{"id":6418,"date":"2015-08-14T06:15:29","date_gmt":"2015-08-14T06:15:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6418"},"modified":"2015-08-14T06:15:29","modified_gmt":"2015-08-14T06:15:29","slug":"abu-hamid-al-ghazali","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2015\/08\/14\/abu-hamid-al-ghazali\/","title":{"rendered":"Abu Hamid al-Ghazali"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I've been reading Steven Weinberg's '<em>Lake Views: this world and the universe<\/em>'. \u00a0It's a lucid collection of essays and other writings. \u00a0In the chapter,\u00a0<em>Without God,\u00a0<\/em>Weinberg discusses the 12th century Sufi philosopher\u00a0Abu Hamid al-Ghazali [1058-1111 CE] who wrote <em>The Incoherence of the Philosophers<\/em>, and who\u00a0had a considerable impact on attitudes to science within Islam. \u00a0Weinberg says that al-Ghazali\u00a0argued against ...<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\"the very idea of the laws of\u00a0nature, on the grounds that any such law would put God's hands in chains. \u00a0According to al-Ghazali, a piece of cotton placed in a flame does not darken and smoulder because of the heat of the flame, but because God wants it to\u00a0darken and smoulder.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Weinberg adds that the laws of nature could have been reconciled with Islam, as a summary of what God usually wanted to happen, but al-Ghazali did not take that path.<\/p>\n<p>This is, of course, a line of argument that can never be successfully refuted by rationality. \u00a0It reminds me of a comment made to me by\u00a0a member of the Plymouth Brethren immediately after the first moon landing. \u00a0Having spent weeks saying that God would not allow the landings (I quite forget why), she immediately pronounced that God had been merciful. \u00a0Faith is such.<\/p>\n<p>It seems that Al-Ghazali also said that although astronomy and mathematics strengthen the mind, we:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\"<em>nevertheless fear that one might be attracted through them to doctrines that are dangerous<\/em>.\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Indeed. \u00a0It's a bit\u00a0more subtle that this, of course, and Jim Al-Khalili's\u00a0<em>Pathfinders; the golden age of Arabic science\u00a0<\/em>gives more of the background and detail.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I've been reading Steven Weinberg's 'Lake Views: this world and the universe'. \u00a0It's a lucid collection of essays and other writings. \u00a0In the chapter,\u00a0Without God,\u00a0Weinberg discusses the 12th century Sufi philosopher\u00a0Abu Hamid al-Ghazali [1058-1111 CE] who wrote The Incoherence of...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}