More on Ghazali - dehellenization

Pope Benedict XVI in his recent talks has referred to the dehellenization of the western intellectual tradition as a threat to its use for the capacity of reason.

This was precisely the goal of Imam al Ghazali in his Tahafut al Falasafiya (Incoherence of the Philosophers) and the Ihya Ulum al Din (Revival of Religious Sciences).

By eliminating the tradition of ontological and metaphysical speculation from the contex of Islam and reducing it on one hand to the process of legislation - fiqh, or theology (kalam) based only on Quran and hadith, the successive generations of Muslims became largely ignorant of anything outside the containments (limits) established by Ghazalian methods. (c.f. "Mr. Pope be within your limits" click here The term "limits" is a significant one in Islamic discourse, Quran 43:5 "Should we just ignore the fact that you have transgressed the limits?". By telling this to the Pope, these placard carriers tell us (non-Muslims) that we are not permitted nor qualified to discourse critically on the Quran, Muhammad or the Hadith or Islamic culture for that matter.

This dehellenization the elimination of the tools and methodology of Greek thought was sufficient to close the doors of natural science and medicine in the world of Islam for the past 800 years or so.

This then begs the question - what is so critical in the Greek patrimony that makes it a vital element of the Western tradition, one which made Islam for a brief period a classical civilization until its banishment?

Similarly, do we today witness a similar process in the secularization of Western thought starting with Kant and his "Critique of Pure Reason"? Does the Academy, especially in the US, consitute a similar threat to our cultural heritage by their adoption of irrational discourse in the forms of post modernism?

More on the irrationality of Al Ghazali and Immanuel Kant to come - Si Dios Quiere.