Ghazali's Politics in Context [Paperback]

Imam Ab? Hamid al-Ghazal1 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 Ghazal1 and aims to establish the extent to which this relationship explains Ghazal1s political theology.

Articles concerned with Ghazal1s 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 Ghazal1s politics takes into account his thinking on God, knowledge, law, and the Koran, in addition to political systems and ethics.

Yazeed Saidputs forward the convincing argument that if Ghazal1s 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.

Saids book is a valuable addition to the relatively small bookshelf on the political in al-Ghaz
l+s oeuvre. Its main contribution lies in the authors inclusion of texts and teachings that others involved in this debate have not yet considered. If more studies like this one appear, we may one day be able to offer a more contextualized analysis of Asharite political theory and check whether claims such as Anjums, that an elitist attitude to politics led to a crisis, are justified.

- Frank Griffel, Professor of Islamic Studies, Yl)