The Path to Allah: Taqleed (Tradition) according to Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali (505 AH)
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التقليد, التجديد, نظرية المعرفة, الفقه, علم الكلام Tradition, Renewal, Epistemology, Jurisprudence, Theology
Abstract
The research aims to understand Imam Al-Ghazali’s view of Taqleed, and what it entails in terms of knowledge of Allah, sound nature, upright upbringing, and belief in a certain idea, and how he searched for the truth through belief, and the role of this belief in life and its consequences. The research discusses this relationship, exploring the details related to it that Imam Al-Ghazali created during his thinking stage. It concludes that Al-Ghazali aimed to overcome doctrinal divisions by proposing the science of ‘The Path to the Afterlife’. To do this, he began by struggling against the committed position that prevailed within the schools, whether legal, theological or philosophical. This is particularly evident in his letters written before his book Ihya' Ulum Ad-Din (Revival of the Religious Sciences): the Sufi Path to the Science of the Afterlife that he would then promote until the end of his life, which is based on the science of transactions, and the science of revelation rooted in the theory of knowledge. Al-Ghazali’s discussion of the use of tradition is not limited to the fields of jurisprudence and theology but is linked to the foundations of his epistemological theory. He presents us with a different approach to ‘tradition’ depending on the nature of the knowledge studied and the psychology of the believer.
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