Gazzâlî’de Ruhun Tabiatı Tartışması: Maddi mi Gayri Maddi mi?
al-Ghazālī on the Nature of the Soul: Material or Immaterial?

Summary/Abstract: As one of the most influential Muslim thinkers al-Ghazālī’s thoughts on a number of important subjects are not entirely clear. The difficulty in determining his views is generally due to the differences observed between al-Ghazālī’s works. These differences are not only related to style but also manifest as al-Ghazālī’s defending contradictory views from time to time. The nature of the soul is one of them. In this paper, I will focus on the salient differences in his views on the nature of the soul in his different works, al-Iktisād fī’l-Itikād and some others. Al-Ghazālī seems to present conflicting views on the nature of the soul in his different works. On the one hand, in his work named al-Iktisād fī’l-Itikād, he states that the soul is an extended and material entity, while in other works he defends the opposite of this view and emphasizes that the soul is immaterial. This very fact has been the subject of an ongoing debate as to how to handle these apparent differences among the commentators of al-Ghazālī, such as Michael E. Marmura, Richard Frank, Timothy Gionatti, Ayman Shihadeh, Frank Griffel and others. After summarizing briefly the ongoing debate about what is taken to be al-Ghazālī’s real thoughts by the commentators on the issue within the purview of the abovementioned two books, I will offer some possible conciliatory remarks on his seemingly incoherent statements.

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