Maquinaria de manipulación del hormigón

The close relation in Ghazali’s thought between philosophy and the revealed purposes of Islam made it necessary to show that the logic of philosophy is the very thing the Qur’an teaches. In other words, logic, as revealed by the Qur’an, is the means to move beyond this world of senses and images to the truths of the other world. The mind guides us, by its ability to think logically, to the light of God as revealed by prophecy. Logic is not the light of God. But by moving us beyond the senses and images of this world, it helps to prepare us for the light of God, leading us to a point where we are disposed to receive the divine communiqué of the Qur’an.

Ghazali spells this out in the introduction to a work on logic, The Standard of Knowledge, where he discusses three ways of knowing.30 _{We know things}

from sense impressions. We know things by the images we retain of them in our mind. And we know things by the rational power of our mind. Thefirst two (senses and images) are problematic: Knowledge obtained from sense impressions and the images we retain of them in our mind are too close to worldly appearances. And since appearances can deceive us if not subjected to the mind’s oversight, knowledge based only on senses and images necessarily falls short of certainty. Ghazali refers to these two ways of knowing as sata- nic! The third way, via the mind, operates at a distance from the world. It is angelic because it is not directly connected to this world. However, the faculty of reasoning is connected to the faculties by which we sense things in the physical world and retain images of them in the mind. The mind relies upon them for data from which it derives premises, premises on the basis of which it draws necessary conclusions. The mind therefore is not to be unduly influ- enced by these two lower faculties. It might depend on them for the object of its inquiry, but if it were to fall under their sway, it would become rusty, like a mirror, losing its ability to reflect (that is, reach certainty of) the things pre- sented to it. It is therefore important to be devoted to the philosophical approaches to knowledge. By training in philosophy, one polishes the mirror of one’s heart so that it better reflect the light of God, which, we will see, is all that really exists according to Ghazali.

Philosophy thus works in close tandem with prophecy for a single purpose, namely, certain knowledge of God and action in accordance with it. This

means that logic is not merely at the service of Islam. It is actually the pro- duct of Islam. Ghazali makes this point in The Just Balance,31 _{a work in}

which he knits together the rules of logic with verses of the Qur’an in the form of a debate with a follower of the imam of Isma’ilism. He refers to this work in his autobiography, Deliverance from Error, claiming that it contains criteria by which to resolve the disagreements among the various sects of Islam.32 _{All will agree to it, Ghazali argues, since it is based on five scales}

revealed by God in the Qur’an. These scales turn out to be forms of logic known from Greek philosophy.33 _{Ghazali actually admits that he is creating}

new terms for these forms out of verses from the Qur’an.34 _{Since he admits}

this, even if he does not actually use the term for logic (mant.iq), it cannot be said that he is covertly seeking to make the philosophical method acceptable to people of piety. His goal, rather, is to elevate the minds of believers beyond senses and images. This is achieved, at least initially, by training in logic. But since most people are weak-minded, Ghazali is compelled to teach them logic through things immediately familiar to them, namely, stories from the Qur’an. By making scripture the source of logic, he has found a way for the minds of believers to ascend to God beyond the senses and images of this world.35_{It proceeds by logic but also through scripture.}

Over the course of the book, he explains the various types of syllogistic reasoning that the Qur’an teaches. For example, in Ghazali’s hands, the encounter between Abraham and Nimrod as narrated in the Qur’an becomes a lesson in logic. Nimrod claims he is divine, a claim Abraham rejects with the counterclaim that Nimrod cannot make the sun appear. It is a story of prophetic defiance of worldly arrogance, but Ghazali draws out the syllogistic nature of the encounter, turning Abraham into a master of logic. He refor- mulates the narrative as two premises from which a conclusion necessarily follows: One, whoever makes the sun appear is God. Two, God makes the sun appear, not Nimrod. Therefore, Abraham’s God is God, since Abraham’s God makes the sun appear, while Nimrod manifestly does not.

This is not to turn the Qur’an into a textbook on logic. It is not Ghazali’s purpose to equate prophecy with philosophy. Rather, he seeks to highlight a rigorous method of reasoning as illustrated in the Qur’an. This, in turn, pro- vides a criterion (logic) for certain knowledge of God. Amidst the back-and- forth repartee with the follower of the imam of Isma‘ilism, Ghazali draws forth the implications of this criterion of knowledge, logic as derived from the Qur’an. His purpose is thus twofold. He shows that syllogistic reasoning comes from the Qur’an, and building upon this, he illustrates how one is to use it to obtain certain knowledge of God.

This is exactly what he does: By joining two premises together to reach a conclusion, he gradually shows that one can know the truths of God by force of logic and not simply by accepting them on the authority of another, a method that does not yield certainty. For example, at one point, Ghazali posits that the human being is the result of a cause. It is not its own cause. This, he explains, is because the human being has a size that is not necessary.

(Here, he is tapping into the distinction between necessary and possible knowledge as discussed in the last chapter.) God could have created humans taller or shorter without compromising their human essence. There is nothing necessary about the size of the human being. It could be taller or shorter and still be human. This means that the human being belongs to the realm of possibility. It could have existed in this form or that one. Thus, as possible, its existence cannot be said to be necessary. And since it exists in one form but could have existed in another one, there had to have been a force—a maker— that gave it its form. It is thus proved by syllogistic reasoning that the human being is not its own maker: Thefirst premise is that everything that belongs to the realm of possibility has a cause. The second premise is that humans belong to the realm of possibility. The logically necessary conclusion is that humans have a cause or maker.

Building on this, Ghazali goes on to demonstrate, also by syllogistic rea- soning, that this maker is knowledgeable, has life, and is self-subsistent (qa-’im bi-nafsihi). His point is to illustrate how one can ascend from knowledge of the attributes of the human being to knowledge of the attributes of its maker, and ascend from there to knowledge of its essence. (Knowledge of God’s essence here refers to what can be known about God’s essence by force of logic, not what can be known about it by mystical insight.) Ghazali calls this a spiritual ascension (mi‘ra-j), using the term for the night journey of the Prophet to the throne of God.36 _{The scales, that is, the forms of syllogistic}

reasoning known from the Qur’an, are the ladders by which to ascend to heaven and then to the creator of heaven, while its premises are the rungs of the ladders. Through logic, one ascends from the physical to the metaphysical realm where the truths of things are manifest.37_{Logic helps one get to a point}

where one can see things as they are. One ascends to knowledge of God through logic, but it is a logic that comes from the Qur’an. With Ghazali, philosophy and prophecy are woven together into a single web of certain knowledge of God.

However, not all logic is godly. It is on the basis of faulty logic that one is led to submit to a false imam. Ghazali notes that the missionaries of Isma’ilism exploit the theological chaos of the day to make a pseudo-logical argument of their own.38 _{It runs as follows: Truth is one, but theological}

disputation only results in a multiplicity of truth claims. In contrast, truth is one with those who follow the divine instruction of the imam. Therefore, knowledge of God is obtained not by theological disputation but from the imam’s instruction. However intelligent humans may be, the follower of the imam claims, they invariably disagree. Thus, without a figure to provide divine instruction, humanity would be lost. This, however, would be to mock God. It would be absurd to believe that God would send a message only to leave believers hopelessly divided over its meaning. Hence, the imam must exist.

Ghazali is quick to note the error of this logic: It is as if to say that because white and black are both colors, they are the same color; or that because the

sun, like God, is greater than anything else, the sun, like God, is also God. Such reasoning, Ghazali says, comes not from the Qur’an but from Satan! The true method of knowing God comes from a combination of rational inquiry and divine instruction, but for Ghazali divine instruction is the teachings of the Prophet, exclusively, not the imam. Just as one cannot see without eyesight and sunlight, so, too, the mind comes to knowledge of God by following the logic illustrated by the Qur’an. The problem with Isma‘ilism, according to Ghazali, is not so much that its teachings are false. They may or may not be. Rather, the problem is that one accepts them blindly. How, therefore, can one be certain that they are true? As Ghazali warns his oppo- nent, if you follow the imam, you will end up like the Jews and Christians, who made lords out of their leaders, submitting to their teachings without verifying them.

It is hardly coincidental that in this work Ghazali makes his opponent a follower of the imam. His goal in general is to move believers with rational inclinations from blind acceptance of beliefs to certain knowledge of them by acquainting them with logic. Over the course of the book, as Ghazali outlines the system of logic that he has derived from the Qur’an, we see the follower of the imam gradually coming to greater comprehension of what he believes.39_It

is not that his previous knowledge of God, based on what he had heard from the infallible imam, is necessarily wrong. Rather, since he got it on hearsay, he cannot claim to know it with certainty. It is only logic that brings about cer- tainty. It is thus logic that makes the infallible imam superfluous. Muslims have the tools to obtain certain knowledge of God without taking recourse to such afigure. God’s message conveyed by prophecy, combined with the force of logic, is all one needs. But Ghazali’s opponent protests: Ghazali is the one who has formulated the decisive criterion by which to judge all knowledge. Has he not awarded himself the stature of infallible imam?

It is as if you are claiming the imamate for yourself exclusively. What is your proof ? My imam performs a miracle to attest to his claim, and he also has been designated as imam through a line of succession from his forebears, the imams before him. Where is your designation? Where is your miracle? Ghazali said: I permit others to share this knowledge with me. You can learn it from others as you do from me. I do not limit true teaching to myself. There are two ways we might understand the meaning of imam. We might mean the one who learns from Allah the Exalted through the mediation of the Angel Gabriel. I do not claim this for myself. Or we might mean the one who learns from Allah and the Angel Gabriel by the mediation of the Apostle Muhammad. I do claim the imamate for myself in this sense—learning from the Apostle Muhammad and not from the Angel Gabriel.40

Ghazali has not received knowledge directly from God as a prophet would, but he seems to be claiming the mantle of prophecy. He is not saying that he

is a prophet, but only that he is prophet-like, since he has the means for people to know God with certainty and not merely on the authority of others. This, however, does not make him unique. All have the potential to become prophet-like in this sense through the use of logic. Here, too, his point is that logic will help us know the truths of God as prophets—now recast as expert logicians—know them. Ghazali is not speaking here of the knowledge of God that comes from mystical insight. However, since the Qur’an, now author of logic, mediates the experience of mystical insight, it also has a relation to philosophy. It is not that the visions of the saints in their mystical disclosures amount to syllogistic reasoning. Rather, syllogistic reasoning prepares the mind for mystical insight. Mystical insight may be ineffable, conveying knowledge that cannot be communicated in words or conceived as ideas, but it has a cognitive basis insofar as it is made possible by the prophetic message, which, as just seen, is also the source of the syllogistic reasoning undergirding all knowledge. And, as will be remembered, it is reasoning that brings one to learned ignorance, which, in turn, allows for knowledge of things in reality— as they exist with God.

If it is all so clear, his opponent queries, why has it had so little impact? Why are not all convinced by this scripturally based criterion of truth that Ghazali has discovered? Ghazali is confident that he has the keys to certainty, but he has no illusions about winning over all people. Not all heeded the prophets in their day, he says. Why should he expect people to heed him? Humans, Ghazali claims, have been created to disagree, a claim placed in the epigraph of this chapter; disagreement is part of God’s plan to keep the true realities of things veiled to most people:

Can you, his opponent asks, teach all things that are true and can be known about God to all people, eliminating the disagreements that occur among them? Ghazali said: I cannot. [He continues:] Has your infallible imam, until now, been able to end the disagreements of people and eliminate all ambiguity from their hearts? When were the prophets able to remove all disagreement? Indeed, disagreement among humans is decreed for all time of necessity.41

Is Ghazali simply trying to justify why the umma is not riveted by his incredible breakthroughs? People do not listen to prophets or prophet-like scholars such as Ghazali because they have been destined for disagreement by divine design. One can detect a note of frustration in Ghazali’s words, but something more is at play. Disagreement is something that God has decreed, making it a feature of human existence of necessity. People do not disagree simply because they fail to heed prophets and prophet-like scholars but because God has foreordained the existence of mutually contradictory points of view. Does this not make Ghazali a follower of “the equivalence of evi- dence,” the slogan of skeptics as seen in the last chapter? Ghazali is no beacon of theological tolerance,42_{but he does seek to find space within Islam}

for a variety of viewpoints that seem contradictory on the surface, as seen earlier in terms of divine predestination and human freewill. To be sure, it is his method that yields true knowledge, not that of the philosophers or mis- sionaries of the imam, but he does allow for some theological variety within Islam. This is not to dilute the faith but rather to suggest that a divided umma is actually laboring towards a single purpose. This unity in diversity is due to the fact that believers operate at different levels of existence, resulting in different ways of knowing God. For some, it is enough to hear the words of the Qur’an. Others need the persuasion of theological discourse. Still others are satisfied only with demonstrable proof.