Frank Griffel studied philosophy, Arabic literature, and Islamic studies at universities in Göttingen (Germany), Damascus, Berlin, and London. He received his PhD in 1999 from the Free University in Berlin. In his thesis he researched about the development of the judgment of apostasy in classical Islam. After a short period as a research fellow at the Orient Institute of the German Oriental Society in Beirut, Lebanon, he came in 2000 to Yale where he teaches courses on the intellectual history of Islam, its theology (both classical and modern), and the way Islamic thinkers react to Western modernity. Address: Lady Margaret Hall Norham Gardens Oxford OX2 6QA United Kingdom
Whereas Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī's "al-Mabāḥith al-mashriqiyya" is available in print since 1925, his... more Whereas Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī's "al-Mabāḥith al-mashriqiyya" is available in print since 1925, his second philosophical summa "al-Mulakhkhaṣ fī l-ḥikma wa-l-manṭiq" was unedited until 2021, when two editions came out almost simultaneously in Cairo and Amman. These publications coincided with that of my book "The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam" in July 2021. Since these two editions were not available to me when my book was put to print (in March of 2021), I refer my readers to a manuscript at the Berlin Staatsbibliothek, which is available online, and where that has lacunae, to a manuscript in Leiden. This concordance allows readers of my book to convert those references to the two new editions of "al-Mulakhkhaṣ."
Scholars have come to recognize the importance of classical Islamic philosophy both in its own ri... more Scholars have come to recognize the importance of classical Islamic philosophy both in its own right and in its preservation of and engagement with Greek philosophical ideas. At the same time, the period immediately following the so-called classical period has been considered a sort of dark age, in which Islamic thought entered a long period of decline. In this monumental new work, Frank Griffel seeks to overturn this conventional wisdom, arguing that what he calls the “post-classical” period has been unjustly maligned and neglected by previous generations of scholars.
The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam is a comprehensive study of the far-reaching changes that led to a re-shaping of the philosophical discourse in Islam during the twelfth century. Earlier Western scholars thought that Islam’s engagement with the tradition of Greek philosophy ended during that century. More recent analyses suggest that Islamic thinkers instead integrated Greek thought into the genre of rationalist Muslim theology (kalām). Griffel argues that even this new view misses a key point. In addition to the integration of Greek ideas into kalām, Muslim theologians picked up the discourse of classical philosophy in Islam (falsafa) and began to produce books in the tradition of Plato, Aristotle, and Avicenna—a new and oft-misunderstood genre they called “ḥikma"—in which they left aside theological concerns. They wrote in both genres, kalām and ḥikma, and the same writers argued for opposing teachings on the nature of God, the world’s creation, and the afterlife depending on the genre in which they were writing. Griffel shows how careful attention to genre demonstrates both the coherence and ambiguity of this new philosophical approach.
A work of extraordinary breadth and depth, "The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam" offers a detailed, insightful history of philosophy in Iraq, Iran, and Central Asia during the twelfth century. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of philosophy or the history of Islam.
This is the Arabic translation of my 2009 book "Al-Ghazālī's Philosophical Theology." Mariam M. S... more This is the Arabic translation of my 2009 book "Al-Ghazālī's Philosophical Theology." Mariam M. Shehata did a marvelous job in translating the book from English into Arabic. That's not an easy task, given that the book itself contains many translations from Arabic into English that need to be replaced with the original Arabic texts and the translation needs to adapt to that. I am very grateful to Mariam.
Den Islam Denken. Versuch, eine Religion zu verstehen. [Was soll das alles?] Stuttgart: Reclam Verlag, 2018
Was ist das eigentlich: »Islam« – handelt es sich um eine Religion wie das Christentum, die ähnli... more Was ist das eigentlich: »Islam« – handelt es sich um eine Religion wie das Christentum, die ähnlich von Auseinandersetzungen mit der weltlichen Macht und der Vernunft geprägt wurde? Gibt es im Islam einen Konflikt zwischen Glauben und Wissen? Hat der Islam eine Reformation versäumt und sollte sie nachholen? Wie kann man über islamistisch geprägte Anschläge anders denken, als dass es Racheakte von fanatischen Glaubenskriegern sind, die mit Ideen aus dem islamischen Mittelalter einer Gehirnwäsche unterzogen wurden? Oder haben diese Fragen letztlich nichts mit dem Islam an sich zu tun, sondern eher mit Sichtweisen des Westens?
Für eine Leseprobe, klicken Sie bitte auf den Link unter "Files" (siehe oben) und gehen Sie auf der Reclam-Webseite des Buches zu "Leseprobe."
Al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) is one of the most influential thinkers of Islam. There is hardly a genr... more Al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) is one of the most influential thinkers of Islam. There is hardly a genre of Islamic literature where he is not regarded as a major authority. Islamic Law, Sufism, ethics, philosophy, and theology are all deeply shaped by him. Yet in the past thirty years, the field of Ghazālī-studies has been shaken by the realization that Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, d. 428/1037) and other philosophers had a strong influence on him. Now, after the 900th anniversary at his death, the field emerges stronger than ever. This second volume of Islam and Rationality: The Impact of al-Ghazālī brings together twelve leading experts on al-Ghazālī who write about his thought and the impact it had on later Muslim thinkers.
Contributors are: Anna Ayşe Akasoy, Ahmed El Shamsy, Kenneth Garden, Frank Griffel, Jules Janssens, Damien Janos, Taneli Kukkonen, Stephen Ogden, M. Sait Özervarlı, Martin Riexinger, Ulrich Rudolph, and Ayman Shihadeh.
Al-Gazali (d. 1111) is considered to be one of the most prominent and influential Muslim thinkers... more Al-Gazali (d. 1111) is considered to be one of the most prominent and influential Muslim thinkers and scholars of the Islamic scholarly tradition. His works cover a wide range of topics, disciplines, and their corresponding discourses. Many of his works are still discussed and deemed relevant today, dealing with matters such as philosophy, speculative theology, kalam, fiqh, and usul al-fiqh, as well as with questions of ethics, logic and tasawwuf. The present volume aptly demonstrates the depth and diversity of scholarly debates about al-Gazali. In five distinct chapters headed "Al-Gazali Reflected through Time and Religions," "Al-Gazali and Islam and Science in Dialogue," "Al-Gazali and kalam and tasawwuf," "Truth, Logic, Qur'an and al-Gazali" and "Al-Gazali and Scholarship and Philosophy", ten authors take a variety of approaches and perspectives to further examine and provide new and original insights.
Al-Gazali (gest. 1111) gilt als einer der einflussreichsten und wirkmächtigsten unten den von der islamischen Wissenschaftstradition hervorgebrachten muslimischen Denkern und Gelehrten. Seine Forschungen umfassten weite Felder mit Bezügen zu einer Vielzahl von Disziplinen und den dazugehörigen Diskursen. Viele seiner Werke werden noch heute rezipiert und befassen sich mit Philosophie, spekulativer Theologie, kalam, dem fiqh und usul al-fiqh, bis hin zu Fragestellungen von Ethik, Logik und dem tasawwuf. Diese Mannigfaltigkeit spiegelt sich in der wissenschaftlichen Auseinandersetzung mit al-Gazali wider, wie der vorliegende Band aufzuzeigen vermag.
This is the Turkish translation of my book "Al-Ghazali's Philosophical Theology," which has come ... more This is the Turkish translation of my book "Al-Ghazali's Philosophical Theology," which has come out in December 2012 with Klasik Yayınları in Istanbul. I am very grateful to Mehmet Cüneyt Kaya, the editor of the series "İslam Felsefesi Dizisi," and İbrahim Halil Üçer as well as Muhammed Fatih Kılıç, the two translators of the book.
Here is the text of the Turkish blurb:
Gazâlî, İslâm düşünce tarihinin en dikkat çekici isimlerinden birisidir. Onun kelâm, felsefe, tasavvuf ve fıkıh gibi disiplinlerin tarihinde bir dönüm noktası teşkil ettiği, hatta eserleriyle İslam toplumlarının dini algılayış ve yaşayışlarında da derin izler bıraktığı, bilinen bir gerçektir. Etkileyici hayat hikâyesiyle o, zihinlere, ömrü boyunca hakikatin peşinde koşmaktan vazgeçmeyen bir entelektüel, tarih boyunca filozoflara yöneltilmiş en derinlikli eleştiriyi kaleme almış bir kelâmcı, dinî ilimlere diriltici bir ruh üflemek için uğraşan bir âlim ve tasavvufun sunduğu ilim-amel/bilgi-eylem birlikteliğinden derinden etkilenen bir sûfî olarak kazınmıştır.
Frank Griffel’ın Gazâlî’nin Felsefî Kelâmı adlı eseri, onun bu çok yönlü entelektüel birikimini, kozmolojiye dair öğretilerini merkeze alarak ustalıkla incelemekte. Griffel, Gazâlî’nin hayatı, ilmî mirası ve yorum yöntemi ile âlemin yaratılışı, ilahî, insanî ve tabiî nedensellik hakkındaki görüşlerini hayranlık uyandıracak bir titizlikte ele almakla kalmamakta, bu konularda Batılı ilim çevrelerinde hâkim olan yanlış anlamaları sorgulayarak Gazâlî gibi önemli ve etkileyici bir düşünüre dair tutarlı ve incelikli bir resim sunmayı da başarmaktadır.
""One of the most extensive and insightful studies of al-Ghazali ever undertaken... Griffel's boo... more ""One of the most extensive and insightful studies of al-Ghazali ever undertaken... Griffel's book is a veritable tour de force that will remain a benchmark in Ghazalian studies for a long time to come."
--Jon Hoover, University of Nottingham, in Theological Review.
"[An] excellent new study on Abu Hamid al-Ghazali's thought, easily the most comprehensive to date (...)."
-- Eric L. Ormsby, Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, in Journal of Shia Islamic Studies.
"Fascinating (...) Griffel's book is provocative, comprehensive, and valuable."
--Mohammad Hassan Khalil, Michigan State University, in Review of Middle East Studies.
"Masterly... I strongly recommend this book to every student of Arabic intellectual history."
--Damien Janos, Göttingen University, in Journal of the American Oriental Society.
"This work of historical theology is essential reading for those wanting to understand with new depth and clarity the life and teachings of al-Ghazali."
--Martin Whittingham, Regent's Park College, Oxford, in The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences.
"... a major contribution to the study of al-Ghazali, both his life and his thought. (...) It may be hoped that this book will receive the attention it deserves and may offer as well an opportunity to futher studies on one of the greatest thinkers of Islam."
-- Jules Jansses, De Wulf-Mansionscentrum, Leuven, in Muslim World.
"This work is a detailed examination of Al-Ghazali's position with respect to Greek science and philosophy as it was presented to the Muslim world in the works of Avicenna. In making this examination the author has been able to correct certain misconceptions about Al-Ghazali which have long been held by some Western scholars."
--Nicholas Heer, Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, University of Washington, Seattle.
"Frank Griffel's new book is a lucid synthesis of the latest scholarship on al-Ghazali's life and legacy, his interpretive method and his ideas about the world's creation and about divine, human and natural causality. Griffel succeeds in presenting a coherent and nuanced picture of the cosmology of this complex thinker, who was both a scholar of jurisprudence and a mystic, both a critic of philosophy and a philosophical theologian."
--Robert Wisnovsky, Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University."
"Das besondere an dieser Ausgabe von Frank Griffel ist einmal die Kommentierung von einem der ein... more "Das besondere an dieser Ausgabe von Frank Griffel ist einmal die Kommentierung von einem der eine umfassende Monographie dazu geschrieben hat. Das ist Wissenschaft auf bestem Stand und verständlich. Das zweite ist die hervorragende Geschichte, wie der Text des Ibn Ruschd aufgenommen bzw. abgelehnt wurde. (...) In Übersetzung, Kommentaren zu den einzelnen Stellen und einer einmaligen, oft verblüffenden Rezeptionsgeschichte liegt die Stärke dieser Ausgabe von Frank Griffel." -- Christoph Auffarth, Professor für Religionswissenschaft, Universität Bremen, on rpi-virtuell.net
“… a major contribution to the history of Islamic thought. (…) Most welcome is the systematic tra... more “… a major contribution to the history of Islamic thought. (…) Most welcome is the systematic tracing of the development of the relation between the judgement that a person is an unbeliever and his exclusion from Islam. The work is well decumented by reference to a plethora of sources and secondary literature. It should be on the desk of every student of Islam.” -- Michael Schwarz, Tel Aviv University, in Jerusalem Studies of Arabic and Islam (JSAI).
“… an important, most valuable book, a pioneering work that focuses attention on a very difficult issue—a considerable achievement of great value to the scholarly community.” -- Jules Janssens, De Wulf-Mansionscentrum, Leuven, in Journal of Islamic Studies
“Il existe assez peu de travaux préliminaires sur l’appartenance à la communauté de foi en Islam en relation avec le développement des critères de l’apostasie, problèmes qui ne sont pas rapport avec la situation de la philosophie en Islam. Au centre du débat, se trouvent la position ou les positions d’Algazel face à la philosophie et les réactions des philosophes à son endroit, comme l’a bien compris F. Griffel dans un ouvrage qui ne passera pas inaperçu (…).” -- Claude Gilliot, Université d’Aix-Marseille, in Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques
"Frank Griffel legt die 'Kriterium'-Schrift jetzt unter dem Titel 'Über Rechtgläubigkeit und Tole... more "Frank Griffel legt die 'Kriterium'-Schrift jetzt unter dem Titel 'Über Rechtgläubigkeit und Toleranz' erstmals in einer deutschen Übersetzung und mit einem ebenso gelehrten wie informativen Kommentar vor– eine Ausgabe, die helfen kann einen seinerseits fundamentalistischen westlichen Antifundamentalismus abzubauen." -- Ludger Lütkehaus in der Neuen Züricher Zeitung
Table of Contents:
1) Introduction by Frank Griffel
2) Gudrun Krämer: Justice in Modern Islamic... more Table of Contents:
1) Introduction by Frank Griffel 2) Gudrun Krämer: Justice in Modern Islamic Thought 3) Frank Griffel: The Harmony of Natural Law and Shari’a in Islamist Theology 4) Felicitas Opwis: Islamic Law and Legal Change: The Concept of Maṣlaḥa in Classical and Contemporary Legal Theory 5) David L. Johnston: ʿAllāl al-Fāsī: Shari’a as Blueprint for Righteous Global Citizenship 6) Noah Feldman: Shari’a and Islamic Democracy in the Age of al-Jazeera 7) Abbas Amanat: From ijtihād to wilāyat al-faqīh : The Evolution of the Shi’ite Authority to Political Power 8) Shahrough Akhavi: Shi’ite Theories of Social Contract 9) Saïd Amir Arjomand: Shari’a and Constitution in Iran: A Historical Perspective 10) Anna Würth: The Normativity of the Factual On the Every Day Construction of Shari’a in a Yemeni Family Court 11) Roy Mottahedeh: Afterword
Diversität im Islam. Die vergessene Botschaft, hrsg. von Zekirija Seijdini, Wiesbaden: SpringerVS, 2023, S. 35–57.), 2023
Was man in deutschsprachigen Lehrbüchern der Philosophiegeschichte über die philosophischen Aktiv... more Was man in deutschsprachigen Lehrbüchern der Philosophiegeschichte über die philosophischen Aktivitäten von Muslimen, Arabern, Persern oder Türken lesen kann, ist schnell zusammengefasst. In vielen Fällen nämlich gar nichts. In diesem Artikel versuche ich die Ergebnisse meines 2021 erschienenen Buches "The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam" kurz und bündig (und mit vielen Auslassungen) auf Deutsch darzustellen. Darin geht es vor allem darum, "nach-klassische Philosophie im Islam vorzustellen und zu erklären, was es ist und wie sie funktioniert. Ich hoffe, der Text ist für Einführungskurse geeignet.
From: "The Popularization of Philosophy in Medieval Islam, Judaism, and Christianity," ed. Mareike Abram, Steven Harvey, and Lukas Muhlethaler (Thurnhout [Belgium]: Brepols, 2022), 379–88.
This is my contribution to a conference on the popularization of philosophy in the Middle Ages, c... more This is my contribution to a conference on the popularization of philosophy in the Middle Ages, convened at Freie Universität Berlin, in July 2016.
Penser avec Avicenne. De l'héritage grec à la réception latine: un état de la recherche en hommage à Jules Janssens, ed. Daniel De Smet and Meryem Sebti, Leuven (Belgium): Peeters Publishers. 193–229., 2022
Preserved in what seems to be a unique manuscript at the Bodleian Library, al-Nafs wa-l-rūḥ wa-sh... more Preserved in what seems to be a unique manuscript at the Bodleian Library, al-Nafs wa-l-rūḥ wa-sharḥ quwāhumā (The Soul and the Spirit together with an Explanation of Their Faculties) of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210) is a curious book. At the beginning, the author decribes the text as part of the philosophical sciences (as opposed to the religious ones) and clarifies that it deals with ʿilm al-akhlāq, meaning Aristotelian virtue ethics. The text is divided into two parts, the first explaining subjects of philosophical psychology, such as the nature of the soul, its faculties, and its survival after the death of the body. The second part explains how one can “treat” or “heal” the soul from certain negative character traits or vices. In both parts, the book makes liberal use of quotations from the Qur’an, from prophetical ḥadīth, and from sayings by other prophets and sages. This is quite unlike any other “book on philosophy” that Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī wrote.
The article explains the distinction between philosophical and non-philosophical books in Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and what it means for a book to belong to the former group. Al-Rāzī’s works in the theoretical fields of philosophy (logic, the natural sciences, metaphysics, and theology) do not use evidence derived from revelation and hardly ever refer to it. The relationship between revelation and the practical disciplines of philosophy (among them ethics), however, is different from the relation between revelation and theoretical philosophy. This difference leads in Avicenna to an almost complete abandonment of the practical disciplines. In authors who follow Avicenna in his Farabian approach to the relationship between philosophy and revelation it leads to hybrid works such as al-Nafs wa-l-rūḥ wa-sharḥ quwāhumā that follow a philosophical agenda but employ means and strategies that mimic and imitate revelation.
In: "Maimonides' 'Guide of the Perplexed' in Translation. A History from the Thirteenth Century to the Twentieth." Edited by Josef Stern, James T. Robinson, and Yonatan Shemesh. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019. 403–27., 2019
In: Studying the Near and Middle East at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, 1935-2018. Edited by Sabine Schmidtke. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2018.
This paper offers a preview into some of the results of my forthcoming monograph study "The Forma... more This paper offers a preview into some of the results of my forthcoming monograph study "The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam," to be published with Oxford University Press some time in 2020. Here, I focus on the distinction between books of "hikma" and those of "kalam" among the works of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 606/1210) and I suggest that these are two distinct genres, each with its own rules and that books of hikma come to quite different conclusions about central subjects of research (such as God's nature) than books of kalam. Given that Fakhr al-Din lets both books stand by themselves, I conclude that he held both results for cum-possible. More about this in my forthcoming book.
With a view of the 1277 Paris condemnation of 219 teachings, I suggest that the double-truth theory that Bishop Tempier hints at in the introduction of that document describes the philosophy of Fakhr al-Din much more accurately than that of Averroes.
Ibn Taymiyya’s (d. 728/1328) harsh polemics and his polarizing attitude toward disputes with his ... more Ibn Taymiyya’s (d. 728/1328) harsh polemics and his polarizing attitude toward disputes with his opponents pose obstacles for identifying similarities between their positions and the ones that he holds. This article wishes to shed light on two important issues connected with Ibn Taymiyya’s "Rejecting the Notion That Revelation and Reason Contradict Each Other" ("Dar’ ta’aruḍ al-‘aql wa-l-naql"). The first is the position that Ibn Taymiyya is arguing against in the initial passages of this book. Given that it presents itself as a work of refutation (radd), what exactly is it trying to refute at the outset? The second is the position Ibn Taymiyya develops in response to the views he rejects. The two questions are closely connected and have - despite several attempts - not yet received a satisfactory answer in the available secondary literature. One of the results of this study is that Ibn Taymiyya’s own position on the relationship between reason and revelation shows very significant similarities with that of his Ashʿarite opponents. Another result of this paper is the insight that Ibn Taymiyya’s reception of and his reaction to the Ashʿarite position on the priority of reason over revelation leads him into a circular argument about the authority of reason and revelation.
Whereas Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī's "al-Mabāḥith al-mashriqiyya" is available in print since 1925, his... more Whereas Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī's "al-Mabāḥith al-mashriqiyya" is available in print since 1925, his second philosophical summa "al-Mulakhkhaṣ fī l-ḥikma wa-l-manṭiq" was unedited until 2021, when two editions came out almost simultaneously in Cairo and Amman. These publications coincided with that of my book "The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam" in July 2021. Since these two editions were not available to me when my book was put to print (in March of 2021), I refer my readers to a manuscript at the Berlin Staatsbibliothek, which is available online, and where that has lacunae, to a manuscript in Leiden. This concordance allows readers of my book to convert those references to the two new editions of "al-Mulakhkhaṣ."
Scholars have come to recognize the importance of classical Islamic philosophy both in its own ri... more Scholars have come to recognize the importance of classical Islamic philosophy both in its own right and in its preservation of and engagement with Greek philosophical ideas. At the same time, the period immediately following the so-called classical period has been considered a sort of dark age, in which Islamic thought entered a long period of decline. In this monumental new work, Frank Griffel seeks to overturn this conventional wisdom, arguing that what he calls the “post-classical” period has been unjustly maligned and neglected by previous generations of scholars.
The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam is a comprehensive study of the far-reaching changes that led to a re-shaping of the philosophical discourse in Islam during the twelfth century. Earlier Western scholars thought that Islam’s engagement with the tradition of Greek philosophy ended during that century. More recent analyses suggest that Islamic thinkers instead integrated Greek thought into the genre of rationalist Muslim theology (kalām). Griffel argues that even this new view misses a key point. In addition to the integration of Greek ideas into kalām, Muslim theologians picked up the discourse of classical philosophy in Islam (falsafa) and began to produce books in the tradition of Plato, Aristotle, and Avicenna—a new and oft-misunderstood genre they called “ḥikma"—in which they left aside theological concerns. They wrote in both genres, kalām and ḥikma, and the same writers argued for opposing teachings on the nature of God, the world’s creation, and the afterlife depending on the genre in which they were writing. Griffel shows how careful attention to genre demonstrates both the coherence and ambiguity of this new philosophical approach.
A work of extraordinary breadth and depth, "The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam" offers a detailed, insightful history of philosophy in Iraq, Iran, and Central Asia during the twelfth century. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of philosophy or the history of Islam.
This is the Arabic translation of my 2009 book "Al-Ghazālī's Philosophical Theology." Mariam M. S... more This is the Arabic translation of my 2009 book "Al-Ghazālī's Philosophical Theology." Mariam M. Shehata did a marvelous job in translating the book from English into Arabic. That's not an easy task, given that the book itself contains many translations from Arabic into English that need to be replaced with the original Arabic texts and the translation needs to adapt to that. I am very grateful to Mariam.
Den Islam Denken. Versuch, eine Religion zu verstehen. [Was soll das alles?] Stuttgart: Reclam Verlag, 2018
Was ist das eigentlich: »Islam« – handelt es sich um eine Religion wie das Christentum, die ähnli... more Was ist das eigentlich: »Islam« – handelt es sich um eine Religion wie das Christentum, die ähnlich von Auseinandersetzungen mit der weltlichen Macht und der Vernunft geprägt wurde? Gibt es im Islam einen Konflikt zwischen Glauben und Wissen? Hat der Islam eine Reformation versäumt und sollte sie nachholen? Wie kann man über islamistisch geprägte Anschläge anders denken, als dass es Racheakte von fanatischen Glaubenskriegern sind, die mit Ideen aus dem islamischen Mittelalter einer Gehirnwäsche unterzogen wurden? Oder haben diese Fragen letztlich nichts mit dem Islam an sich zu tun, sondern eher mit Sichtweisen des Westens?
Für eine Leseprobe, klicken Sie bitte auf den Link unter "Files" (siehe oben) und gehen Sie auf der Reclam-Webseite des Buches zu "Leseprobe."
Al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) is one of the most influential thinkers of Islam. There is hardly a genr... more Al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) is one of the most influential thinkers of Islam. There is hardly a genre of Islamic literature where he is not regarded as a major authority. Islamic Law, Sufism, ethics, philosophy, and theology are all deeply shaped by him. Yet in the past thirty years, the field of Ghazālī-studies has been shaken by the realization that Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, d. 428/1037) and other philosophers had a strong influence on him. Now, after the 900th anniversary at his death, the field emerges stronger than ever. This second volume of Islam and Rationality: The Impact of al-Ghazālī brings together twelve leading experts on al-Ghazālī who write about his thought and the impact it had on later Muslim thinkers.
Contributors are: Anna Ayşe Akasoy, Ahmed El Shamsy, Kenneth Garden, Frank Griffel, Jules Janssens, Damien Janos, Taneli Kukkonen, Stephen Ogden, M. Sait Özervarlı, Martin Riexinger, Ulrich Rudolph, and Ayman Shihadeh.
Al-Gazali (d. 1111) is considered to be one of the most prominent and influential Muslim thinkers... more Al-Gazali (d. 1111) is considered to be one of the most prominent and influential Muslim thinkers and scholars of the Islamic scholarly tradition. His works cover a wide range of topics, disciplines, and their corresponding discourses. Many of his works are still discussed and deemed relevant today, dealing with matters such as philosophy, speculative theology, kalam, fiqh, and usul al-fiqh, as well as with questions of ethics, logic and tasawwuf. The present volume aptly demonstrates the depth and diversity of scholarly debates about al-Gazali. In five distinct chapters headed "Al-Gazali Reflected through Time and Religions," "Al-Gazali and Islam and Science in Dialogue," "Al-Gazali and kalam and tasawwuf," "Truth, Logic, Qur'an and al-Gazali" and "Al-Gazali and Scholarship and Philosophy", ten authors take a variety of approaches and perspectives to further examine and provide new and original insights.
Al-Gazali (gest. 1111) gilt als einer der einflussreichsten und wirkmächtigsten unten den von der islamischen Wissenschaftstradition hervorgebrachten muslimischen Denkern und Gelehrten. Seine Forschungen umfassten weite Felder mit Bezügen zu einer Vielzahl von Disziplinen und den dazugehörigen Diskursen. Viele seiner Werke werden noch heute rezipiert und befassen sich mit Philosophie, spekulativer Theologie, kalam, dem fiqh und usul al-fiqh, bis hin zu Fragestellungen von Ethik, Logik und dem tasawwuf. Diese Mannigfaltigkeit spiegelt sich in der wissenschaftlichen Auseinandersetzung mit al-Gazali wider, wie der vorliegende Band aufzuzeigen vermag.
This is the Turkish translation of my book "Al-Ghazali's Philosophical Theology," which has come ... more This is the Turkish translation of my book "Al-Ghazali's Philosophical Theology," which has come out in December 2012 with Klasik Yayınları in Istanbul. I am very grateful to Mehmet Cüneyt Kaya, the editor of the series "İslam Felsefesi Dizisi," and İbrahim Halil Üçer as well as Muhammed Fatih Kılıç, the two translators of the book.
Here is the text of the Turkish blurb:
Gazâlî, İslâm düşünce tarihinin en dikkat çekici isimlerinden birisidir. Onun kelâm, felsefe, tasavvuf ve fıkıh gibi disiplinlerin tarihinde bir dönüm noktası teşkil ettiği, hatta eserleriyle İslam toplumlarının dini algılayış ve yaşayışlarında da derin izler bıraktığı, bilinen bir gerçektir. Etkileyici hayat hikâyesiyle o, zihinlere, ömrü boyunca hakikatin peşinde koşmaktan vazgeçmeyen bir entelektüel, tarih boyunca filozoflara yöneltilmiş en derinlikli eleştiriyi kaleme almış bir kelâmcı, dinî ilimlere diriltici bir ruh üflemek için uğraşan bir âlim ve tasavvufun sunduğu ilim-amel/bilgi-eylem birlikteliğinden derinden etkilenen bir sûfî olarak kazınmıştır.
Frank Griffel’ın Gazâlî’nin Felsefî Kelâmı adlı eseri, onun bu çok yönlü entelektüel birikimini, kozmolojiye dair öğretilerini merkeze alarak ustalıkla incelemekte. Griffel, Gazâlî’nin hayatı, ilmî mirası ve yorum yöntemi ile âlemin yaratılışı, ilahî, insanî ve tabiî nedensellik hakkındaki görüşlerini hayranlık uyandıracak bir titizlikte ele almakla kalmamakta, bu konularda Batılı ilim çevrelerinde hâkim olan yanlış anlamaları sorgulayarak Gazâlî gibi önemli ve etkileyici bir düşünüre dair tutarlı ve incelikli bir resim sunmayı da başarmaktadır.
""One of the most extensive and insightful studies of al-Ghazali ever undertaken... Griffel's boo... more ""One of the most extensive and insightful studies of al-Ghazali ever undertaken... Griffel's book is a veritable tour de force that will remain a benchmark in Ghazalian studies for a long time to come."
--Jon Hoover, University of Nottingham, in Theological Review.
"[An] excellent new study on Abu Hamid al-Ghazali's thought, easily the most comprehensive to date (...)."
-- Eric L. Ormsby, Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, in Journal of Shia Islamic Studies.
"Fascinating (...) Griffel's book is provocative, comprehensive, and valuable."
--Mohammad Hassan Khalil, Michigan State University, in Review of Middle East Studies.
"Masterly... I strongly recommend this book to every student of Arabic intellectual history."
--Damien Janos, Göttingen University, in Journal of the American Oriental Society.
"This work of historical theology is essential reading for those wanting to understand with new depth and clarity the life and teachings of al-Ghazali."
--Martin Whittingham, Regent's Park College, Oxford, in The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences.
"... a major contribution to the study of al-Ghazali, both his life and his thought. (...) It may be hoped that this book will receive the attention it deserves and may offer as well an opportunity to futher studies on one of the greatest thinkers of Islam."
-- Jules Jansses, De Wulf-Mansionscentrum, Leuven, in Muslim World.
"This work is a detailed examination of Al-Ghazali's position with respect to Greek science and philosophy as it was presented to the Muslim world in the works of Avicenna. In making this examination the author has been able to correct certain misconceptions about Al-Ghazali which have long been held by some Western scholars."
--Nicholas Heer, Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, University of Washington, Seattle.
"Frank Griffel's new book is a lucid synthesis of the latest scholarship on al-Ghazali's life and legacy, his interpretive method and his ideas about the world's creation and about divine, human and natural causality. Griffel succeeds in presenting a coherent and nuanced picture of the cosmology of this complex thinker, who was both a scholar of jurisprudence and a mystic, both a critic of philosophy and a philosophical theologian."
--Robert Wisnovsky, Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University."
"Das besondere an dieser Ausgabe von Frank Griffel ist einmal die Kommentierung von einem der ein... more "Das besondere an dieser Ausgabe von Frank Griffel ist einmal die Kommentierung von einem der eine umfassende Monographie dazu geschrieben hat. Das ist Wissenschaft auf bestem Stand und verständlich. Das zweite ist die hervorragende Geschichte, wie der Text des Ibn Ruschd aufgenommen bzw. abgelehnt wurde. (...) In Übersetzung, Kommentaren zu den einzelnen Stellen und einer einmaligen, oft verblüffenden Rezeptionsgeschichte liegt die Stärke dieser Ausgabe von Frank Griffel." -- Christoph Auffarth, Professor für Religionswissenschaft, Universität Bremen, on rpi-virtuell.net
“… a major contribution to the history of Islamic thought. (…) Most welcome is the systematic tra... more “… a major contribution to the history of Islamic thought. (…) Most welcome is the systematic tracing of the development of the relation between the judgement that a person is an unbeliever and his exclusion from Islam. The work is well decumented by reference to a plethora of sources and secondary literature. It should be on the desk of every student of Islam.” -- Michael Schwarz, Tel Aviv University, in Jerusalem Studies of Arabic and Islam (JSAI).
“… an important, most valuable book, a pioneering work that focuses attention on a very difficult issue—a considerable achievement of great value to the scholarly community.” -- Jules Janssens, De Wulf-Mansionscentrum, Leuven, in Journal of Islamic Studies
“Il existe assez peu de travaux préliminaires sur l’appartenance à la communauté de foi en Islam en relation avec le développement des critères de l’apostasie, problèmes qui ne sont pas rapport avec la situation de la philosophie en Islam. Au centre du débat, se trouvent la position ou les positions d’Algazel face à la philosophie et les réactions des philosophes à son endroit, comme l’a bien compris F. Griffel dans un ouvrage qui ne passera pas inaperçu (…).” -- Claude Gilliot, Université d’Aix-Marseille, in Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques
"Frank Griffel legt die 'Kriterium'-Schrift jetzt unter dem Titel 'Über Rechtgläubigkeit und Tole... more "Frank Griffel legt die 'Kriterium'-Schrift jetzt unter dem Titel 'Über Rechtgläubigkeit und Toleranz' erstmals in einer deutschen Übersetzung und mit einem ebenso gelehrten wie informativen Kommentar vor– eine Ausgabe, die helfen kann einen seinerseits fundamentalistischen westlichen Antifundamentalismus abzubauen." -- Ludger Lütkehaus in der Neuen Züricher Zeitung
Table of Contents:
1) Introduction by Frank Griffel
2) Gudrun Krämer: Justice in Modern Islamic... more Table of Contents:
1) Introduction by Frank Griffel 2) Gudrun Krämer: Justice in Modern Islamic Thought 3) Frank Griffel: The Harmony of Natural Law and Shari’a in Islamist Theology 4) Felicitas Opwis: Islamic Law and Legal Change: The Concept of Maṣlaḥa in Classical and Contemporary Legal Theory 5) David L. Johnston: ʿAllāl al-Fāsī: Shari’a as Blueprint for Righteous Global Citizenship 6) Noah Feldman: Shari’a and Islamic Democracy in the Age of al-Jazeera 7) Abbas Amanat: From ijtihād to wilāyat al-faqīh : The Evolution of the Shi’ite Authority to Political Power 8) Shahrough Akhavi: Shi’ite Theories of Social Contract 9) Saïd Amir Arjomand: Shari’a and Constitution in Iran: A Historical Perspective 10) Anna Würth: The Normativity of the Factual On the Every Day Construction of Shari’a in a Yemeni Family Court 11) Roy Mottahedeh: Afterword
Diversität im Islam. Die vergessene Botschaft, hrsg. von Zekirija Seijdini, Wiesbaden: SpringerVS, 2023, S. 35–57.), 2023
Was man in deutschsprachigen Lehrbüchern der Philosophiegeschichte über die philosophischen Aktiv... more Was man in deutschsprachigen Lehrbüchern der Philosophiegeschichte über die philosophischen Aktivitäten von Muslimen, Arabern, Persern oder Türken lesen kann, ist schnell zusammengefasst. In vielen Fällen nämlich gar nichts. In diesem Artikel versuche ich die Ergebnisse meines 2021 erschienenen Buches "The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam" kurz und bündig (und mit vielen Auslassungen) auf Deutsch darzustellen. Darin geht es vor allem darum, "nach-klassische Philosophie im Islam vorzustellen und zu erklären, was es ist und wie sie funktioniert. Ich hoffe, der Text ist für Einführungskurse geeignet.
From: "The Popularization of Philosophy in Medieval Islam, Judaism, and Christianity," ed. Mareike Abram, Steven Harvey, and Lukas Muhlethaler (Thurnhout [Belgium]: Brepols, 2022), 379–88.
This is my contribution to a conference on the popularization of philosophy in the Middle Ages, c... more This is my contribution to a conference on the popularization of philosophy in the Middle Ages, convened at Freie Universität Berlin, in July 2016.
Penser avec Avicenne. De l'héritage grec à la réception latine: un état de la recherche en hommage à Jules Janssens, ed. Daniel De Smet and Meryem Sebti, Leuven (Belgium): Peeters Publishers. 193–229., 2022
Preserved in what seems to be a unique manuscript at the Bodleian Library, al-Nafs wa-l-rūḥ wa-sh... more Preserved in what seems to be a unique manuscript at the Bodleian Library, al-Nafs wa-l-rūḥ wa-sharḥ quwāhumā (The Soul and the Spirit together with an Explanation of Their Faculties) of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210) is a curious book. At the beginning, the author decribes the text as part of the philosophical sciences (as opposed to the religious ones) and clarifies that it deals with ʿilm al-akhlāq, meaning Aristotelian virtue ethics. The text is divided into two parts, the first explaining subjects of philosophical psychology, such as the nature of the soul, its faculties, and its survival after the death of the body. The second part explains how one can “treat” or “heal” the soul from certain negative character traits or vices. In both parts, the book makes liberal use of quotations from the Qur’an, from prophetical ḥadīth, and from sayings by other prophets and sages. This is quite unlike any other “book on philosophy” that Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī wrote.
The article explains the distinction between philosophical and non-philosophical books in Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and what it means for a book to belong to the former group. Al-Rāzī’s works in the theoretical fields of philosophy (logic, the natural sciences, metaphysics, and theology) do not use evidence derived from revelation and hardly ever refer to it. The relationship between revelation and the practical disciplines of philosophy (among them ethics), however, is different from the relation between revelation and theoretical philosophy. This difference leads in Avicenna to an almost complete abandonment of the practical disciplines. In authors who follow Avicenna in his Farabian approach to the relationship between philosophy and revelation it leads to hybrid works such as al-Nafs wa-l-rūḥ wa-sharḥ quwāhumā that follow a philosophical agenda but employ means and strategies that mimic and imitate revelation.
In: "Maimonides' 'Guide of the Perplexed' in Translation. A History from the Thirteenth Century to the Twentieth." Edited by Josef Stern, James T. Robinson, and Yonatan Shemesh. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019. 403–27., 2019
In: Studying the Near and Middle East at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, 1935-2018. Edited by Sabine Schmidtke. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2018.
This paper offers a preview into some of the results of my forthcoming monograph study "The Forma... more This paper offers a preview into some of the results of my forthcoming monograph study "The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam," to be published with Oxford University Press some time in 2020. Here, I focus on the distinction between books of "hikma" and those of "kalam" among the works of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 606/1210) and I suggest that these are two distinct genres, each with its own rules and that books of hikma come to quite different conclusions about central subjects of research (such as God's nature) than books of kalam. Given that Fakhr al-Din lets both books stand by themselves, I conclude that he held both results for cum-possible. More about this in my forthcoming book.
With a view of the 1277 Paris condemnation of 219 teachings, I suggest that the double-truth theory that Bishop Tempier hints at in the introduction of that document describes the philosophy of Fakhr al-Din much more accurately than that of Averroes.
Ibn Taymiyya’s (d. 728/1328) harsh polemics and his polarizing attitude toward disputes with his ... more Ibn Taymiyya’s (d. 728/1328) harsh polemics and his polarizing attitude toward disputes with his opponents pose obstacles for identifying similarities between their positions and the ones that he holds. This article wishes to shed light on two important issues connected with Ibn Taymiyya’s "Rejecting the Notion That Revelation and Reason Contradict Each Other" ("Dar’ ta’aruḍ al-‘aql wa-l-naql"). The first is the position that Ibn Taymiyya is arguing against in the initial passages of this book. Given that it presents itself as a work of refutation (radd), what exactly is it trying to refute at the outset? The second is the position Ibn Taymiyya develops in response to the views he rejects. The two questions are closely connected and have - despite several attempts - not yet received a satisfactory answer in the available secondary literature. One of the results of this study is that Ibn Taymiyya’s own position on the relationship between reason and revelation shows very significant similarities with that of his Ashʿarite opponents. Another result of this paper is the insight that Ibn Taymiyya’s reception of and his reaction to the Ashʿarite position on the priority of reason over revelation leads him into a circular argument about the authority of reason and revelation.
For a long time, the Western academic study of Islam could not escape making implicit comparisons... more For a long time, the Western academic study of Islam could not escape making implicit comparisons between its own religions, culture, and "civilization" and that of Islam.One would think that the events of September 11, 2001, and the polarization that followed—including the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now in Syria—only aggravated that situation.But the opposite is true. Among the generation of scholars of Islam who matured in the West after 9/11 are some who reached a new level in a project that earlier scholars in their field had already demanded: trying to understand Islam on its own terms. The two books reviewed here are thus far the two most outstanding examples of that development. Neither of them ever uses the word "decline." Unlike Ahmed, who only discusses academic voices, Bauer also deals with popular notions in politics and culture and hence is a much more polemical—and less well-structured and well-argued— engagement with Western views on Islam than Ahmed's. In the end, however, Bauer produces a more convincing approach to Islam in its post-classical period than Ahmed.
"Islam and Rationality. The Impact of al-Ghazālī. Papers Collected on His 900th Anniversary." Vol. 1. Edited by Georges Tamer. Leiden: Brill, 2015. 89–120.
"Islam and Rationality. The Impact of al-Ghazali. Papers Collected on His 900th Anniversary." Vol. 2. Edited by Frank Griffel. Leiden: Brill, 2016, pp. vii–xv.
Whereas Western scholars of al-Ghazali of the 19th and early 20th centuries demonized him as an e... more Whereas Western scholars of al-Ghazali of the 19th and early 20th centuries demonized him as an enemy of philosophy trying to destroy it, Muslim modernists in India (Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Shibli Nu'mani) had a very different understanding of al-Ghazālī's intellectual contribution to Islam. Their view, in fact, matches quite remarcably the perspective of those Western Ghazali-scholars who have been active since R. M. Frank and the 1990s.
In 2010, the editors of an important new edition of al-Ghazālī's Ihyaʾ ʿulūm al-dīn claimed that ... more In 2010, the editors of an important new edition of al-Ghazālī's Ihyaʾ ʿulūm al-dīn claimed that MS Yale, Landberg 318, contains an ijaza written by the hand of al-Ghazālī. Naturally, I was very much intrigued when I first read this in a bookstore in Doha, Qatar. In a stone-throw's distance from my office at Yale is the only known material witness of al-Ghazālī's life? Here I look into this claim and assess its credibility.
In contemporary academic literature, the word “Salafī” has a variety of meanings. Most importantl... more In contemporary academic literature, the word “Salafī” has a variety of meanings. Most importantly, Western academic literature of the 20th and 21st centuries applies the word to (1) an Islamic reform movement founded by Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī (d. 1897) and Muḥammad ʿAbduh (1849–1905) in the last decades of the 19th century and (2) to contemporary Sunni reform movements that criticize manifestations of Sunni Islam which are based on Sufism, Ashʿarism, and traditional madhhab-affiliations to the Shāfiʿī, Ḥanafī, and Mālikī schools. In a 2010-article Henri Lauzière argued that the use of the word “Salafī” to describe these two movements is an equivocation based on a mistake. While the movement of contemporary Salafīs may be rightfully called by that name, al-Afghānī and ʿAbduh never used the term. Only Western scholars of the 1920s and 30s, most importantly Louis Massignon (1883–1962), called this latter movement “salafī”. This paper reevaluates the evidence presented by Lauzière and argues that Massignon did not make a mistake. The paper describes analytically both reform movements and draws the conclusion that there is a historic continuity that justifies calling them both “salafī”. The paper draws an analogy from the use of the word “socialist” in European political history, which first applied to a wider movement of the late 19th century before its use was contested and narrowed down in the course of the 20th.
Fakhr al-Din Muhammad ibn ‘Umar al-Razi (b. c. 1149–d. 1210) was one of the most important philos... more Fakhr al-Din Muhammad ibn ‘Umar al-Razi (b. c. 1149–d. 1210) was one of the most important philosophers and theologians of the post-classical period of Islam, that is, the period after al-Ghazali (d. 1111). In philosophy, Fakhr al-Din rearranged the structure of the philosophical summa in the Islamic East and thus also the curriculum of philosophical studies. His work completes the process of integrating the discourse of Aristotelian philosophy (falsafa) into Muslim rationalist theology (kalam), a process that began with the works of Ibn Sina (Avicenna, d. 1037). Original in his own thinking, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi was influenced by the systematic philosophy of Ibn Sina but developed an alternative that aimed at avoiding philosophical realism and essentialism. In theology he adopted teachings of Ibn Sina and “the falasifa” (meaning the teachings of Ibn Sina and his followers) and did not shy away from accepting suggestions made by Mu’tazilite authorities, particularly Abu Husayn al-Basri (d. 1044) and his successors. Fakhr al-Din’s works were widely studied, particularly during the 13th and 14th centuries. His commentaries on Ibn Sina’s works, in which he often keeps a critical distance to falsafa, became the subject of super-commentaries that are among the most influential texts in Arabic philosophy and Islamic theology. Even more influential, however, was his monumental Qur’an commentary Mafatih al-ghayb (Keys to the unknown), in which, through a well-structured rationalist analysis, he aims at resolving most questions that are brought up in the text of revelation. With the caveat that the study of post-classical Muslim philosophy and theology is not far advanced, we can nevertheless say that Fakhr al-Din al-Razi was the most influential theologian in the period between 1150 and 1450 and the most influential writer of philosophy within the Ash’arite tradi
The Shi’ah Institute in London arranged the publication of an English translation of one of the m... more The Shi’ah Institute in London arranged the publication of an English translation of one of the most popular Iranian textbooks of the Avicennan tradition of metaphysics in Islam. First printed in Persian in 1956, Mahdī Ḥaʾirī Yazdī’s Universal Science gives an un-contextualized presentation of the most important discussions that happened within Avicennan metaphysics since its inception in the 11th century.
Eines der umstrittensten Themen in Bezug auf den Islam ist die Apostasie - also der Abfall vom Gl... more Eines der umstrittensten Themen in Bezug auf den Islam ist die Apostasie - also der Abfall vom Glauben. Nach Auffassung von Hardlinern nicht nur bei Terrorgruppen wie dem IS kann man den Islam nicht verlassen. Wer es doch tut, muss ihnen zufolge mit dem Tod bestraft werden. Frank Griffel, Professor an der Yale University in den USA, erklärt für den Deutschlandfunk einen der einschlägigen Koranvers.
The conference brings new perspectives to Islamic discourses on ethics during the pre-modern peri... more The conference brings new perspectives to Islamic discourses on ethics during the pre-modern period across the disciplines of law, theology, philosophy, and adab. While ethics is defined in broad terms to encompass various scholarly discussions of morality, the conference adopts a contextualist approach to address the following issue: How did scholars think about ethics in their conception of the divine discourse on morality in light of the contingent nature of human reality? Earlier emic approaches to Islamic law led many to declare its literalist tendency an obstacle to rationalist ethics (as espoused, for example, by the Mu‘tazilite theologians, and by the philosophers). Exploring the question of contingency in Islamic ethics is predicated upon new findings in Islamic theories of law which not only underline jurists’ contextualist approaches to producing norms, but also the epistemological grounds of the theories which accommodate contingency (Johansen, Hallaq, Zysow, Gleave). In fact, in his recent work, Die Kultur der Ambiguität, Thomas Bauer has drawn attention to the complexity of Islamic normative discourses, depicting the tolerance of ambiguity as a key feature in the argumentation deployed in the production of the communally accepted in Islam. Evidently, these perspectives make room for adopting a contextualist approach to ethics; they help us overcome the tired opposition between scripturalism and rationalism as the only authoritative approaches to normativity in Islam.
Taking as central to its methodology Bauer’s perspectives, along with the contextual ethics of casuistry put forward by Jonsin and Toulmin in The Abuse of Casuistry, the conference is intended to explore further and more widely the contingency of ethical discourses in Islam. More specifically, discussions will include articulations of moral discourse in legal reasoning and argumentation, theological discussions of theodicy and divine command theories, the epistemology behind collecting moral knowledge in hadith collections, adab, aphoristic literature, rhetorical speeches and sermons, epistemological and ontological claims on morality, the reception of Aristotelian corrective philosophy of ethics and discussion of virtues. The conference will also serve to identify new questions, answers to which could give substance to the notion of the flexibility of norms across Islamic ethical discourses. Questions are to be answered from the perspective of each discipline, and speakers will be asked to reflect on the philosophical and theological implications that can be drawn. Comparative perspectives across the various Islamic sciences are especially encouraged.
Uploads
Books by Frank Griffel
The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam is a comprehensive study of the far-reaching changes that led to a re-shaping of the philosophical discourse in Islam during the twelfth century. Earlier Western scholars thought that Islam’s engagement with the tradition of Greek philosophy ended during that century. More recent analyses suggest that Islamic thinkers instead integrated Greek thought into the genre of rationalist Muslim theology (kalām). Griffel argues that even this new view misses a key point. In addition to the integration of Greek ideas into kalām, Muslim theologians picked up the discourse of classical philosophy in Islam (falsafa) and began to produce books in the tradition of Plato, Aristotle, and Avicenna—a new and oft-misunderstood genre they called “ḥikma"—in which they left aside theological concerns. They wrote in both genres, kalām and ḥikma, and the same writers argued for opposing teachings on the nature of God, the world’s creation, and the afterlife depending on the genre in which they were writing. Griffel shows how careful attention to genre demonstrates both the coherence and ambiguity of this new philosophical approach.
A work of extraordinary breadth and depth, "The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam" offers a detailed, insightful history of philosophy in Iraq, Iran, and Central Asia during the twelfth century. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of philosophy or the history of Islam.
Für eine Leseprobe, klicken Sie bitte auf den Link unter "Files" (siehe oben) und gehen Sie auf der Reclam-Webseite des Buches zu "Leseprobe."
Contributors are: Anna Ayşe Akasoy, Ahmed El Shamsy, Kenneth Garden, Frank Griffel, Jules Janssens, Damien Janos, Taneli Kukkonen, Stephen Ogden, M. Sait Özervarlı, Martin Riexinger, Ulrich Rudolph, and Ayman Shihadeh.
Al-Gazali (gest. 1111) gilt als einer der einflussreichsten und wirkmächtigsten unten den von der islamischen Wissenschaftstradition hervorgebrachten muslimischen Denkern und Gelehrten. Seine Forschungen umfassten weite Felder mit Bezügen zu einer Vielzahl von Disziplinen und den dazugehörigen Diskursen. Viele seiner Werke werden noch heute rezipiert und befassen sich mit Philosophie, spekulativer Theologie, kalam, dem fiqh und usul al-fiqh, bis hin zu Fragestellungen von Ethik, Logik und dem tasawwuf. Diese Mannigfaltigkeit spiegelt sich in der wissenschaftlichen Auseinandersetzung mit al-Gazali wider, wie der vorliegende Band aufzuzeigen vermag.
Here is the text of the Turkish blurb:
Gazâlî, İslâm düşünce tarihinin en dikkat çekici isimlerinden birisidir. Onun kelâm, felsefe, tasavvuf ve fıkıh gibi disiplinlerin tarihinde bir dönüm noktası teşkil ettiği, hatta eserleriyle İslam toplumlarının dini algılayış ve yaşayışlarında da derin izler bıraktığı, bilinen bir gerçektir. Etkileyici hayat hikâyesiyle o, zihinlere, ömrü boyunca hakikatin peşinde koşmaktan vazgeçmeyen bir entelektüel, tarih boyunca filozoflara yöneltilmiş en derinlikli eleştiriyi kaleme almış bir kelâmcı, dinî ilimlere diriltici bir ruh üflemek için uğraşan bir âlim ve tasavvufun sunduğu ilim-amel/bilgi-eylem birlikteliğinden derinden etkilenen bir sûfî olarak kazınmıştır.
Frank Griffel’ın Gazâlî’nin Felsefî Kelâmı adlı eseri, onun bu çok yönlü entelektüel birikimini, kozmolojiye dair öğretilerini merkeze alarak ustalıkla incelemekte. Griffel, Gazâlî’nin hayatı, ilmî mirası ve yorum yöntemi ile âlemin yaratılışı, ilahî, insanî ve tabiî nedensellik hakkındaki görüşlerini hayranlık uyandıracak bir titizlikte ele almakla kalmamakta, bu konularda Batılı ilim çevrelerinde hâkim olan yanlış anlamaları sorgulayarak Gazâlî gibi önemli ve etkileyici bir düşünüre dair tutarlı ve incelikli bir resim sunmayı da başarmaktadır.
--Jon Hoover, University of Nottingham, in Theological Review.
"[An] excellent new study on Abu Hamid al-Ghazali's thought, easily the most comprehensive to date (...)."
-- Eric L. Ormsby, Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, in Journal of Shia Islamic Studies.
"Fascinating (...) Griffel's book is provocative, comprehensive, and valuable."
--Mohammad Hassan Khalil, Michigan State University, in Review of Middle East Studies.
"Masterly... I strongly recommend this book to every student of Arabic intellectual history."
--Damien Janos, Göttingen University, in Journal of the American Oriental Society.
"This work of historical theology is essential reading for those wanting to understand with new depth and clarity the life and teachings of al-Ghazali."
--Martin Whittingham, Regent's Park College, Oxford, in The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences.
"... a major contribution to the study of al-Ghazali, both his life and his thought. (...) It may be hoped that this book will receive the attention it deserves and may offer as well an opportunity to futher studies on one of the greatest thinkers of Islam."
-- Jules Jansses, De Wulf-Mansionscentrum, Leuven, in Muslim World.
"This work is a detailed examination of Al-Ghazali's position with respect to Greek science and philosophy as it was presented to the Muslim world in the works of Avicenna. In making this examination the author has been able to correct certain misconceptions about Al-Ghazali which have long been held by some Western scholars."
--Nicholas Heer, Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, University of Washington, Seattle.
"Frank Griffel's new book is a lucid synthesis of the latest scholarship on al-Ghazali's life and legacy, his interpretive method and his ideas about the world's creation and about divine, human and natural causality. Griffel succeeds in presenting a coherent and nuanced picture of the cosmology of this complex thinker, who was both a scholar of jurisprudence and a mystic, both a critic of philosophy and a philosophical theologian."
--Robert Wisnovsky, Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University."
-- Christoph Auffarth, Professor für Religionswissenschaft, Universität Bremen, on rpi-virtuell.net
-- Michael Schwarz, Tel Aviv University, in Jerusalem Studies of Arabic and Islam (JSAI).
“… an important, most valuable book, a pioneering work that focuses attention on a very difficult issue—a considerable achievement of great value to the scholarly community.”
-- Jules Janssens, De Wulf-Mansionscentrum, Leuven, in Journal of Islamic Studies
“Il existe assez peu de travaux préliminaires sur l’appartenance à la communauté de foi en Islam en relation avec le développement des critères de l’apostasie, problèmes qui ne sont pas rapport avec la situation de la philosophie en Islam. Au centre du débat, se trouvent la position ou les positions d’Algazel face à la philosophie et les réactions des philosophes à son endroit, comme l’a bien compris F. Griffel dans un ouvrage qui ne passera pas inaperçu (…).”
-- Claude Gilliot, Université d’Aix-Marseille, in Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques
-- Ludger Lütkehaus in der Neuen Züricher Zeitung
1) Introduction by Frank Griffel
2) Gudrun Krämer: Justice in Modern Islamic Thought
3) Frank Griffel: The Harmony of Natural Law and Shari’a in Islamist Theology
4) Felicitas Opwis: Islamic Law and Legal Change: The Concept of Maṣlaḥa in Classical and Contemporary Legal Theory
5) David L. Johnston: ʿAllāl al-Fāsī: Shari’a as Blueprint for Righteous Global Citizenship
6) Noah Feldman: Shari’a and Islamic Democracy in the Age of al-Jazeera
7) Abbas Amanat: From ijtihād to wilāyat al-faqīh : The Evolution of the Shi’ite Authority to Political Power
8) Shahrough Akhavi: Shi’ite Theories of Social Contract
9) Saïd Amir Arjomand: Shari’a and Constitution in Iran: A Historical Perspective
10) Anna Würth: The Normativity of the Factual On the Every Day Construction of Shari’a in a Yemeni Family Court
11) Roy Mottahedeh: Afterword
Papers by Frank Griffel
The article explains the distinction between philosophical and non-philosophical books in Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and what it means for a book to belong to the former group. Al-Rāzī’s works in the theoretical fields of philosophy (logic, the natural sciences, metaphysics, and theology) do not use evidence derived from revelation and hardly ever refer to it. The relationship between revelation and the practical disciplines of philosophy (among them ethics), however, is different from the relation between revelation and theoretical philosophy. This difference leads in Avicenna to an almost complete abandonment of the practical disciplines. In authors who follow Avicenna in his Farabian approach to the relationship between philosophy and revelation it leads to hybrid works such as al-Nafs wa-l-rūḥ wa-sharḥ quwāhumā that follow a philosophical agenda but employ means and strategies that mimic and imitate revelation.
With a view of the 1277 Paris condemnation of 219 teachings, I suggest that the double-truth theory that Bishop Tempier hints at in the introduction of that document describes the philosophy of Fakhr al-Din much more accurately than that of Averroes.
The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam is a comprehensive study of the far-reaching changes that led to a re-shaping of the philosophical discourse in Islam during the twelfth century. Earlier Western scholars thought that Islam’s engagement with the tradition of Greek philosophy ended during that century. More recent analyses suggest that Islamic thinkers instead integrated Greek thought into the genre of rationalist Muslim theology (kalām). Griffel argues that even this new view misses a key point. In addition to the integration of Greek ideas into kalām, Muslim theologians picked up the discourse of classical philosophy in Islam (falsafa) and began to produce books in the tradition of Plato, Aristotle, and Avicenna—a new and oft-misunderstood genre they called “ḥikma"—in which they left aside theological concerns. They wrote in both genres, kalām and ḥikma, and the same writers argued for opposing teachings on the nature of God, the world’s creation, and the afterlife depending on the genre in which they were writing. Griffel shows how careful attention to genre demonstrates both the coherence and ambiguity of this new philosophical approach.
A work of extraordinary breadth and depth, "The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam" offers a detailed, insightful history of philosophy in Iraq, Iran, and Central Asia during the twelfth century. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of philosophy or the history of Islam.
Für eine Leseprobe, klicken Sie bitte auf den Link unter "Files" (siehe oben) und gehen Sie auf der Reclam-Webseite des Buches zu "Leseprobe."
Contributors are: Anna Ayşe Akasoy, Ahmed El Shamsy, Kenneth Garden, Frank Griffel, Jules Janssens, Damien Janos, Taneli Kukkonen, Stephen Ogden, M. Sait Özervarlı, Martin Riexinger, Ulrich Rudolph, and Ayman Shihadeh.
Al-Gazali (gest. 1111) gilt als einer der einflussreichsten und wirkmächtigsten unten den von der islamischen Wissenschaftstradition hervorgebrachten muslimischen Denkern und Gelehrten. Seine Forschungen umfassten weite Felder mit Bezügen zu einer Vielzahl von Disziplinen und den dazugehörigen Diskursen. Viele seiner Werke werden noch heute rezipiert und befassen sich mit Philosophie, spekulativer Theologie, kalam, dem fiqh und usul al-fiqh, bis hin zu Fragestellungen von Ethik, Logik und dem tasawwuf. Diese Mannigfaltigkeit spiegelt sich in der wissenschaftlichen Auseinandersetzung mit al-Gazali wider, wie der vorliegende Band aufzuzeigen vermag.
Here is the text of the Turkish blurb:
Gazâlî, İslâm düşünce tarihinin en dikkat çekici isimlerinden birisidir. Onun kelâm, felsefe, tasavvuf ve fıkıh gibi disiplinlerin tarihinde bir dönüm noktası teşkil ettiği, hatta eserleriyle İslam toplumlarının dini algılayış ve yaşayışlarında da derin izler bıraktığı, bilinen bir gerçektir. Etkileyici hayat hikâyesiyle o, zihinlere, ömrü boyunca hakikatin peşinde koşmaktan vazgeçmeyen bir entelektüel, tarih boyunca filozoflara yöneltilmiş en derinlikli eleştiriyi kaleme almış bir kelâmcı, dinî ilimlere diriltici bir ruh üflemek için uğraşan bir âlim ve tasavvufun sunduğu ilim-amel/bilgi-eylem birlikteliğinden derinden etkilenen bir sûfî olarak kazınmıştır.
Frank Griffel’ın Gazâlî’nin Felsefî Kelâmı adlı eseri, onun bu çok yönlü entelektüel birikimini, kozmolojiye dair öğretilerini merkeze alarak ustalıkla incelemekte. Griffel, Gazâlî’nin hayatı, ilmî mirası ve yorum yöntemi ile âlemin yaratılışı, ilahî, insanî ve tabiî nedensellik hakkındaki görüşlerini hayranlık uyandıracak bir titizlikte ele almakla kalmamakta, bu konularda Batılı ilim çevrelerinde hâkim olan yanlış anlamaları sorgulayarak Gazâlî gibi önemli ve etkileyici bir düşünüre dair tutarlı ve incelikli bir resim sunmayı da başarmaktadır.
--Jon Hoover, University of Nottingham, in Theological Review.
"[An] excellent new study on Abu Hamid al-Ghazali's thought, easily the most comprehensive to date (...)."
-- Eric L. Ormsby, Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, in Journal of Shia Islamic Studies.
"Fascinating (...) Griffel's book is provocative, comprehensive, and valuable."
--Mohammad Hassan Khalil, Michigan State University, in Review of Middle East Studies.
"Masterly... I strongly recommend this book to every student of Arabic intellectual history."
--Damien Janos, Göttingen University, in Journal of the American Oriental Society.
"This work of historical theology is essential reading for those wanting to understand with new depth and clarity the life and teachings of al-Ghazali."
--Martin Whittingham, Regent's Park College, Oxford, in The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences.
"... a major contribution to the study of al-Ghazali, both his life and his thought. (...) It may be hoped that this book will receive the attention it deserves and may offer as well an opportunity to futher studies on one of the greatest thinkers of Islam."
-- Jules Jansses, De Wulf-Mansionscentrum, Leuven, in Muslim World.
"This work is a detailed examination of Al-Ghazali's position with respect to Greek science and philosophy as it was presented to the Muslim world in the works of Avicenna. In making this examination the author has been able to correct certain misconceptions about Al-Ghazali which have long been held by some Western scholars."
--Nicholas Heer, Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, University of Washington, Seattle.
"Frank Griffel's new book is a lucid synthesis of the latest scholarship on al-Ghazali's life and legacy, his interpretive method and his ideas about the world's creation and about divine, human and natural causality. Griffel succeeds in presenting a coherent and nuanced picture of the cosmology of this complex thinker, who was both a scholar of jurisprudence and a mystic, both a critic of philosophy and a philosophical theologian."
--Robert Wisnovsky, Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University."
-- Christoph Auffarth, Professor für Religionswissenschaft, Universität Bremen, on rpi-virtuell.net
-- Michael Schwarz, Tel Aviv University, in Jerusalem Studies of Arabic and Islam (JSAI).
“… an important, most valuable book, a pioneering work that focuses attention on a very difficult issue—a considerable achievement of great value to the scholarly community.”
-- Jules Janssens, De Wulf-Mansionscentrum, Leuven, in Journal of Islamic Studies
“Il existe assez peu de travaux préliminaires sur l’appartenance à la communauté de foi en Islam en relation avec le développement des critères de l’apostasie, problèmes qui ne sont pas rapport avec la situation de la philosophie en Islam. Au centre du débat, se trouvent la position ou les positions d’Algazel face à la philosophie et les réactions des philosophes à son endroit, comme l’a bien compris F. Griffel dans un ouvrage qui ne passera pas inaperçu (…).”
-- Claude Gilliot, Université d’Aix-Marseille, in Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques
-- Ludger Lütkehaus in der Neuen Züricher Zeitung
1) Introduction by Frank Griffel
2) Gudrun Krämer: Justice in Modern Islamic Thought
3) Frank Griffel: The Harmony of Natural Law and Shari’a in Islamist Theology
4) Felicitas Opwis: Islamic Law and Legal Change: The Concept of Maṣlaḥa in Classical and Contemporary Legal Theory
5) David L. Johnston: ʿAllāl al-Fāsī: Shari’a as Blueprint for Righteous Global Citizenship
6) Noah Feldman: Shari’a and Islamic Democracy in the Age of al-Jazeera
7) Abbas Amanat: From ijtihād to wilāyat al-faqīh : The Evolution of the Shi’ite Authority to Political Power
8) Shahrough Akhavi: Shi’ite Theories of Social Contract
9) Saïd Amir Arjomand: Shari’a and Constitution in Iran: A Historical Perspective
10) Anna Würth: The Normativity of the Factual On the Every Day Construction of Shari’a in a Yemeni Family Court
11) Roy Mottahedeh: Afterword
The article explains the distinction between philosophical and non-philosophical books in Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and what it means for a book to belong to the former group. Al-Rāzī’s works in the theoretical fields of philosophy (logic, the natural sciences, metaphysics, and theology) do not use evidence derived from revelation and hardly ever refer to it. The relationship between revelation and the practical disciplines of philosophy (among them ethics), however, is different from the relation between revelation and theoretical philosophy. This difference leads in Avicenna to an almost complete abandonment of the practical disciplines. In authors who follow Avicenna in his Farabian approach to the relationship between philosophy and revelation it leads to hybrid works such as al-Nafs wa-l-rūḥ wa-sharḥ quwāhumā that follow a philosophical agenda but employ means and strategies that mimic and imitate revelation.
With a view of the 1277 Paris condemnation of 219 teachings, I suggest that the double-truth theory that Bishop Tempier hints at in the introduction of that document describes the philosophy of Fakhr al-Din much more accurately than that of Averroes.
Taking as central to its methodology Bauer’s perspectives, along with the contextual ethics of casuistry put forward by Jonsin and Toulmin in The Abuse of Casuistry, the conference is intended to explore further and more widely the contingency of ethical discourses in Islam. More specifically, discussions will include articulations of moral discourse in legal reasoning and argumentation, theological discussions of theodicy and divine command theories, the epistemology behind collecting moral knowledge in hadith collections, adab, aphoristic literature, rhetorical speeches and sermons, epistemological and ontological claims on morality, the reception of Aristotelian corrective philosophy of ethics and discussion of virtues. The conference will also serve to identify new questions, answers to which could give substance to the notion of the flexibility of norms across Islamic ethical discourses. Questions are to be answered from the perspective of each discipline, and speakers will be asked to reflect on the philosophical and theological implications that can be drawn. Comparative perspectives across the various Islamic sciences are especially encouraged.