FROM AL-GHAZALI TO AL-RAZI: 6TH/12TH CENTURY DEVELOPMENTS IN MUSLIM PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY pdf

FROM AL-GHAZأ„Li TO AL-Rأ„Zi161pre-eternity, but that they were at rest and then began to move inpre-eternity!’ how would you refute his opinion [.A1-Ghaylأ¤ni insisted on his statement, “I do not commit myself toproving the temporal origination of bodies, but I commit myself torefuting the opinion of Abأ¼ ‘Alt.”I said, “In this case, this will not be intellectual, scientific inquiry(bahth), but a kind of disputation (mujأ¤dala) with a particular personon a particular point. Then I said, “Suppose we content ourselves withthis much; tell me the proof of the falsity of the notion of a pre-eternalchain of events78Ibn Ghaylأ¤n then argues that had there been an infinitenumber of events in the past,something infinite” (mأ¤ lأ¤nihأ¤yata lahu) would have “come into being”; yet the comingof something infinite into being is inconceivable. Al-Rأ¤ziretorts by showing that the latter, ambiguous premise eithermeans the same as the conclusion, making the argumentcircular, or is meaningless and reliant on wordplay.The crucial point of contention here is as follows. IbnGhaylأ¤n argues, as he also does in his book, 79 that he authoredthat book as a response (jawأ¤b) to Ibn Sinأ¤’s argumentation(kalأ¤m) in relation to a particular topic. He does not showinterest in arguing (yatakallam) with anyone else in thatregard. As such, he is an ideal Ghazأ¤lian mutakallim, whoseprimary task is to battle against particular views until theirerroneous natures are exposed. According to al-Rأ¤zi, he is, bythis, a mere dialectician, a pseudo-theologian, whose poormethods will not reach him to real knowledge. 0 The accountsof both debates mark a crucial aspect of al-Rأ¤zi’s departurefrom previous kalأ¤m, namely his rejection of its thoroughdialecticism, be it intentional, as in Ghazأ¤lian kalأ¤m, orpresumed, mistakenly, to be proper critical intellectual enquiry(ba&th), as in classical kalأ¤m.A brief description of a debate that al-Rأ¤zi had in Bukharawith an unnamed critic of Ibn Sinأ¤’s Ishأ¤rأ¤t can also be78 Al-Rأ¤zi, Munأ¤qarأ¤t, pp. 60—1 (much use was made of Kholeif’s translation,PP. 82-3). 9See p. 152 supra.80Van Ess (“Logical structure”, p. 25, n. 20) comments on this debate: “Wemay assume that Rأ¤zi did not really want to support Ibn Sinأ¤ in [his view of thepre-eternity of the world]; but his craving for intellectual superiority and amomentary ill humor made him reject those counterarguments as too naivealthough they supported his line of thinking. Unfortunately — and this is oncemore typical of the style of kalأ¤m — Rأ¤zi does not deem it necessary to give hisown solution of the problem”. It should be clear by now that this traditionalreading of the Munأ¤qarأ¤t greatly trivialises al-Rأ¤zi’s position.