Abu Hamid al-Ghazali in Our Times: How al-Ghazali is Interpreted and Transmitted in the Contemporary Turkish Context

Whether Abu Hamid al-Ghazali contributed to the decline of rationalist and scientific tradition in the Muslim world is a grand debate in Islamic studies


Introduction
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1056-1111) is one of the most influential names in Islamic history.In 1920, Samuel M. Zwemer, in A Moslem Seeker After God, defined al-Ghazali as a person who has 'left a larger imprint upon the history of Islam than any man, save Mohammad himself'.What Zwemer wrote of al-Ghazali, quoting al-Suyuti (d.1505): 'If there had been a prophet after Mohammed, it would have been Al-Ghazali, 1 is the oft-repeated demonstration of the latter's impact.
There are, however, contending views among the assessments of al-Ghazali's impact.For some, al-Ghazali's legacy contributed to the decline of scientific inquiry in the Muslim world.For others, such a correlation is wrong.On this account, al-Ghazali is himself the subject of a grand-debate in Islamic studies.
The goal of this paper is to shed light on the grand debate on al-Ghazali from a novel perspective, that is, in terms of how his works are interpreted and transmitted in a contemporary context.Usually, arguments on the impact of al-Ghazali are studied in the continuum of the historical trajectory of Muslim societies.Indeed, the literature on al-Ghazali is primarily a historical debate.However, given that his works still influence Muslims, how al-Ghazali

The Grand Debate on Al-Ghazali
Al-Ghazali was born in 1056 in Tus (today's modern Iran).After his early education in Tus, he became the disciple of al-Juwayni (d.1085), an influential Ash'ari scholar of the time, at the Nizamiyya Madrasa in Nishapur. 3Al-Ghazali was later appointed to the prestigious Nizamiyya Madrasa in Baghdad.That position put him in close contact with the Seljuqi political elite, including Sultan Malikshah and the Grand Vizier Nizam al-Mulk. 4However, his close contact with rulers, and his position at the Baghdad Madrasa (madrasas are faulted for serving the Saljuqi political projects 5 ) are deemed by some to have affected him as conduits of political influence.In 1095, he suddenly abandoned his posts for a reclusive life.After 11 years of isolation, he returned to teaching at the Nizamiyya School in Nishapur in 1106. 6He died in 1111, leaving many books behind that later became classics of Islamic thought.
His legacy is so influential that it alone is believed to have been transformative of the trajectory of Islamic thought.For example, Antony Black defined al-Ghazali as a person who embarked upon 'the most radical restructuring of Islamic thought that has perhaps ever been attempted'. 7 31 However, for some, that impact was destructive, as it contributed to the decline of philosophy, and of general rationalist thought, in the Muslim world.Particularly, scholars who adhered to what is known as the Sunni Revival Thesis8 have explained the legacy of al-Ghazali as another factor that caused the decline of Islamic civilization.
The semantics (systems of meaning) of the Sunni Revival Thesis, according to W. Cantwell Smith, is driven by the view that 'something has gone wrong with Islamic history'. 9The things said to have gone wrong are usually the various grand changes, such as the rise of a new statehood inspired by the Sassanid tradition.(This is criticised for having weakened the trade-oriented mentality of Islamic societies.)There is also the birth of the Sunni orthodoxy that asserts the cooperation of state and religion, with scholars diminishing the autonomy of the latter. 10In this construct, al-Ghazali is identified as another incident gone wrong, one that marked a break with the previous age (dubbed the golden age of Islam), causing decay in Islamic societies. 11owever, revisionist scholars dismiss the Sunni Revival Thesis as a myth by arguing that Muslims' contribution to science continued till after the 13 th century. 12The revisionist narrative argues also that al-Ghazali's legacy has not played a negative role in the decline of philosophy and rationalist thought in the Muslim world. 13his paper takes the critique of al-Ghazali by the Sunni Revival Thesis as the reference frame for studying how he is interpreted in contemporary Turkey.This is a result of methodological parsimony: Al-Ghazali constitutes a large space in the Islamic knowledge that is transmitted in Turkey.So, this article studies al-Ghazali in a Turkish context, but only in reference to critical issues raised by the Sunni Revival Thesis.This comparative analysis is expected to help us interpret al-Ghazali's impact in contemporary Turkey.With it, we can better answer questions like 'does the way contemporary Turkish actors use al-Ghazali result in an antagonistic stance on philosophy or science?'The justification of a such an inquiry is that al-Ghazali's impact continues today.
To avoid reductionism, on the other hand, this paper expands parsimony by increasing the number, as well as the scope, of the factors that define how the Sunni Revival Thesis criticises al-Ghazali. 14In this regard, the critique of al-Ghazali is explained under three complex sub-titles: | 33 (i) His attack of philosophers made Muslims sceptical of philosophy: Al-Ghazali's criticism of Aristotelian philosophers, such as Ibn Sina and al-Farabi, left an enduring legacy of a sceptical approach to philosophy among Muslims. 15To remember the several places in his works that display his critical stance on philosophy: In Ihya, seemingly disturbed by the influence of philosophers, al-Ghazali declared that his aim is to let them know their limits. 16owever, the problem is not his criticism of philosophers' concerns and procedures, but his assertion that they are heretics because of the views they defend. 17This is most visible in The Incoherence of the Philosophers: He challenges some opinions of Aristotelian philosophers like al-Farabi and Ibn Sina, such as their argument that all substances are pre-eternal.Not satisfied with this, he asserted also that their proclamation of those views makes them heretics.Furthermore, al-Ghazali did not refrain from broaching the issue of whether it is religiously permissible to kill those who endorse the philosophers' various beliefs, not only the philosophers themselves. 18The scholars did not take kindly to this, specifically because the charge of being an infidel was central in al-Ghazali's opposition to the philosophers. 19ii) His explanation of causality contributed to the emergence of a mentality that has weakened the scientific tradition in the Muslim world: Al-Ghazali was an interpreter of Ashari occasionalism.Thus, we read in his works that God creates events independently of any necessary connection with natural causes. 20This shows al-Ghazali asserting that the proposal that natural law has the capacity to cause natural events is to deny God's omnipotence, since it implies that something is acting on its own accord, independently of God. 21This assertion is mostly visible in the oft-quoted example of the burning cotton: The one who enacts the burning of the cotton is God, through the mediation of His angels, or without mediation, not any agency in nature. 22urporting hereby to have refuted the natural law, al-Ghazali developed a theory of movement that is ontologically dependent on agency, not laws.Accordingly, a movement is possible only when there is an agent capable of volition.So, since nature is not a living entity endowed with volition, it cannot be an agent of any movement. 23God remains as the only agent.Therefore, causal relationships between natural events cannot be proposed. 24For al-Ghazali, the term 'natural law' is simply a misnomer: All actions in nature belong to God.But the human mind tends to frame them as laws.
In The Incoherence of the Incoherence, Ibn Rushd (d.1198) criticised al-Ghazali's theory of causality by pointing out that the denial of constant laws would require a 'tyrannical idea of God'.That would destroy the possibility of knowledge, for there would be 'no standard or custom to which reference might be made'. 25That criticism continues to be levelled by contemporary critics for whom al-Ghazali's view of causality contributed to the weakening of scientific methodology.For example, Magid Fakhry says that it resulted in a systematic refutation of the concept of the necessary causal nexus of events, and created a major problem of bipolarity in Muslim thought. 26As a result, popular engagement with Islamic theology has tended to focus on divine causation, and to maintain a deep mistrust of the natural laws.
(iii) He incorporated the inner knowledge thesis into Sunnism, which weaken scientific and rationalist inquiry among Muslims: Al-Ghazali provided a relentless critique of sense-based rational knowledge.He insisted that human knowledge cannot be doubt-free, because human senses are restricted. 27As he no longer trusts sense-perception, al-Ghazali's dreams of finding an infallible body of knowledge. 28Inspired by Sufi thought, he suggested a different method for acquiring knowledge. 29As explained in Al- Risalat al-Laduniyya, this is the alternate method of 'acquiring knowledge from within'. 30Unlike the knowledge from without, which is rational knowledge that is drawn through sensory perception and reasoning, knowledge from within is acquired, without sensory perception or reasoning, through the self-realisation that transcends all spatio-temporal dimensions.Al-Ghazali explained this in Al-Munkidh as the knowledge that 'did not come about by systematic demonstration or marshalled argument, but by a light which God most high cast into my breast'. 31he incorporation of inner knowledge into Sunnism was tantamount to adding a new discipline to the curriculum of Islamic knowledge. 32Thus, the critics denounce al-Ghazali for elevating inner knowledge above the sciences. 33Pragmatically, this was the downgrading of reason to a subservient status that is without the independent ability to determine truth.That is, reason can do no more than endorse one idea among alternatives, and then only if it is supported by religion.Simply, reason was given a subordinate role. 34Magid Fakhry thus described al-Ghazali's legacy as 'sowing the seeds of misology.' 35Mohammed Abed al-Jabri likened his legacy to a deep wound inside reason, which is still bleeding. 36aving summarised the critique of al-Ghazali according to the Sunni Revival Thesis, I should again remind that there are revisionist scholars who challenge that narrative on each point.To revisit various samples of the revisionist narrative on al-Ghazali, on causality only: Hans Daiber argues that al-Ghazali combined contingent causality and Occasionalism. 37Karen Harding writes that al-Ghazali was in favour of causality and implied quantum physics. 38Lenn E. Goodman is of the opinion that al-Ghazali was not against the idea of causality. 39Omar Edward Moad believes that al-Ghazali held a neutral position on Occasionalism. 40However, as stated before, the critique of al-Ghazali (under the three titles, above) by the Sunni Revival Thesis is provided as the methodological choice: I shall use it as the reference frame, an independent variable, according to which I interpret the case, that is, how contemporary Turkish actors use al-Ghazali's works in their religious interpretation, which will be the subject of the following sections.

The Cases: Işıkçılar and Erenköy
Explaining how Ghazali is interpreted today in the transmissions of religious knowledge is possible by observing exemplary cases that reflect the general trends of how Sunni actors reference al-Ghazali as part of their religious socialisation and activism. 41To achieve this goal, this article studies two Islamic movements in Turkey: Işıkçılar and Erenköy.
Islamic orders and networks such as the Naqshbandiyya and Qadiriyya have played important roles in the transmission of Islamic knowledge in the Saljuqi-Ottoman-Turkish historical continuity. 42Linked to that historical tradition through Naqshbandiyya, Işıkçılar and Erenköy are organised as new religious social movements. 43In a sense, they are modern incarnations of historical religious orders and networks, which today work collectively 'to restore, protect or create values in the name of a generalised belief', 44 in our case, Sunni Islam.So, organised as social movement, Işıkçılar and Erenköy utilise modern means and strategies to transmit their religious messages to the public.On this account, neither İskenderpaşa nor Erenköy is an isolated Sufi organisation.They are typical organisational agents of the interpretation and transmission of Sunni Islam.
Social religious movements derive their power mainly through their networking capacity.In this regard, a typical religious movement has usually an institutional network of schools, dormitories, charity organisations, radio, business organisations, newspapers, hospitals and television.For example, around one third of 10,000 private schools in Turkey are affiliated with religious movements. 45There is also the informal network, which consists of various activities, such as gatherings, visits and collective religious meetings.The network is critical in recruitment, financing, solidarity, group activism and socialisation.It also enables the religious movements to disseminate their religious interpretation to the larger society. 46Expectedly, that ability creates complex relations also with politics.
Islamic social movements have a serious role in the recent Islamisation of Turkey as partners of the Islamist AKP (Justice and Development Party). 47Reflecting that, there are politicians within the AKP who have Islamic social-movement backgrounds.For example, Mustafa Şentop, the incumbent Speaker of the Turkish Parliament, had his Islamic socialisation within İskenderpaşa, another Naqshbandiyya group. 48Religious movements' complex relations with politics are particularly important, as those movements are proactively oriented bureaucracies. 49They constantly strive for their members to be included in the bureaucracy, and to achieve this, they benefit from the help of their connections with politics.This sometimes creates even cases where a religious movement dominates a ministry.For example, bureaucrats who were socialised in the Menzil group are dominant in the Ministries of Health and Energy. 50Even when President Erdoğan appointed a new Minister of Health in 2018 (a person whose religious background is İskenderpaşa), this was interpreted as a strategy to counterbalance the Menzil group. 51t is in this regard that Işıkçılar and Erenköy are typical religious movements that use their institutional networks to bring their religious interpretations to the public.However, though they share the typical features of a religious social movement, Işıkçılar and Erenköy have their peculiarities that shape their group identity.To begin with the Işıkçılar: This group traces its modern origin to Abdülhakim Arvasi (1865-1943), who joined the Naqshbandiyya in 1879.However, the name that founded the movement was Hüseyin Hilmi Işık (1911-2001).
After graduating from military high school, Işık enrolled in the Chemistry Department of Istanbul University, graduating in 1936.He was promoted to the rank of captain in 1938.After serving in various military units, he was appointed as a teacher to Kuleli Military High School (Istanbul) in 1951.He taught chemistry there until retirement in 1960.52However, Işık remained more of a spiritual leader, tolerating his son-in-law Enver Ören  (1939-2013) to become the de factor leader in the late 1970s.Ören was Işık's student from the Kuleli Military School.After Kuleli, he attended the Zoology and Botany Department at Istanbul University.Upon graduation, he joined Istanbul University to pursue an academic career.However, in 1970, Ören resigned from the University to devote himself entirely to the activities of Işıkçılar.The division of labour between Işık and Ören, however, ended when Işık died in 2001.Ören stayed as the leader of Işıkçılar till his death in 2013, when his son Mücahid Ören became the new leader.
After his death, Işık's books remained the movement's reference texts for understanding and transmitting Islamic knowledge to its followers, as well as to the larger public.Neither Enver Ören nor Mücahid Ören wrote a book to become the reference for Işıkçılar.Enver Ören defined the reading and distributing of Işık's books as the most critical Islamic service, and his son Mücahid Ören continued this policy.In his books, Işık called for a Sunni revival against several perceived threats, including Communism, positivism, and the various 'heretical' interpretations of Islam, like Wahhabism and reformism.Arguing that all these approaches are wrong, Işık proposed a revival of Sunnism as defined in the previous books of distinguished Muslim scholars.He believed that Islam needs no new interpretations, and that the | 39 existing opinions and books are excellent. 53Işık's books are therefore mostly translations of previous books of Sunni Islamic scholars, but they include his comments.The purpose of such a confusing method is to reconnect with the previous Islamic scholars' teachings.That method results in a strong traditionalism. 54he movement is known for its expertise in media.They have a newspaper (Türkiye), a television (TGRT) and a radio (TGRT Radio) that are popular nationwide, giving it a reach beyond the boundaries of the movement.The group has other typical institutions that an Islamic movement is expected to have, like printing companies, hospitals, schools and dorms.The group's İhlas School Network has 17 schools in Istanbul. 55The group is also organised abroad. 56renköy, the second case, is an Islamic group that also follows the Naqshbandiyya order.The group traces its origins back to Muhammad Esed (1847-1931), a prominent Naqshbandiyya scholar of the late Ottoman and early Republican period.After Esed, Mahmud Sami Ramazanoğlu (1892-1984), a graduate of the School of Law at Istanbul University, emerged as the new leader of the movement in the 50s.Ramazanoğlu worked as an accountant in various Anatolian cities, where he developed contacts with merchants. 57Those contacts gave Erenköy a sophisticated network of economic actors across the country.Under Ramazanoğlu, the group gradually advanced a distinctive brand of Islamic activism that targeted the merchant class.The group was led by Musa Topbaş (1916-1999), after Ramazanoğlu.
When Musa Topbaş passed away, his son Osman Nuri Topbaş (d.1942) emerged as the new leader of Erenköy.Topbaş is a graduate of İmam Hatip High School (a religious vocational school).Reflecting the merchantoriented mentality of Islamic activism in Erenköy, Topbaş engaged in a trade for a while.
Unlike Işıkçılar, Erenköy has no past leader whose books are still regarded as major works in the interpretation and transmission of Islamic knowledge.Instead, in Erenköy, the incumbent leader dominates the group's interpretation of religion, but of course, in continuity with the previous leaders.In this regard, Osman Nuri Topbaş, the incumbent leader, has thematic books where the author presents his interpretation of religion from a typical Sunni-Sufi perspective.
As expected, the impact of Erenköy on middle-class merchants has attracted the interest of political actors.For example, Eymen Topbaş, a leading figure of the Topbaş family that dominates Erenköy, occupied highlevel administrative positions in the 1980s, in the Motherland Party of Turgut Özal.The group has developed close relations also with President Erdoğan.For example, Mustafa Latif Topbaş, a Turkish billionaire, is close to Erdoğan.That cooperation with politics helps the movement in the bureaucracy.Some members of the group have recently been appointed to critical posts at critical public offices, including the Diyanet (The Directorate of Religious Affairs). 58renköy has a complex network of institutions to transmit its religious interpretation to the public.We see in this network schools, hospitals, radio station and affiliated companies that are active in various field such as tourism.Erenköy is also an internationally-operating movement.For example, its Mahmud Hüdayi Foundation has more than 130 educational institutions abroad. 59

The Interpretation of al-Ghazali in Contemporary Turkey
The books written by Hüseyin Hilmi Işık and Osman Nuri Topbaş define 'Islamic knowledge' as it was interpreted by Işıkçılar and Erenköy, and transmitted to the members, as well as to the public.Members of religious movements are expected to regularly read these books, 60 for they guide those movements' activities.Group members are expected also to deliver and promote those books to others.The methods of argumentation and proof in such reference books are naturally different from those of academic works. 61hey are written from a religious perspective, where the purpose is to preach the orthodox religious truths.The ultimate objectives of these books are to affect Muslims' daily lives in specific ways by motivating them, and to provide a blueprint of the Islamic life.On this account, those books purvey epistemological and practical engagements with Islam.Below, I analyse how Işık and Topbaş reference al-Ghazali, expecting that this will serve us as a | 41 sample of how al-Ghazali is interpreted and transmitted in present-day reallife contexts.
To achieve this goal, my methodological procedure is to make a referential content analysis of the works of Işık and Topbaş.As O. R. Holsti posits, content analysis is 'any technique for making inferences by objectively and systematically identifying specified characteristics of messages'. 62In this context, one technique of content analysis is referential content analysis, which is a tool for teasing out the main themes of a text. 63K. Krippendorf defines 'referential content analysis' as the task of ascertaining how an existing phenomenon is portrayed. 64In our case, this is to analyse and explain how Işık and Topbaş reference al-Ghazali in their transmissions of religious knowledge to their followers, and to the general public.This entails the effort to identify what kind of religious interpretation that referencing reveals about causality, knowledge and philosophy.That effort, successfully deployed, will enable us to answer questions like 'is al-Ghazali referenced to promote an antagonistic stance on philosophy?'The identification of causality, knowledge and philosophy as the three main themes is the logical consequence of this paper's appreciation of the fact that the Sunni Revival Thesis is the active reference-frame in the interpretation of al-Ghazali's impact in contemporary Turkey.As discussed above, this interpretation bundles the thesis that al-Ghazali is a historical cause of the scientific decay in the Muslim world because of his opinions on causality, knowledge and philosophy.

Işıkçılar
Işık recognises al-Ghazali's works as a canonical authority.Commenting on the virtues of Ihya after describing it as the most useful book, 65 Işık writes that 'if a non-Muslim lovingly turns the pages of Ihya, he becomes an honorary Muslim'. 66Naturally, al-Ghazali's opinions play an influential role in Işık's framing of his views on causality, knowledge and philosophy.Işık references al-Ghazali's books extensively while commenting on those topics. 67s a typical proof of al-Ghazali's influence, Işık, borrows the former's 'fire and burning cotton' exemplar.Like al-Ghazali, Işık concludes that the fire does not cause the cotton to burn; only God does.To deny the secondary causes of fire, Işık reduced them to mere human illusions: 'nor oxygen, nor heat, nor the electrons cause the burning; only God does'. 68His use of modern terminology (oxygen; electrons) intends to give the impression that religious truth has not changed because complex scientific discourses have come into being.Furthermore, that terminology enables him to give the Ghazalian argument a modern guise.These moves by Işık do not, however, change the Ghazalian substance: Işık simply repeats with al-Ghazali that natural law is a misnomer, since it is nothing but the custom of God, whose will is the momentum, or the driver of, events.So, causality is about God the agent and His customs, not about natural law, which has neither life nor the power to will. 69It is abundantly clear that al-Ghazali's theory of events as the momentum of divine agency is the groundwork of Işık's explanation of causality.So, for Işık, it remains true that only a conscious agent with the ability to will can cause a movement/an event.Lacking those faculties, a law cannot be the cause an event/movement.
How Işık incorporates al-Ghazali's arguments into his religious interpretation results in his heavily sceptical stance on natural law: God is the governor of nature, creating and managing every event directly.So, people should appeal directly to God, not to natural law.Işık is against the attributing of events to natural causation.For him, the only concession to natural law is that the universe is operated by a dual causality, natural and the divine, but the latter is superior. 70To support his interpretation, Işık asserts that God can change his custom as he wishes.What is more, he declares that belief in the suspension of nature is an essential part of faith. 71This is to declare causality to be the primarily the domain of faith, and of scientific inquiry only secondarily.This requires Muslims to believe that there is no fixed natural law.Ibn Rushd, as explained above, objected that refuting causality rules renders God to be 'like a tyrannical prince … of whom no standard or custom is known to which reference can be made'. 72On the contrary, for Işık, a nature with no standard is a requirement of faith, as any conception of natural law would imply limitations of God's sovereignty and omnipotence.Instead, God acts in nature as he wishes: no natural law binds him.He suspends order for some higher virtues. 73Işık seeks to prove this by reminding that pious people have appeared in in different places at the very same time. 74So, for Işık, what people call natural law is a fiction rather than a reality.If God lets someone fly, the man-made concept of 'natural' presents this case as supernatural.This had to do with the supernatural or the natural.Rather, a flying man is only a change in God's custom. 75(While reading Işık's comments, one should remember that he had a modern education in chemistry, and he worked as a chemistry teacher with the military title of colonel, for long years at the Işıklar Military High School, a backbone of modernist military education.) When it comes to how Işık formulates his views on knowledge, we again observe al-Ghazali's strong influence.Almost as a replica of al-Ghazali's method, Işık starts by reminding that human reason and senses are limited in various ways, and this makes of human reason a faculty that fails to grasp the divine governance of nature. 76He quotes al-Ghazali's Al-Munkidh directly while discussing the limited scope of human reason that makes it incapable of discovering all sorts of knowledge. 77Işık uses al-Ghazali's example of the limits of the human eye. 78Purporting to have established the limitations of human reason, Işık proceeds to address 'inner knowledge' as the sublime form of learning. 79şık's intensive references to al-Ghazali in his effort to formulate a critical perspective on human reason and the senses brings him to the same conclusion that Ghazali had reached: the subservience of reason.According to Işık, reason can be only an instrument that operates according to mechanical principles, and this is never enough to generate reliable knowledge. 80Reason is only an instrument of measurement that desperately needs the guidance of a superior method to acquire reliable knowledge. 81At best, reason can choose only between alternatives, and then only if it is given true guidance.But there is always risk: If not properly guided, subservient reason can become an instrument of delusion.To prevent such risks, Işık takes an alarmist stance on the use of human reason in religious reasoning.He condemns as 'infidel' those who interpret the Qur'an according to reason, for the only legitimate and correct meanings are those advanced by the Sunni scholars. 82He thus reduces Islamic reasoning to an intellectual effort within the tight boundaries of Quran, the hadith/traditions, and the previous scholars' works.In his hands, reason ceases to have authority to go beyond the texts, since dependence on pure reason leads to the rejection of prophethood. 83aving read Işık on causality and knowledge, it is not surprising to observe an antagonism to philosophy in his works.Işıkçılar reference books define philosophers as heretics for having ideas that threaten the Islamic faith.To a large extent, Işık interprets philosophy as part of al-Ghazali's fight with philosophers to purge Islamic thought of their errors. 84In this context, Işık marks a period in Islamic history as the source of many problems, including the contamination of the Islamic faith with scientific knowledge and philosophical thinking. 85For him, the interaction of Islamic and Greek thought in that period paved the way for erroneous interpretations of religion. 86Işık salutes the latter period, where al-Ghazali played his role, as the restoration period when Islam's contamination was cured. 87He defines al-Ghazali as a saviour of orthodox Islam in an age of chaos, when heretical ideas infected the Muslim world. 88ogically, this results in Işık's referencing al-Ghazali to develop a highly antagonistic stance on philosophy.Işık often repeats that 'Imam al-Ghazali informed that philosophers are infidel'. 89The Ghazalian impact is most visible when Işık repeats al-Ghazali's criticism of philosophers on their tenet of eternal nature of universe in his The Incoherence of the Philosophers.Quoting al-Ghazali, Işık declares that the philosophers who hold the view that the universe is eternal are kafir [infidel]. 90In a direct sense, al-Ghazali is the 81 Işık, Tam İlmihal Se'adet-i Ebediyye. 82Işık. 83Işık. 84Işık, Belief and Islam. 85Işık, Namaz, 15.Süveydi, Hak Sözün Vesikaları. 86Işık, Faideli Bilgiler. 87Işık, Belief and Islam. 88Işık, Kıyamet ve Ahiret. 89Işık, Tam İlmihal Se'adet-i Ebediyye. 90Işık.

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'proof' that justifies Işık's rejection of philosophy.This is evident when Işık writes: Al-Ghazali detailly analysed the Greek philosophers, and informed that they are ignorant, idiot and infidel.He wrote in his books that Muslims should not appreciate such infidels. 91us, Işık's account of philosophy is grim: He advises Muslims not to read the Greek philosophers, for their impact is the agent of the contamination of the Islamic faith.Instead, they should be satisfied with Islam, for even a simple tradition that grew from the Prophet's utterances is worth more than the talk of all the old Greek philosophers. 92Greek philosophers are heretic scholars, Işık frequently tells the reader. 93He writes that 'the Greek philosophers are the most ignorant people on earth'. 94Işık makes no allowance even for the greats of classical philosophy.He calls Plato ahmak (stupid), and derides Aristotle for depending on reason rather than experience.Işık blames these two giants of Greek philosophy for the delay of Europe's technological development, which, he argues, would have happened much earlier than the eighteenth century, had it not been for their poor intellectual guidance. 95That harsh stance is also valid for Muslim philosophers: Ibn Hazm (d.1064) is a heretic. 96Ibn al-Haytham (d.1040) and Abu Bakr al-Razi (d.935) were influenced by Greek philosophy. 97şık reserves a special place for Ibn Sina in his list of heretics as the leader of those who follow reason. 98For him, Ibn Sina was of limited vision.This caused his lesser share of Islam, and he stayed in the 'dirt of philosophy' (felsefe pisliği.) 99Işık draws heavily on al-Ghazali while condemning Ibn Sina and al-Farabi. 100As noted above, he repeats al-Ghazali's accusation of Ibn Sina and al-Farabi in particular, of sharing Aristotle's opinion that matter is eternal, then declares that they are unbelievers. 101Besides, more symbolically, he quotes al-Ghazali to deride Ibn Sina and al-Farabi. 102Işık 91 Işık. 92Işık. 93Işık, Namaz, 94 Muhammad bin Qutbuddin Izniki, Miftah Al-Jannah (Istanbul: Hakikat, 2014), 19; Işık, Kıymetsiz Yazılar. 95Işık, Tam İlmihal Se'adet-i Ebediyye. 96Izniki, Miftah Al-Jannah. 97Işık, Tam İlmihal Se'adet-i Ebediyye. 98Izniki, Miftah Al-Jannah. 99Işık, Kıymetsiz Yazılar. 100 Işık, Tam İlmihal Se'adet-i Ebediyye. 101Işık, Belief and Islam. 102Işık, Tam İlmihal Se'adet-i Ebediyye.
declares Ibn Sina as faithless, quoting al-Ghazali directly. 103Similarly, he quotes Al-Ghazali when he declares al-Farabi an infidel. 104şık's opposition to philosophy is never limited by philosophers' problematic opinions.He categorically rejects philosophy, warning that philosophical statements are nothing but diversions from the right path. 105şık simply imagines philosophy as the opposite of religion.This is inevitable, as philosophy relies on pure reason, which is the rejection of revelation. 106his categorical rejection made Işık conclude that there is no such thing as a truly Islamic philosophy.So, he rejects the presentation of al-Ghazali as an Islamic philosopher. 107His conclusion is neat: 'No true Islamic scholar was a philosopher, and no true philosopher can be an Islamic scholar'. 108

Erenköy
Al-Ghazali also shapes the religious paradigm of Erenköy's reference books.Reflecting this is Topbaş's way of formulating the Islamic concepts of causality, knowledge and philosophy with reference to al-Ghazali.
To start with causality: Topbaş uses a metaphor from al-Ghazali to summarise his perspective.Accordingly, he likens nature to a painting on a canvas.There is a painter who paints various dots, lines, and other shapes on the canvas.But those shapes on the canvas have no ability to influence the act of painting.The only authority to affect size, shape, or colour of the appearances on the canvas is the painter's will.There is no causal mechanism to determine the shapes on the canvas, other than the painter's custom or wishes.This gives rise to the analogy that God is the painter of nature: He decides and makes everything in nature.No other factor, therefore no natural law, causes something in nature. 109This analogy is a replica of al-Ghazali's analogy in Alchemy of Happiness.Here, al-Ghazali likens a physicist who relies on natural law to an ant who, crawling on a sheet of paper and observing black letters spreading over it, sees the pen alone as the cause of those black letters.So, the ant cannot grasp the real cause of the shapes on the paper, that is, the fingers of the painter, God. 110This last sentence of Al-Ghazali's appears 103 Işık. 104Işık, Kıymetsiz Yazılar. 105Işık, Belief and Islam. 106Işık, Kıymetsiz Yazılar. 107Emrullah and Muhammad Hadimi, İslam Ahlakı; Işık, Tam İlmihal Se'adet-i Ebediyye. 108Işık, Tam İlmihal Se'adet-i Ebediyye. 109Osman Nuri Topbaş, Gönül Bahçesinden Son Nefes (Istanbul: Erkam, 2016) | 47 in Topbaş in a slightly revised form: 'To understand nature we must focus on the artist, not on the work of art'. 111is views on causality make Topbaş highly critical of natural law: To Işık, attributing a real effect to natural law is wrong, as it is God who governs the universe. 112The sole cause of every event in nature is divine power. 113So also for Topbaş, for whom natural events are the results of God's creations that happen as his unceasing interventions in nature. 114God rules the universe without intermediaries. 115As explained by Topbaş, nature therefore has no place for any law that affects events.
As observed in the case of Işık, the refutation of causality by Topbaş also leads to an epistemic fatalism that Ibn Rush formulated as the denial of constant laws that would destroy the possibility of knowledge: Topbaş asserts that an understanding of nature is not possible. 116This impossibility is caused by fact that the divine will determines natural events, so we cannot explain natural events with reference to the laws of nature.Facing this reality, Topbaş warns that people should be satisfied with their deficiency, so long as they do not develop an alternate method for understanding the divine aspect of natural events. 117To explain the impossibility of knowing how nature works, Topbaş reminds of events like disasters, which he interprets as the hints of divine governance.To him, those events cannot be explained on the basis of scientific observations of natural phenomena. 118hus, it is better to define Topbaş's nature as ruled by a divine arbitrariness.It is a nature where God does anything he wishes.Thus, for Topbaş, the human distinction of natural and supernatural is meaningless.People, for they are led by their limited senses and reasoning, mistakenly imagine some of God's actions as supernatural. 119In truth, the man-made binary of natural and supernatural has nothing to do with God's custom.God can do whatever he wishes as there exists no consistent framework, including the natural law, to theorise God's actions.So, what is explained by humans as supernatural is only God's actions that are not comprehensible by humans.
Accordingly, what seems like a natural law is an illusion.
This radical position enables Topbaş to propose a religious causality to explain natural events.Accordingly, natural events like fires, plagues and droughts, relate to people's piety: If most of the servants are on the right path, rain comes down as a mercy and a blessing, and happiness follows.However, if most of the community is inclined to earthly desires, then floods, droughts or earthquakes become inevitable.These sad events occur because of sins or rebelliousness committed by people.In other words, natural disasters happen only after spiritual have already happened to corrupt hearts. 120cording to Topbaş's idiosyncratic religious causality, 'people's spiritual states and their actions, good or evil, play a role in the triggering or the deflection of earthquakes'. 121Natural law is now completely irrelevant.Topbaş freely writes that it is wrong to exaggerate the role of physical rules by saying things like 'if the buildings were strong enough, this earthquake would not have killed so many people'. 122He thus rejects the explanation of nature as 'purely physical rules' that allow us, for instance to 'blame tectonic faults for earthquakes'.The offering of such explanations is only to wander around among ordinary causes that have no real effect, and to remain unaware of the divine will behind natural events. 123The logical upshot of this argumentation is to ask Muslims to organise their lives in accordance with the reality of a divine causation, rather than rely on natural law, for natural laws are uncertain, while the divine rules are constant. 124n the next subject of knowledge: Reminding of Işık, Topbaş formulates his views through an intensive engagement with al-Ghazali's arguments.The dominance of al-Ghazalian methodology determines the similar conclusions of Topbaş.Since divine intervention is the agent behind events in nature, Topbaş requires a special way of knowing the divine dimension that is beyond the visible realm. 125To prove the need for such an alternate knowledge, Topbaş repeats the al-Ghazalian method of elaborating | 49 the limits of human reason and senses. 126So, given such limits of human reason and senses, inner knowledge remains the only reliable method of examining and comprehending the real causes that operate in nature.To strengthen his argument, Topbaş quotes al-Ghazali: I realised that human reason alone cannot understand everything properly, and that it would not always fail in the attempt to draw aside the curtain that covers the visible side of things. 127pbaş presents inner knowledge as acquired only through a subjective process without standard rules, and accessible only upon spiritual maturation. 128Thus, acquiring inner knowledge is not possible by a fulfilment of the various methodological inquiries that result in rational knowledge.Inner knowledge is independent of those sense-and-reason based endeavours.It is received directly through the heart. 129Topbaş means here that the limits of human senses and reason are no longer problematic in the pursuit of inner knowledge, since it is independent of sense and reason.
It is obvious that the method and arguments of Topbaş on knowledge are the replicas of what al-Ghazali did in his Al-Munkidh, where he formulated inner knowledge as not coming about by systematic demonstration or marshalled argument, but by a light that the God most high casts into the breast. 130As a matter of fact, when it comes to demonstrating the superiority of inner knowledge to rational knowledge, Topbaş narrates a parable where al-Ghazali is reported to have seen warned someone who was preoccupied with the sciences of the world: I will feel pity for you, son, should you fail to transform your knowledge of theology, logic, rhetoric, poetry and grammar into wisdom and gnosis.You will have otherwise not received any benefit, but merely wasted the life given to you by the Almighty to worship Him. 131claring the supremacy of inner knowledge, Topbaş inevitably reaches Ghazali's conclusion: Downgrading reason to a subservient status.This is a Ghazalian formula that we have detected also in Işık.As reasoning may generate conclusions mixed with 'doubt, hesitation, error, deficiency and delusion' due to its natural limits, Topbaş asserts that it is better for reason to stay 'within its natural limits', and to accept the guidance of revelation.Only in so doing can reasoning be saved from being dragged into contradiction. 132Topbaş commends his solution as the putting of reason into the service of religion.He formulates this as 'may reason be sacrificed for Muhammad '. 133 If this is not done, and reason is taken as the only instrument, the result will be disaster for humanity. 134n the last, but not least, subject of philosophy, we again see that Topbaş interpret al-Ghazali in a way that results in a highly critical, sometimes even hostile, stance on philosophy.The reference books of Erenköy repeatedly state that philosophy is not compatible with Islam.Topbaş is alarmed by the weakness of philosophy as well by as its potential harm to people. 135is main criticism is that philosophy uses various procedures of reasoning, such as analogical deduction, that allows people to avoid submission to divine revelation.Topbaş thus interprets philosophy as the weakening of the human ability to engage with absolute knowledge.Philosophy enslaves the limited senses and human intellect. 136For Topbaş, practising philosophy is to prefer a defective and misleading method when one has available the perfect method of inner knowledge.This harsh stance on philosophy is particularly visible in his argument that it is Satan who introduced analogical reasoning. 137Topbaş bases this view on a Qur'anic verse where, after creating Adam, God ordered the angels to prostrate themselves before him.Satan did not comply, though all the other angels did.When asked, Satan reasoned to legitimate his disobedience as follows: 'I am better than Adam: you created me from fire, and you created him from clay'. 138Topbaş interprets this verse as proof that reasoning might generate wrong results and lead one away from obeying God's orders.As interpreted by Topbaş, a logical derivative of Satan's argument is the lesson that the absolute knowledge that comes from God must be obeyed, and reasoning must be distrusted, because it has no ability to acquire true knowledge. 132Topbaş, The Islamic Approach to Reasoning and Philosophy. 133Topbaş. 134Topbaş, Gönül Bahçesinden Son Nefes; Topbaş, Sufism: A Path Towards the Internalization of Faith. 135Topbaş, Sufism: A Path Towards the Internalization of Faith. 136Topbaş. 137Topbaş, The Islamic Approach to Reasoning and Philosophy. 138Topbaş, Gönül Bahçesinden Son Nefes.

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To enhance his argument on the weakness of the philosophical method, Topbaş references al-Ghazali.For example, he borrows an argument from The Incoherence of Philosophers where al-Ghazali criticises the philosophers for busying themselves with empty arguments.Thus, to plunge into narrating the differences among the philosophers would involve too long a tale. 139Repeating this argument, Topbaş also points out that the disagreements among philosophers are proof of the inadequacy of reason and philosophy. 140Accordingly, philosophers prove their own limitations in their constant debates and falsification of one another's views. 141So, we understand from Topbaş that the philosophers' lack of ability to acquire absolute knowledge leaves them engaged in endless and pointless debate.To illustrate this argument, Topbaş recounts the story of Muhammad Iqbal, who read Ibn Sina and al-Farabi.Not satisfied with their dry sentences, Iqbal found himself 'a traveller in their nightmare dead-end streets'. 142s another method, Topbaş tries to show how the philosophers' ideas have been useless throughout history.He claims that not even one person can be found who has attained happiness through belief in and practice of Aristotle's philosophy. 143But this is again an argument borrowed from al-Ghazali.In challenging philosophers for their failure to produce useful knowledge, al-Ghazali, in Munkidh, describes the mystics as men of real experience and not merely men of words. 144There is no doubt that 'men of words' in that comparison references philosophers.Quoting al-Ghazali verbatim here, Topbaş, too, repeats that philosophers are simply 'men of words,' not purveyors of ideas that can be put to work to cure social problems or guide people to salvation.He also quotes al-Ghazali saying that philosophy cannot provide sufficient answers to 'my need'. 145Not surprisingly, in giving various examples of philosophers whose ideas have no practical application, Topbaş reminds al-Farabi. 146To prove his thesis, Topbaş claims that in the history of humanity, no society has achieved peace and happiness by implementing the views of a particular philosopher. 147On the contrary, he argues, philosophers have often provoked distress among people. 148