Imam Ghazali, Adam Smith and the fallcy of Academia

[Bret Hawk]

Interesting post Asif ... Ghazali was a methodist of his time. Averoes or Ibn Rushd on the other hand was Ghazalis anti-thesis. For this reason the clergy and the traditionalist Almohads the rulers of Moorish Spain exiled Averoes due to his drastically challenging ideas on philosophy the relationship of man and god and religion at large. Averoes was a Aristotlean in the truest of spirit - as a matter of fact we in the modern world know Aristotle because of Averroes. Almost all of Aristotles originals works have been destroyed - he was translated back into Latin and Greek through Arabic thru the works of Averroes . Ghazali could never match the scholarship of Averroes. Ghazali delved into spirituality as an escape from the imperfect status qou around his - he did not bother bringing reason and logic into his works.

Imam AL Ghazali RA was not a match of the scholarship of Ibn Rushd (I have immense respect for him by the way)..Really?

I think Mr. Sayeen you need to learn a bit more about the legacies of Greeks and Muslims in the field of Scientific enquiry in the forms of Deductive and Inductive reasoning which are related to them respectively. Also the critique of Imam Ibn Taymmiyya on the logical constructs of Aristotle down to the era of Western empiricism in later centuries. And I’m sure after doing some essential readings of these subject areas you’ll probably come to know the intellectual significance of this giant colossus famously known as Imam Al-Ghazali.

 

[For Sq]

Admit that I have not read much about Islamic History or Philosophy, but I have heard more than a few times about Imam Ghazali is blamed for the downfall of the Islamic Culture because he supposedly discarded rationalism. Nassim Nicolas Taleb, had hinted about this issue in his Black Swan, and he writes more on this issue in his new book - Antifragile. The concept is indeed very complex, not in Academic or Mathematical model. Its an idea so simple that it take a moment for our minds to admit it's simplicity. Here's what's stated



I would like inputs from those who have read the works of Imam Ghazali.

Admit that I have not read much about Islamic History or Philosophy, but I have heard more than a few times about Imam Ghazali is blamed for the downfall of the Islamic Culture because he supposedly discarded rationalism. Nassim Nicolas Taleb, had hinted about this issue in his Black Swan, and he writes more on this issue in his new book - Antifragile. The concept is indeed very complex, not in Academic or Mathematical model. Its an idea so simple that it take a moment for our minds to admit it's simplicity. Here's what's stated



I would like inputs from those who have read the works of Imam Ghazali.

Debt: The First 5,000 Years is a fascinating chronicle of this little known history— in which we learn so many surprising facts, such as the information that Adam Smith had Latin translations of Al-Ghazali and Al-Tusi's works in his library, suggesting that the writings of the two Islamic thinkers may have been among his sources, for instance in his theory of the division of labour.