Ghazali's Politics in Context

Imam Ab Hamid al-Ghazal is perhaps the most celebrated Muslim theologian of medieval Islam yet little attention has been paid to his personal theology. This book sets out to investigate the relationship between law and politics in the writings of Ghazal and aims to establish the extent to which this relationship explains Ghazals political theology. Articles concerned with Ghazals political thought have invariably paid little attention to his theology and his thinking about God, neglecting to ask what role these have contributed to his definition of politics and political ethics. Here, the question of Ghazals politics takes into account his thinking on God, knowledge, law, and the Koran, in addition to political systems and ethics. Yazeed Said puts forward the convincing argument that if Ghazals legal and political epistemology provide a polemic analogous to his writings on philosophy, for which he is more famed, they would reveal to us a manifesto for an alternative order, concerned with a coherent definition of the community, or Ummah. This book will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of the Middle East, political theology and Islamic studies.