HADIS U DJELU ABŪ ḤĀMIDA AL-GAZĀLĪYA
THE HADITH IN THE WORKS OF ABŪ ḤĀMID AL-GAZĀLĪ

Summary/Abstract: Although Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālı̄ is one of the most important Islamic scholars in general, in the literature there are not seldom found the claims that his knowledge of Hadith was very poor, and that this was the reason why he in his most renowned work Iḥyā 'Ulūm ad-Dīn (The Revival of Religious Sciences) introduced a large number of weak and even apocryphal narratives/the texts of the oral reports, which on many issues distorted the original Islamic teaching. The fact is, however, different. Primarily, al-Ghazālı̄ emphasizes that the entire life of Muhammad, p.b.u.h., is normative and that we should follow him in all his activities that are familiar to us. In several of his works, al-Ghazālı̄ speaks very competently on various issues concerning the Hadith terminology and methodology, and also in the above mentioned work Iḥyā when considering the questions of 'Aqeedah (creed/beliefs) and Sharia law, he was high-principled when citing; besides the Qur'anic verses, only the authentic and reliable hadith were cited, and just in rare cases the weak ones, but never apocryphal ones. When considering other issues related to ethics, pedagogy and similar topics he was more liberal with the weak hadiths.

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