Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, a Muslim jurist-theologian and polymath who lived from the mid-eleventh to the early twelfth century in present-day Iran, is a figure equivalent in stature to Maimonides in Judaism and Thomas Aquinas in Christianity. He is best known for his work in philosophy, ethics, law, and...

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1. Verfasser:	Moosa, Ebrahim (VerfasserIn)
Format:	Buch
Sprache:	English
Veröffentlicht:	Chapel Hill, NC University of North Carolina Press 2005
Schriftenreihe:	Islamic civilization and Muslim networks
Schlagworte:	Ghazzālī <1058-1111> Ghazzālī > 1058-1111 Ġazzālī, Abū-Ḥāmid Muḥammad Ibn-Muḥammad al- > 1058-1111 Créativité - Aspect religieux - Islam Imagination - Aspect religieux - Islam Philosophie islamique Religion Philosophy, Islamic Imagination > Religious aspects > Islam Creative ability > Religious aspects > Islam Bibliografie
Zusammenfassung:	Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, a Muslim jurist-theologian and polymath who lived from the mid-eleventh to the early twelfth century in present-day Iran, is a figure equivalent in stature to Maimonides in Judaism and Thomas Aquinas in Christianity. He is best known for his work in philosophy, ethics, law, and mysticism. In an engaged re-reading of the ideas of this preeminent Muslim thinker, Ebrahim Moosa argues that Ghazali's work has lasting relevance today as a model for a critical encounter with the Muslim intellectual tradition in a modern and postmodern context. Moosa employs the theme of the threshold, or dihliz, the space from which Ghazali himself engaged the different currents of thought in his day, and proposes that contemporary Muslims who wish to place their own traditions in conversation with modern traditions consider the same vantage point. Moosa argues that by incorporating elements of Islamic theology, neoplatonic mysticism, and Aristotelian philosophy, Ghazali's work epitomizes the idea that the answers to life's complex realities do not reside in a single culture or intellectual tradition. Ghazali's emphasis on poiesis--creativity, imagination, and freedom of thought--provides a sorely needed model for a cosmopolitan intellectual renewal among Muslims, Moosa argues. Such a creative and critical inheritance, he concludes, ought to be heeded by those who seek to cultivate Muslim intellectual traditions in today's tumultuous world Moosa (Duke Univ.) offers a comprehensive study that brilliantly clarifies the multifaceted and conflicted legacy of the great Muslim medieval religious philosopher al-Ghazali. Competing religious, cultural, and political agendas have distorted his real contributions to Islamic culture. Spurned by both fundamentalists and rationalists in the contemporary Muslim world, Ghazali is prized by traditionalists for his mystical piety and ethical insight. Centering his inquiry on the image of the dihliz, the threshold which occupies the border between the subjective and the objective, Moosa explores problems of knowledge through a focus on the self as it manifests in poetics, self-creation, the pursuit of virtue, ethical self-mastery, and ultimately the sociopolitical realm, where ethics meets law and jurisprudence. Ghazali's own crisis of faith led him to reinvigorate his own religious tradition by situating traditional problems in metaphysics, theology, ethics, law, and mysticism in the context of the soul's overcoming its exile from God. Thus, ethics ceases to be only abstract theory and becomes the art of transformation. Especially impressive is Moosa's linking of historical inquiry with the existential interests of contemporary Muslim subjectivity. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-level undergraduates through researchers/faculty. Upper-division Undergraduates; Graduate Students; Researchers/Faculty. Reviewed by J. Bussanich
Beschreibung:	Includes bibliographical references and index
Beschreibung:	XI, 349 S. Kt.
ISBN:	0807829528 0807856126