Document Type : Research Article (Political Thought)

Author

• Ali Shirkhani

Professor, Faculty of Humanities, Islamic Azad University, Qom Branch, Qom, Iran

Abstract

Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali is one of the most important thinkers of the Seljuk period in Iran. Ghazali’s Thought, based on his works, is very wide-ranging in various fields of religious sciences. At the beginning of his scientific life, he wrote a book entitled “Maqasid al Falasifa” (The Aims of Philosophers), but in the final period of his research, he wrote the “Tahafut al-Falasifah” (The Incoherence of the Philosophers) and joined the opponents of philosophy, in which he expressed the contradictions of philosophers. Consequently, many thinkers believe that he is not only against philosophy but also against reason, and as a result reach the conflict between reason and religion or the sharia of religion.This article examines the question of whether there is a conflict between reason and sharia in Ghazali's thought? Does al-Ghazali mean the philosophical views of philosophers only those that are incompatible with the Shari'a? And what should be done if there seems to be a contradiction? This article tries to address these questions by referring to Ghazali's intellectual works.

Keywords

• Al-Ghazali
• Reason
• Religion
• Islamic Thought