Theodicy in Islamic Thought: The Dispute Over Al-Ghazali's Best of All Possible Worlds

by Eric Linn Ormsby

Overview

The first detailed study of Islamic theodicy, the book points out distinctively Islamic formulations and solutions of the problem of the best of all possible worlds" and shows where they coincide with Western versions, such as that of Leibniz.

Originally published in 1984.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691612447
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	07/14/2014
Series:	Princeton Legacy Library , #759
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

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Theodicy in Islamic Thought

The Dispute Over Al-Ghazali's "Best of All Possible Worlds"

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By Eric L. Ormsby

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1984 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-07278-4

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CHAPTER 1

The Perfect Rightness of the Actual

I THE PROBLEM

"There is not in possibility anything more wonderful than what is" (laysa fi'l-imkan abda' mimma kan). This statement, ascribed to Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111), engendered a controversy that lasted from his own lifetime until well into the 19th century. Opposition to the statement and all that it implied was fierce and bitter. Thus, Ibrahim ibn 'Umar al-Biqa'i (d. 885/1480), one of al-Ghazali's most implacable critics, would not shrink from accusing him of outright heresy. In turn, al-Ghazali's defenders mounted a vigorous counterattack leading, on at least one occasion, to violence: in Damascus an angry mob attacked and almost killed al-Biqa'i after the contents of his treatise against the "Proof of Islam" became known. Nor were the disputants above spiteful gibes at opponents: one of al-Ghazali's lesser-known defenders would remark sneeringly that al-Biqa'i should have entitled his treatise, not "The Triumph," as he had intended, but rather "Onion Peels" (qushur al-basal), because of its "stink."

What in this statement provoked such controversy? The fact that it was attributed to none other than al-Ghazali, the renowned renewer of religion, is of course significant. For a possibly suspect doctrine to be affirmed by so celebrated a figure could not but elicit passionate interest, and this is a factor that must be kept in mind. Nevertheless, the debate itself, stubborn and protracted as it was and ranging from puerile taunts to exceedingly subtle and intricate argumentation, arose out of certain central issues in Islamic theology.

Thus, the statement is said to lead to "a restriction of the divine omnipotence" (hasr al-qudrah) in the critics' view and so must be rejected. This is in fact the crux of the problem; for if nothing in possibility is "more wonderful," or more perfect, than what actually exists here and now, then God's omnipotence seems severely compromised. This world with all its undeniable defects and afflictions will be taken as the full and final manifestation of God's power.

This objection is well summarized by one of al-Ghazali's last champions, the 19th-century writer Hamdan ibn 'Uthman al-Jaza'iri, as follows:

(The statement's) incompatibility with the principles of the ahl al-sunnah is for three reasons. First, the creed of the orthodox, which must be believed, is that the things of which God is capable (maqdurat Allah) stop at no limit and end; and that the order of this world, even if it is in perfect wisdom and excellent design — even so, God is capable of creating one more excellent than it, and one still more excellent than that most excellent ad infinitum.

But the meaning of al-Ghazali's statement is that the creation of what is more perfect and more wonderful than this world is outside the sphere of possibility. ... So the divine power is not connected with the creation of a world better and more excellent than this world. Rather, the divine power terminates at this limit of greatest excellence and highest perfection.

This is the first and gravest difficulty with al-Ghazali's statement, and it represents a "great audacity" (jur'ah 'azimah) on his part; indeed, it may even be termed a "breach of orthodox consensus" (ijma). And, as if to complicate matters further, al-Ghazali has himself affirmed, in several other works, the orthodox doctrine that God's power is limitless, a fact which al-Jaza'iri and others are quick to point out.

The apparent constraint on God's omnipotence leads to two further difficulties noted by al-Jaza'iri. One of these is that the statement seems compatible with the condemned doctrine of the philosophers according to which God creates, not out of free choice (ikhtiyar), but out of a necessity intrinsic to His nature (ijab dhati). And, lastly, critics will note a perilously close kinship, both in form and meaning, between al-Ghazali's assertion and the formulations of the Mu'tazilite doctrine of "the optimum" (al-aslah). This doctrine was repudiated by the orthodox, who found especially abhorrent its insistence upon an obligation on God's part to provide what is most beneficial and most salutary for His creation.

This is but the barest summary of problems to which it will be necessary to return in later chapters. It is given here only to set al-Ghazali's statement within the context of the debate. The bone of contention is the possible infringement of the divine prerogatives of omnipotence and free choice. The suspicion that al-Ghazali's position reflects the influence of philosophers and the Mu'tazilites "who cling to their shirt-tails" will serve only to sharpen the acrimony of the debate.

Before considering the development of the debate itself, with its many disputants and their works, and before embarking on an analysis of the theological difficulties adumbrated above, we must examine the controversial statement in its context in the various works of al-Ghazali in which it appears. This will enable us to form a clearer conception of al-Ghazali's "theodicy," if it may indeed be so termed.

We shall need further to ascertain whether this theodicy is consistent with his viewpoint as expressed elsewhere in his work, or whether it is indeed an aberration, or lapse (zallah) on his part, as at least one of his opponents will charge. We shall have to keep in mind that consistency is perhaps a tenuous criterion in relation to al-Ghazali, as has often been pointed out.

Finally, we should be in a position to determine whether the disputed sentence is in fact correctly attributed to al-Ghazali or whether, as certain commentators will claim, it is after all an alien notion interpolated (madsus) into his work by later meddling or malicious hands.

II THE TEXTS

The commentators single out four works by al-Ghazali in which the offending statement occurs.

It appears first in the discussion of "trust in God" (tawakkul) in the fourth part of the Ihya' 'ulum al-din, where, in speaking of the "necessarily right order" of the world, al-Ghazali declares: "There is not in possibility anything whatever more excellent, more complete, or more perfect than it is." This sentence, together with the entire passage in which it appears, will provide the locus classicus for the debate in all later discussions.

al-Ghazali reaffirmed his position in a later treatise entitled al-Imla' fi mushkilat al-Ihya'. This work was in fact composed in response to critics who had attacked certain debatable points in the Ihya'. Here al-Ghazali writes: "There is not in possibility anything more wonderful (abda') than the form of this world or more excellent in arrangement or more complete in construction."

In a third work, written after the Ihya' and paraphrasing its major doctrines, al-Ghazali will omit the controversial sentence in the corresponding passage (which is otherwise almost verbatim) but will introduce it elsewhere. This work is the Kitab al-arba'in, intended as a sequel to his Jawahir al-Qur'an. (The commentators, confusingly enough, often cite the Kitab al-arba'in merely as "Jawahir.") There, in discussing the notion of "contentment with the divine decree" (rida bi'l-qada), a Sufi principle closely connected with tawakkul, he writes that these decrees "are ordered in the most perfect and most excellent of ways" ('ala akmal al-wujuh wa-ahsaniha), such that "nothing in possibility is more excellent than they, nor more perfect" (wa-laysa fi'l-imkan ahsan minha).

The fourth work mentioned by the disputants is the Maqasid al-falasifah, an exposition of the doctrines of the philosophers, and particularly those of Ibn Sina. As is well known, al-Ghazali intended this work as an introduction to his stringent critique of philosophy, the Tahafut al-falasifah. In the Latin West, however, the Maqasid came to be mistakenly identified as a favorable presentation of the philosophers' doctrines, and "Algazel" joined the ranks of Avicenna, Averroes, and Avempace in the scholastic tradition. At times it will seem as though certain of his opponents in the present debate make the same mistake and confuse al-Ghazali's position with that of the philosophers whom he elsewhere attacks.

It must be admitted that this is not wholly without foundation. Certain philosophical doctrines, such as that of the world's eternity (qidam al-'alam), were indisputably repugnant to al-Ghazali, and he criticized them vehemently. In the case of others, however, such as the doctrine of providence ('inayah), it is not entirely clear that he rejected them in toto. There is evidence to suggest that he accepted certain aspects of such doctrines, with significant modifications, and then incorporated them in thinly disguised form in later works such as the Ihya'.

This, too, is a subject to which we shall be obliged to return in a later chapter. Here let us merely note that the passage in question appears in al-Ghazali's discussion of providence, where he says: "All existing things, from the number of the stars and their measure, the earth's shape and that of animals and everything that exists, exist as they do only because it is the most perfect way to be (akmal wujuh al-wujud). Any other possibilities are defective in regard to it (sc. the actual order)."

All of these variations, but especially those in the Ihya and the Imla', came to be compressed into a single rhyming formula under which the entire problem and its discussion were subsumed, i.e.: "There is not in possibility anything more wonderful than what is" (laysa fi'l-imkan abda' mimma kan).

III THE STATEMENT IN CONTEXT

The following passage from the Ihya represents al-Ghazali's most sustained formulation of theodicy. It is, moreover, the passage to which all later discussions refer; an understanding of it will be necessary in following the course of the dispute. This does not mean, however, that we shall attempt at this point to decide "what al-Ghazali really meant." Such an attempt would be premature before the comments of his critics and supporters have been considered. Hence, we shall try to present here as fully as possible what he in fact wrote, keeping in mind the differing interpretations to which his words gave rise.

Our object at this state is exposition rather than analysis. We shall concentrate on the text of the Ihya, bringing in citations from other of his works where they may serve to illumine his intention; we shall have particular recourse to his own comments in the Imla' as well. The difficulty here will be to refrain from deciding the issue (if indeed it can be decided); no exposition, however well intentioned, can remain completely neutral. But our ultimate interest should be not only to determine al-Ghazali's original meaning but to learn what his commentators made of his remarks. What we here term a Muslim version of theodicy is the product of many minds arguing pro and con over a span of centuries in an attempt to understand what is contained in nuce in the original text.

A. THE IHYA' TEXT

It should be made clear at the outset that we are dealing, not with a systematic or even a closely reasoned proof of theodicy, but with an exhortation to a specific stage (maqam) on the Sufi path. al-Ghazali's defenders take his critics to task for ignoring this, and rightly so.

Thus, according to Murtada al-Zabidi (d. 1205/1791), "... his purpose in this is to incite man to the utmost in reliance on God (tawakkul) — that is what this question is all about — and to contentment with every decree of God ... so that man may not despair over an evil which befalls him or a good which eludes him."

This hortatory intent is obvious when the entire passage is seen and so it will be given here in full, despite its length, as is almost invariably done in the commentaries themselves.

In his discussion of the realization of the divine unity (tawhid), which is the basis (asl) of trust in God, al-Ghazali states that to reach the stage of trust, it is necessary that:

... one believe with utter certainty in which
there is neither weakness nor doubt that if
God had created all creatures with the intelligence
of the most intelligent among them and the
knowledge of the most learned among them; and (5)
if He had created for them all the knowledge
their souls could sustain and had poured out
upon them wisdom of indescribable extent; then,
had He given each one of them the knowledge,
wisdom, and intelligence of them all, and (10)
revealed to them the consequences of things
and taught them the mysteries of the transcendent
world and acquainted them with the subtleties
of divine favor and the mysteries of final
punishments, until they were made well aware (15)
of good and evil, benefit and harm; then, if
He had ordered them to arrange this world and
the transcendent world in terms of the knowledge
and wisdom they had received, (even then)
that act of arrangement on the part of all of (20)
them, helping each other and working in concert,
would not make it necessary to add to the way in
which God has arranged creation in this world and
the next by (so much as) a gnat's wing, nor to
subtract from it (by so much as) a gnat's wing; (25)
nor would it raise a speck of dust or lower a
speck of dust; (their arrangement) would not
ward off sickness or fault or defect or poverty
or injury from one so afflicted, and it would not
remove health or perfection or wealth or advantage (30)
from one so favored.

But if people directed their gaze and considered
steadfastly everything that God has created in
heaven and earth, they would see neither discrepancy
nor rift. (35)

Everything which God apportions to man, such as
sustenance, life-span, pleasure and pain, capacity
and incapacity, belief and disbelief, obedience
and sin, is all of it sheer justice, with no injustice
in it; and pure right, with no wrong in it. (40)

Indeed, it is according to the necessarily right
order, in accord with what must be and as it must
be and in the measure in which it must be; and
there is not in possibility anything whatever more
excellent, more perfect, and more complete than it. (45)

For if there were and He had withheld it, having
power to create it but not deigning to do so, this
would be miserliness contrary to the divine generosity
and injustice contrary to the divine justice.
But if He were not able, it would be incapability (50)
contrary to divinity.

Indeed, all poverty and loss in this world is a
diminution in this world but an increase in the
next. Every lack in the next world in relation to
one individual is a boon in relation to someone (55)
else. For were it not for night, the value of day
would be unknown. Were it not for illness, the
healthy would not enjoy health. Were it not for
hell, the blessed in paradise would not know the
extent of their blessedness. In the same way, the (60)
lives of animals serve as ransom for human souls;
and the power to kill them which is given to humans
is no injustice.

Indeed, giving precedence to the perfect over
the imperfect is justice itself. So too is (65)
heaping favors on the inhabitants of paradise
by increasing the punishment of the inhabitants
of hell. The ransom of the faithful by means of
the unfaithful is justice itself.

As long as the imperfect is not created, the (70)
perfect will remain unknown. If beasts had not
been created, the dignity of man would not be
manifest. The perfect and the imperfect are
correlated. Divine generosity and wisdom require
the simultaneous creation of the perfect and (75)
the imperfect.

Just as the amputation of a gangrenous hand in
order to preserve life is justice, since it involves
ransoming the perfect through the imperfect, so
too the matter of the discrepancy which exists (80)
among people in their portion in this world and
the next. That is all justice, without any wrong;
and right in which there is no caprice.

Now this is a vast and deep sea with wide shores
and tossed by billows. In extent it is comparable (85)
to the sea of God's unity. Whole groups of the
inept drown in it without realizing that it is an
arcane matter which only the knowing comprehend.
Behind this sea is the mystery of predestination
where the many wander in perplexity and which (90)
those who have been illuminated are forbidden
to divulge.

The gist is that good and evil are foreordained.
What is foreordained comes necessarily to be after
a prior act of divine volition. No one can rebel (95)
against God's judgement; no one can appeal His
decree and command. Rather, everything small and
large is written and comes to be in a known and expected
measure. "What strikes you was not there to
miss you; what misses you was not there to strike you."

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Theodicy in Islamic Thought by Eric L. Ormsby. Copyright © 1984 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents

• FrontMatter, pg. i
• Contents, pg. iii
• Preface, pg. vii
• Principal Abbreviations, pg. xi
• Introduction, pg. 1
• ONE. The Perfect Rightness of the Actual, pg. 32
• TWO. The Disputants and Their Works, pg. 92
• THREE. Divine Power and Possibility, pg. 135
• FOUR. Creation as “Natural Necessity”, pg. 182
• FIVE. The Problem of the Optimum, pg. 217
• Conclusion, pg. 259
• Appendix: Types of Possibility, pg. 266
• Bibliography, pg. 271
• Index, pg. 297