Did Al-Ghazali put an end to Islamic Golden Age? (EN)

Did Al-Ghazali put an end to the Islamic Golden Age? The question is asked over and over again and many people think that he did so. Even I personally used to think that way. In this article, we will see his effects and what came after him. Most of the information here were taken from a part of the interview with Ihsan Fazlıoğlu that took place in Dergah journal dated March,1998.

Ihsan Fazlıoğlu was asked how he assesses the claim that the sciences were abolished in Islamic civilization after Al-Ghazali. Should Al-Ghazali be seen as a turning point? Is it true that Muslims fell behind in terms of sciences because they followed Al-Ghazali?

First of all, pre-Al-Ghazali and post-Al-Ghazali era division is a political division. We cannot understand what has been said about this division without taking political and ideological contents into consideration. Secondly, is it reasonable to render a civilization to an individual? Is that even possible? Let’s take the claim serious for a moment and let me give you an example before moving forward. Kitāb al-Hidāyah(book of the right path) of Athir al-Din al-Abhari’s was taught in logic, physics and metaphysic fields in Ottoman madrasas. Qadi Mir Meybodi added an annotation to natural sciences and theology parts of the book. And a Turkish scholar translated it. In the preface of the translation, by following the classical tradition, it’s said that “When someone speaks, what he says is ilm(knowledge) and he is alim(scholar) only if he adduces evidence. If he does not adduce what he speaks, then that means he tells a story and he is a storyteller.” Now, we can ask them to provide some evidence for their claim. If you ask me what evidence do I have? I'll say the history. Yes, the history. Let's assume that Al-Ghazali was the turning point. Sciences had come a long way until him then has fallen into a decline. If so, claimers must show the decline from each scientific area. For instance, optics had been developed until Al-Ghazali then decreased as such. It has got to be shown in different areas like astronomy, chemistry, medicine even philosophy and ilm al-kalam. Let me give you some examples. Optics, when we think of pre Al-Ghazali era, there was two different optic conventions; tabiiyyun (Naturalistic philosophy) following Aristotle and ilm-ul riyadiyyat following Euclid-Ptolemy. Ibn al-Haytham combined those two and gave a birth to ilm’ul Manazir which we know as optics today. It happens before Al-Ghazali. If we take the claim serious there should be no contribution to what Ibn al-Haytham created. But we know that not just Islamic optic history but in the world view, no one can say something about optic without mentioning Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi, Kamal al-Din al-Farisi, Mirim Çelebi, Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf. Especially Kamal al-Din al-Farisi. Also it’s hard to comprehend metaphysical bases that holds Islamic optic without taking Ishraqi philosophy into consideration. These were what happened after Al-Ghazali. Let’s take a look at the astronomy. Pre-Al-Ghazali astronomy was mostly following Hellenistic astronomy in theoretical(nazari) context. But not practical(ameli) because there was advanced level of observation works. Yet, surpassing the Aristotle’s model and Ptolemy’s model was hardly tried by such mathematicians like Ibn al-Haytham and Ibn Zarqala in pre-Al-Ghazali era. But the intensive works came to life in this era with the different models of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Muʾayyad al-Din al-ʿUrdi, Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi, Ibn al-Shatir and Ali Qushji. It’s probably because of the criticism of Hellenistic ontology, especially Aristotelianist ontology that Al-Ghazali made of. Let’s go over the medicine. In classical medicine, there were two traditions; experimental medicine following Hippocrates and comparative-philosophical medicine following Galen. Muhammad ibn Zakariya Al-Razi had represented experimental medicine and Avicenna had represented comparative-philosophical medicine. But according to Ibn al-Nafis, Avicenna had positive and negative impact on medicine. He also got ahead of Galen’s anatomy for the first time actually and this is something that happened after Al-Ghazali and it was highly important progress for the history of medicine. When it comes to logic, Al-Ghazali was not the biggest logician in technical sense but contributed a lot. According to Al-Farabi logic is the grammar of mind. But according to Al-Ghazali logic was not just the grammar of peripatetic mind or philosophy but it’s a grammar that should be used in any kind of science. Al-Ghazali made a way for logic to be used in fiqh(jurisprudence) and aqidah(creed) and even in the understanding of Qur’an Kareem. According to Raymond Lull, logic of Al-Ghazali was “nova logica” meaning new logic. What was new here was not a system of any philosophy but one’s mind. We can give some other examples from different sciences but I would like to finish with ilm al-kalam. To me, pre Al-Ghazali era was the childhood period of ilm al-kalam; not in the thematic sense but formalistically. Systematized and grounded ilm al-kalam came to life in post Al-Ghazali era. Thus, when Averroes criticized mutakallimuns(scholars of ilm al-kalam) especially the Ash’arites, he never lump Al-Ghazali together with others. If Averroes were to see what came after Al-Ghazali in the sense of ilm al-kalam, like Sayf al-Din al-Amidi or Adud al-Din al-‘Iji, Al-Baydawi, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Ali ibn Muhammad al-Jurjani and Taftazani following Fakhr al-Din al-Razi or Ali Qushji, he would back down from some of his criticisms. Shortly, as Dücane Cündioğlu said pre Al-Ghazali era created the theme of Islamic understanding and post Al-Ghazali era created the form of it. And I’m adding onto that the regulation of theme and the form was identified and recognized with continuity and stability progress in Ottoman period. So to me, the claimers are just people who have luck of knowledge in Al-Ghazali. If not, there would not be such claims.