274 Anke von Kügelgen
entered the scene, Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī had already refuted major
subjects of the falāsifa in several of his writings. He seriously challenged
the coherence of their theories and concepts in Tahāfut al-falāsifa on
the basis of reasoning. As a result of his own experience, he tried to
prove the harm of philosophy to the soul of the individual and to the
unity of the community in his spiritual autobiography al-Munqidh min
al-ḍalāl and presented a Sufi-inspired alternative that he considered the
“right way” to truth and blissfulness in his Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn and other
writings.^89 Tāj al-Dīn al-Shahrastānī (d. 548/1153), a contemporary of
al-Ghazālī whose refutation, however, he does not mention,^90 tried to
show the inconsistency of Ibn Sīnā’s main metaphysical tenets in sev-
eral writings, such as the survey of different religions, philosophies,
and Muslim sects Kitāb al-Milal wal-niḥal, the comparatistic theologi-
cal work Kitāb Nihāyat al-aqdām fī ʿilm al-kalām, and treatises solely
devoted to the critique of Ibn Sīnā.^91 Some decades later, Fakhr al-Dīn
al-Rāzī (d. 606/1209), who considered al-Ghazālī and al-Shahrastānī to
Orthodoxie, pp. 357–400; for the translation, see idem, The Attitude of Ortho-
dox Islam, pp. 185–215. See Dimitri Gutas’ critique: Greek Thought, Arabic
Culture. The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early
ʿAbbāsid Society ( 2 nd–4th/8th–10th Centuries), London and New York 1998,
pp. 166–175.
89 These works and al-Ghazālī’s refutations of and attitudes against philosophy
are well studied; for references see Daiber, Hans: Bibliography of Islamic Philos-
ophy, Leiden 1999, vol. 1 and vol. 2, s. v. “Ghazzālī”. Al-Ghazālī was evidently
not the first to refute philosophy in a detailed manner. Al-Ashʿarī (260/873–874–
324/935–936), for instance, wrote a book Fī al-Radd ʿalā al-falāsifa in which he
argued against teachings that might contradict God’s creative power; unfortu-
nately however, this book has not come down to us (McCarthy, Richard Joseph:
The Theology of al-Ashʿarī. The Arabic Texts of al-Ashʿarī’s Kitāb al-Lumaʿ and
Risālat Istiḥsān al-khawḍ fī ʿilm al-kalām; with briefly annotated translations,
and appendices containing material pertinent to the study of al-Ashʿarī, Beirut
1953, p. 225, n. 70).
90 Al-Shahrastānī, Muḥammad: Struggling with the Philosopher. A Refutation
of Avicenna’s Metaphysics; A new Arabic edition and English translation of
Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Aḥmad al-Shahrastānī’s Kitāb al-Muṣāraʿa by
Wilferd Madelung and Toby Mayer, London and New York 2001, pp. 8–9.
91 The currently best known of these separate treatises is Kitāb al-Muṣāraʿa (see
al-Shahrastānī, Struggling with the Philosopher). Concerning references to the
other works and his critique of Ibn Sīnā, see Monnot, Guy: al-Shahrastānī, in:
EI^2 , vol. 9 (1997), pp. 214–216; Daiber, Bibliography of Islamic Philosophy, vol. 1
and vol. 2, s. v. Shahrastānī; and Steigerwald, Diane: La pensée philosophique et
théologique de Shahrastānī (m. 548/1153), Laval 1997.
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