
0955-2340
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/jis/etx054