Ghafuri
Ghafuri (Mejid Ghafuri) (1881-1934). One of the best known national poets of the Bashkurt and Tatars.
Mejid Ghafuri see Ghafuri
Mejid Ghafuri see Ghafuri
Ghalib Dede
Ghalib Dede (1757-1799). Turkish poet. He was the last great exponent of the so-called diwan poetry. He owes his great fame mainly to his allegorical romance of mystic love, called “Beauty and Love.”
Dede, Ghalib see Ghalib Dede
Ghalib Dede (1757-1799). Turkish poet. He was the last great exponent of the so-called diwan poetry. He owes his great fame mainly to his allegorical romance of mystic love, called “Beauty and Love.”
Dede, Ghalib see Ghalib Dede
Ghalib ibn Sa‘sa‘a
Ghalib ibn Sa‘sa‘a. Father of the seventh century poet al-Farazdaq, famous for his generosity.
Ghalib ibn Sa‘sa‘a. Father of the seventh century poet al-Farazdaq, famous for his generosity.
Ghalib, Mirza Asad
Ghalib, Mirza Asad (Mirza Asad Ghalib) (Asadullah Khan Ghalib) (Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib) (Najm-ud-daulah Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan) (27 December 1797[1] — 15 February 1869).. One of the greatest Muslim poets of the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent. His letters reveal his keen interest in Persian grammar, lexicography, and stylistics. He can be regarded as the father of modern Urdu prose and as the master of ghazal, a form of tightly structured lyric poetry derived from Arabic and Persian models that tends toward romantic or mystical reflection.
Ghalib was born into an aristocratic family in Agra, India, and spent his childhood there. Married at the early age of 13, Ghalib soon thereafter moved to Delhi which was then the center of a remarkable intellectual renaissance. Ghalib became deeply attached to Delhi, and except for a period in Calcutta, remained there.
Ghalib had begun writing Urdu and Persian verse in his childhood. Up to 1857, most of Ghalib’s work was in Persian, and he always declared his Urdu verse to be beneath all comparison with his Persian. Nevertheless, it was Ghalib’s Urdu verse that has always been the basis of his poetic fame. His Urdu verse is written in the strict classical forms, but bears Ghalib’s individual stamp.
Ghalib’s verse is the first in classical Urdu poetry with an unmistakably modern tone. Ghalib himself foresaw that it might not be fully appreciated until after his death. Ghalib is today the one poet of Urdu whose popularity rivals that of Muhammad Iqbal.
An unyielding adherence to his own values, a humorous distrust of dogmas, and an ability to look at himself through others’ eyes were expressed in his verse as in his life. The well-known anecdotes of Ghalib recorded by his younger friend Hali in his Urdu work, Memoir of Ghalib, illuminate these qualities, and his cheerfully avowed laxity in religious matters. Although Ghalib reverenced God and Muhammad, he never fulfilled the more stringent requirements of Islam.
Proud of his Turkish ancestry and perfect command of Persian, Ghalib strove to live the life of a Mughal aristocrat in Delhi, even though his only income came from a patchwork of small pensions. For a time (1854-1857) he was court poet to Bahadur Shah Zafar. In Persian, Ghalib wrote brilliantly in the qasida (eulogy), ghazal, and other classical genres.
Ghalib was in Delhi throughout the revolt of 1857 and suffered deeply. Many of his friends, both British and Indian, lost their lives. To alleviate his loneliness, Ghalib began corresponding with his friends outside Delhi. His frank, self-revelatory letters written in irresistably readable Urdu were later published, the first volume appearing just before his death. Some commentators believe that the existence of these letters alone would have been sufficient to assure Ghalib’s fame.
Ghalib was a passionately intellectual poet, at times multifaceted and paradoxical, at others deceptively simple, but always ironic, humorous, and proud. Ghalib gave the Urdu ghazal a markedly cerebral turn, together with a sort of baroque verbal complexity. He alone among Urdu poets has inspired a whole tradition of explication and commentary. He has had no successful imitators, but no later poet has entirely escaped his influence. His ghazals are sung, read, and discussed throughout the Urdu speaking world.
Mirza Asad Ghalib see Ghalib, Mirza Asad
Asadullah Khan Ghalib see Ghalib, Mirza Asad
Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib see Ghalib, Mirza Asad
Najm-ud-daulah Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan see Ghalib, Mirza Asad
Ghalib, Mirza Asad (Mirza Asad Ghalib) (Asadullah Khan Ghalib) (Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib) (Najm-ud-daulah Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan) (27 December 1797[1] — 15 February 1869).. One of the greatest Muslim poets of the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent. His letters reveal his keen interest in Persian grammar, lexicography, and stylistics. He can be regarded as the father of modern Urdu prose and as the master of ghazal, a form of tightly structured lyric poetry derived from Arabic and Persian models that tends toward romantic or mystical reflection.
Ghalib was born into an aristocratic family in Agra, India, and spent his childhood there. Married at the early age of 13, Ghalib soon thereafter moved to Delhi which was then the center of a remarkable intellectual renaissance. Ghalib became deeply attached to Delhi, and except for a period in Calcutta, remained there.
Ghalib had begun writing Urdu and Persian verse in his childhood. Up to 1857, most of Ghalib’s work was in Persian, and he always declared his Urdu verse to be beneath all comparison with his Persian. Nevertheless, it was Ghalib’s Urdu verse that has always been the basis of his poetic fame. His Urdu verse is written in the strict classical forms, but bears Ghalib’s individual stamp.
Ghalib’s verse is the first in classical Urdu poetry with an unmistakably modern tone. Ghalib himself foresaw that it might not be fully appreciated until after his death. Ghalib is today the one poet of Urdu whose popularity rivals that of Muhammad Iqbal.
An unyielding adherence to his own values, a humorous distrust of dogmas, and an ability to look at himself through others’ eyes were expressed in his verse as in his life. The well-known anecdotes of Ghalib recorded by his younger friend Hali in his Urdu work, Memoir of Ghalib, illuminate these qualities, and his cheerfully avowed laxity in religious matters. Although Ghalib reverenced God and Muhammad, he never fulfilled the more stringent requirements of Islam.
Proud of his Turkish ancestry and perfect command of Persian, Ghalib strove to live the life of a Mughal aristocrat in Delhi, even though his only income came from a patchwork of small pensions. For a time (1854-1857) he was court poet to Bahadur Shah Zafar. In Persian, Ghalib wrote brilliantly in the qasida (eulogy), ghazal, and other classical genres.
Ghalib was in Delhi throughout the revolt of 1857 and suffered deeply. Many of his friends, both British and Indian, lost their lives. To alleviate his loneliness, Ghalib began corresponding with his friends outside Delhi. His frank, self-revelatory letters written in irresistably readable Urdu were later published, the first volume appearing just before his death. Some commentators believe that the existence of these letters alone would have been sufficient to assure Ghalib’s fame.
Ghalib was a passionately intellectual poet, at times multifaceted and paradoxical, at others deceptively simple, but always ironic, humorous, and proud. Ghalib gave the Urdu ghazal a markedly cerebral turn, together with a sort of baroque verbal complexity. He alone among Urdu poets has inspired a whole tradition of explication and commentary. He has had no successful imitators, but no later poet has entirely escaped his influence. His ghazals are sung, read, and discussed throughout the Urdu speaking world.
Mirza Asad Ghalib see Ghalib, Mirza Asad
Asadullah Khan Ghalib see Ghalib, Mirza Asad
Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib see Ghalib, Mirza Asad
Najm-ud-daulah Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan see Ghalib, Mirza Asad
Ghalzay
Ghalzay (Ghalji) (Ghilzai) (Ghilzay). Large western Afghan Pashto-speaking tribe between Qandahar and Ghazna.
The Ghilzais (also known as Ghiljies or Ghaljis) are the largest Pashtun tribe located mainly in southeastern Afghanistan, between Kandahar and Ghazni and extending eastwards towards the Suleiman Mountains into Pakistan where they can also be found in large numbers. They are the most populous Pashtun tribe in Afghanistan. They are largely nomads and so are often referred to as Kuchis, along with other nomadic groups.
One theory states that the name of the Ghilzai is derived from Khaldjī, meaning either "Son of Mountain " or "swordsman."
Another etymological tradition, disavowed by the Ghilzai for obvious reasons, is that the name comes from the Pashtun word for thief, ghal, and zay, which means "son of." The folk story is that the ancestor of the Ghilzai was a prince who either abducted or eloped with the daughter of a local ruler. The couple are identified as either Shah Hussain, a Ghurid prince, and Bibi Mato, a granddaughter of Qays Abdar Rasheed, the putative ancestor of all Pashtuns, or Mokarram Shah Hussain from Ghor, and the daughter of a Pashtun noble.
The Ghilzais are an Afghan tribe but their origins are not certain. They are reputed to be descended at least in part from the Khalaj or Khilji Turks, who entered Afghanistan in the 10th century, as well as the numerous other invaders from Central Asia and the Middle East who have entered Afghanistan over the centuries. According to Elphinstone, the Khilji, "though Turks by descent...had so long settled among the Afghans that they had almost identified with that people."
During the 14th and 15th centuries, various Ghilzai Afghan dynasties took control over vast areas of India. The Lodi Dynasty ruled over the Delhi Sultanate during its last phase. The dynasty, founded by Bahlul Khan Lodi ruled from 1451 to 1526 when the last Lodi ruler, Ibrahim Lodi died. Other Ghilzai dynasties included the Suri Dynasty which was founded by the powerful medieval conqueror, Sher Shah, who soundly defeated the Mughal Emperor Humayun in Chausa on June 26, 1539 and again in Bilgram on May 17, 1540.
When the Hotaki tribe revolted against Safavid rule under the leadership of Mir Wais Hotak, the Ghilzai came into loggerheads with their western neighbors. Mir Wais Hotak, the leader of the Hotakis, had visited the Persian court and understood their military weaknesses. The Pashtun tribes rankled under the ruling Safavids because of their continued attempts to convert the Pashtun from Sunni to Shia Islam. Spawning Afghan nationalism, Mirwais succeeded in expelling the Safavid Georgian Governor of Kandahar and assumed the post for himself. His eldest son, Mahmud, effected a successful invasion of Persia which culminated in the conquest of Isfahan and the deposition of the Safawi Shah Soltan Hosein. Mahmud was then crowned Shah and ruled for a brief period before being deposed by his own clansmen. His nephew and successor reigned for a brief period of four years before being killed by fellow Afghans, while fleeing towards Kandahar. The Safawi dynasty was then restored in the person of Soltan Hosein's only surviving son, Tahmasp II.
In more recent times, three of the communist presidents were Ghilzais, Nur Muhammad Taraki (of the Taraki tribe), Hafizullah Amin (of the Kharoti tribe), and Mohammed Najibullah (of the Ahmadzai tribe). Although the Khalq was dominated mostly by Ghilzais, many of the Mujahideen were also Ghilzais in the Soviet war in Afghanistan, including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Abdur Rasul Sayyaf.
In the 1990s, the Taliban leadership as well as rank and file were mostly composed of Ghilzais, along with Wazirs, which made them at odds with the Durrani tribe who are currently represented by the administration of President Hamid Karzai. The Ghilzais remain one of the largest and most prominent ethnic groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan and continue to enjoy considerable autonomy. Taliban leader Mohammed Omar also belongs to the Ghilzais.
The Ghilzais are concentrated in an area spanning Ghazni and Kalat-i-Ghilzai eastward into western Pakistan, but are predominantly a nomadic group unlike the Durranis who can be found in permanent settlements. They regularly cross over between the two countries often being exempted from customs due to the acceptance of their nomadic traditions by officials from both countries. Population estimates vary, but they are most likely around 20% to 25% of the population of Afghanistan and probably number over 9 million in Afghanistan alone with 4 million or more found in neighboring Pakistan. Most Ghilzais are Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school and are often devout to their faith and also follow the Pashtun code of honor known as Pashtunwali. Most Ghilzais work as herdsmen as well as construction workers and in other jobs that allow them to travel. Often possessing great mechanical aptitude, the Ghilzai nonetheless have an extremely low literacy rate hovering below 10%.
Ghalji see Ghalzay
Ghilzay see Ghalzay
Ghiljie see Ghalzay
Ghilzai see Ghalzay
Ghalzay (Ghalji) (Ghilzai) (Ghilzay). Large western Afghan Pashto-speaking tribe between Qandahar and Ghazna.
The Ghilzais (also known as Ghiljies or Ghaljis) are the largest Pashtun tribe located mainly in southeastern Afghanistan, between Kandahar and Ghazni and extending eastwards towards the Suleiman Mountains into Pakistan where they can also be found in large numbers. They are the most populous Pashtun tribe in Afghanistan. They are largely nomads and so are often referred to as Kuchis, along with other nomadic groups.
One theory states that the name of the Ghilzai is derived from Khaldjī, meaning either "Son of Mountain " or "swordsman."
Another etymological tradition, disavowed by the Ghilzai for obvious reasons, is that the name comes from the Pashtun word for thief, ghal, and zay, which means "son of." The folk story is that the ancestor of the Ghilzai was a prince who either abducted or eloped with the daughter of a local ruler. The couple are identified as either Shah Hussain, a Ghurid prince, and Bibi Mato, a granddaughter of Qays Abdar Rasheed, the putative ancestor of all Pashtuns, or Mokarram Shah Hussain from Ghor, and the daughter of a Pashtun noble.
The Ghilzais are an Afghan tribe but their origins are not certain. They are reputed to be descended at least in part from the Khalaj or Khilji Turks, who entered Afghanistan in the 10th century, as well as the numerous other invaders from Central Asia and the Middle East who have entered Afghanistan over the centuries. According to Elphinstone, the Khilji, "though Turks by descent...had so long settled among the Afghans that they had almost identified with that people."
During the 14th and 15th centuries, various Ghilzai Afghan dynasties took control over vast areas of India. The Lodi Dynasty ruled over the Delhi Sultanate during its last phase. The dynasty, founded by Bahlul Khan Lodi ruled from 1451 to 1526 when the last Lodi ruler, Ibrahim Lodi died. Other Ghilzai dynasties included the Suri Dynasty which was founded by the powerful medieval conqueror, Sher Shah, who soundly defeated the Mughal Emperor Humayun in Chausa on June 26, 1539 and again in Bilgram on May 17, 1540.
When the Hotaki tribe revolted against Safavid rule under the leadership of Mir Wais Hotak, the Ghilzai came into loggerheads with their western neighbors. Mir Wais Hotak, the leader of the Hotakis, had visited the Persian court and understood their military weaknesses. The Pashtun tribes rankled under the ruling Safavids because of their continued attempts to convert the Pashtun from Sunni to Shia Islam. Spawning Afghan nationalism, Mirwais succeeded in expelling the Safavid Georgian Governor of Kandahar and assumed the post for himself. His eldest son, Mahmud, effected a successful invasion of Persia which culminated in the conquest of Isfahan and the deposition of the Safawi Shah Soltan Hosein. Mahmud was then crowned Shah and ruled for a brief period before being deposed by his own clansmen. His nephew and successor reigned for a brief period of four years before being killed by fellow Afghans, while fleeing towards Kandahar. The Safawi dynasty was then restored in the person of Soltan Hosein's only surviving son, Tahmasp II.
In more recent times, three of the communist presidents were Ghilzais, Nur Muhammad Taraki (of the Taraki tribe), Hafizullah Amin (of the Kharoti tribe), and Mohammed Najibullah (of the Ahmadzai tribe). Although the Khalq was dominated mostly by Ghilzais, many of the Mujahideen were also Ghilzais in the Soviet war in Afghanistan, including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Abdur Rasul Sayyaf.
In the 1990s, the Taliban leadership as well as rank and file were mostly composed of Ghilzais, along with Wazirs, which made them at odds with the Durrani tribe who are currently represented by the administration of President Hamid Karzai. The Ghilzais remain one of the largest and most prominent ethnic groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan and continue to enjoy considerable autonomy. Taliban leader Mohammed Omar also belongs to the Ghilzais.
The Ghilzais are concentrated in an area spanning Ghazni and Kalat-i-Ghilzai eastward into western Pakistan, but are predominantly a nomadic group unlike the Durranis who can be found in permanent settlements. They regularly cross over between the two countries often being exempted from customs due to the acceptance of their nomadic traditions by officials from both countries. Population estimates vary, but they are most likely around 20% to 25% of the population of Afghanistan and probably number over 9 million in Afghanistan alone with 4 million or more found in neighboring Pakistan. Most Ghilzais are Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school and are often devout to their faith and also follow the Pashtun code of honor known as Pashtunwali. Most Ghilzais work as herdsmen as well as construction workers and in other jobs that allow them to travel. Often possessing great mechanical aptitude, the Ghilzai nonetheless have an extremely low literacy rate hovering below 10%.
Ghalji see Ghalzay
Ghilzay see Ghalzay
Ghiljie see Ghalzay
Ghilzai see Ghalzay
Ghanimat Kunjahi
Ghanimat Kunjahi (Muhammad Akram Ghanimat Kunjahi) (d. c. 1695). Poet of Mughal India and an exponent of the “Indian style” in the Persian poetry of the sub-continent.
Muhammad Akram Ghanimat Kunjahi see Ghanimat Kunjahi
Kunjahi, Muhammad Akram Ghanimat see Ghanimat Kunjahi
Ghanimat Kunjahi (Muhammad Akram Ghanimat Kunjahi) (d. c. 1695). Poet of Mughal India and an exponent of the “Indian style” in the Persian poetry of the sub-continent.
Muhammad Akram Ghanimat Kunjahi see Ghanimat Kunjahi
Kunjahi, Muhammad Akram Ghanimat see Ghanimat Kunjahi
Ghaniya
Ghaniya (Banu Ghaniya). Family of Sanhaja Berbers who, in the Almohad epoch, attempted to restore the Almoravids in North Africa.
The Banu Ghaniya were distant relatives of the Almoravid dynasty, who appointed them as governors of the Balearic Islands in 1126. Following the collapse of the Almoravid power at the hand of the Almohads in the 1140s, the Banu Ghaniya continued to govern the Balearic Islands as independent emirs until about 1203, with a brief interruption in the 1180s. The Banu Ghaniya considered themselves as heirs of the Almoravids, and made a determined attempt to reconquer the Maghreb (and in particular Ifriqiya) from about 1180 onwards.
The Emirs of the Banu Ghaniya were:
* Muhammad bin Ali bin Yusuf 1126-1165 (deposed)
* Ishak bin Muhammad 1165-1183
* Muhammad bin Ishak 1183-1184
* Ali bin Ishak (known as Ali Ibn Ghaniya) 1184-1188; emir (by conquest) of Bougie (1185-1186), Algiers (1186), and Gafsa (1186-1187); warlord in Tunis 1187-1188
* Yahya bin Ishak (known as Yahya Ibn Ghaniya) 1188-1202/1203, lord of war in Tunis 1188-1212
Banu Ghaniya see Ghaniya
Ghaniya (Banu Ghaniya). Family of Sanhaja Berbers who, in the Almohad epoch, attempted to restore the Almoravids in North Africa.
The Banu Ghaniya were distant relatives of the Almoravid dynasty, who appointed them as governors of the Balearic Islands in 1126. Following the collapse of the Almoravid power at the hand of the Almohads in the 1140s, the Banu Ghaniya continued to govern the Balearic Islands as independent emirs until about 1203, with a brief interruption in the 1180s. The Banu Ghaniya considered themselves as heirs of the Almoravids, and made a determined attempt to reconquer the Maghreb (and in particular Ifriqiya) from about 1180 onwards.
The Emirs of the Banu Ghaniya were:
* Muhammad bin Ali bin Yusuf 1126-1165 (deposed)
* Ishak bin Muhammad 1165-1183
* Muhammad bin Ishak 1183-1184
* Ali bin Ishak (known as Ali Ibn Ghaniya) 1184-1188; emir (by conquest) of Bougie (1185-1186), Algiers (1186), and Gafsa (1186-1187); warlord in Tunis 1187-1188
* Yahya bin Ishak (known as Yahya Ibn Ghaniya) 1188-1202/1203, lord of war in Tunis 1188-1212
Banu Ghaniya see Ghaniya
Ghannushi
Ghannushi (Rashid al-Ghannushi) (b. 1941). Islamic thinker, activist, and political leader in Tunisia. Born to a peasant family in Tunisia, Rashid al-Ghannushi (often spelled Ghannoushi in Western literature) is the head of the Hizb al-Nahdah (Renaissance Party; formerly called Harakat al-Ittijah al-Islami, or Islamic Tendency Movement) and its chief theoretician. Ghannushi grew up in a religious household and received his early education in the traditional Zaytunah schools. In 1968, he received a degree in philosophy from the University of Damascus, Syria. After a year in France, Ghannushi returned to Tunisia to become a secondary school philosophy teacher, and to establish – along with a group of young Tunisians increasingly at odds with the secular policies of Habib Bourguiba’s regime – an organized Islamic movement. In 1981, he was sentenced to eleven years’ imprisonment for operating an unauthorized association. He was released in 1984. In 1987, he received a life term of forced labor but was discharged in 1988. In the early 1990s Ghannushi was living in Europe as a political exile.
Ghannushi’s thought reflects a masterly understanding of western and Islamic philosophies and a genuine concern for reconciling the basic tenets of Islam with modernity and progress. Ghannushi maintains non-traditional views on several issues. He evaluates the West within the philosophical dimension of East-West dialogue. Unlike Sayyid Qutb of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, he perceives the West as an ideological counterweight to Islamic doctrines. The West is considered neither superior nor inferior to Islam. Ghannushi sees coexistence and cooperation as the basis for the relationship between the two. What sets the two worlds apart, however, is the difference in their perception of the fundamental concepts, or “effective ideas,” that move their cultures: the value and place of humanity in the universe. Islam replaces the Western “man-god” formula with an Islamic one, “man the vice-regent of God on earth.” Islam posits God as the ultimate value in the universe; it acknowledges the material and spiritual essences of humanity and attempts to reconcile them; and it directs human activities according to the divine regulations and concise values embodied in the shari‘a. Ghannushi acknowledges that the system of democracy was a direct consequence of a particular Western experience. He perceives democracy as a method of government and as a philosophy. In his view, the Muslims’ problem is not with democratic institutions themselves, but with the secular and nationalistic values behind democracy. Islamic democracy is distinguished from other systems by its moral content as derived from the shari‘a. Ghannushi makes an important intellectual contribution by linking westernization with dictatorship. He believes two common characteristics dominate the political systems of the Arab and larger Muslim world – westernization and dictatorship by ruling elites. Because of its alienation from the masses, the westernized elite resorts to violent and repressive means to impose its foreign-inspired models and perpetuate its rule.
Ghannushi advocates an equal role for women in society and their right to education, work, choice of home and marriage, ownership of property, and political participation. He considers the veil a matter of personal choice that is not to be imposed by the state.
Because he takes a gradualist stance in advocating social and political change, Ghannushi seeks to inspire a more vital cultural model. He relies on orthodox ideas while in fact reinterpreting them to accommodate the modern issues of his society. His ideas, though sometimes controversial, are paid much attention by Muslim activists and intellectuals. Ghannushi’s intellectual contributions and political activism have gained him prominence within the contemporary Islamic movement.
Rashid al-Ghannushi see Ghannushi
Ghannoushi see Ghannushi
Ghannushi (Rashid al-Ghannushi) (b. 1941). Islamic thinker, activist, and political leader in Tunisia. Born to a peasant family in Tunisia, Rashid al-Ghannushi (often spelled Ghannoushi in Western literature) is the head of the Hizb al-Nahdah (Renaissance Party; formerly called Harakat al-Ittijah al-Islami, or Islamic Tendency Movement) and its chief theoretician. Ghannushi grew up in a religious household and received his early education in the traditional Zaytunah schools. In 1968, he received a degree in philosophy from the University of Damascus, Syria. After a year in France, Ghannushi returned to Tunisia to become a secondary school philosophy teacher, and to establish – along with a group of young Tunisians increasingly at odds with the secular policies of Habib Bourguiba’s regime – an organized Islamic movement. In 1981, he was sentenced to eleven years’ imprisonment for operating an unauthorized association. He was released in 1984. In 1987, he received a life term of forced labor but was discharged in 1988. In the early 1990s Ghannushi was living in Europe as a political exile.
Ghannushi’s thought reflects a masterly understanding of western and Islamic philosophies and a genuine concern for reconciling the basic tenets of Islam with modernity and progress. Ghannushi maintains non-traditional views on several issues. He evaluates the West within the philosophical dimension of East-West dialogue. Unlike Sayyid Qutb of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, he perceives the West as an ideological counterweight to Islamic doctrines. The West is considered neither superior nor inferior to Islam. Ghannushi sees coexistence and cooperation as the basis for the relationship between the two. What sets the two worlds apart, however, is the difference in their perception of the fundamental concepts, or “effective ideas,” that move their cultures: the value and place of humanity in the universe. Islam replaces the Western “man-god” formula with an Islamic one, “man the vice-regent of God on earth.” Islam posits God as the ultimate value in the universe; it acknowledges the material and spiritual essences of humanity and attempts to reconcile them; and it directs human activities according to the divine regulations and concise values embodied in the shari‘a. Ghannushi acknowledges that the system of democracy was a direct consequence of a particular Western experience. He perceives democracy as a method of government and as a philosophy. In his view, the Muslims’ problem is not with democratic institutions themselves, but with the secular and nationalistic values behind democracy. Islamic democracy is distinguished from other systems by its moral content as derived from the shari‘a. Ghannushi makes an important intellectual contribution by linking westernization with dictatorship. He believes two common characteristics dominate the political systems of the Arab and larger Muslim world – westernization and dictatorship by ruling elites. Because of its alienation from the masses, the westernized elite resorts to violent and repressive means to impose its foreign-inspired models and perpetuate its rule.
Ghannushi advocates an equal role for women in society and their right to education, work, choice of home and marriage, ownership of property, and political participation. He considers the veil a matter of personal choice that is not to be imposed by the state.
Because he takes a gradualist stance in advocating social and political change, Ghannushi seeks to inspire a more vital cultural model. He relies on orthodox ideas while in fact reinterpreting them to accommodate the modern issues of his society. His ideas, though sometimes controversial, are paid much attention by Muslim activists and intellectuals. Ghannushi’s intellectual contributions and political activism have gained him prominence within the contemporary Islamic movement.
Rashid al-Ghannushi see Ghannushi
Ghannoushi see Ghannushi
Gharid
Gharid (al-Gharid). Nickname meaning “the fresh [voice]” which was given to Abu Zayd ‘Abd al-Malik, a renowned singer of the Umayyad era during the eighth century.
al-Gharid see Gharid
Gharid (al-Gharid). Nickname meaning “the fresh [voice]” which was given to Abu Zayd ‘Abd al-Malik, a renowned singer of the Umayyad era during the eighth century.
al-Gharid see Gharid
Ghasil al-Mala’ika
Ghasil al-Mala’ika (d. 623). Nickname of Hanzala ibn Abi ‘Amir, a Companion of the Prophet. He was mortally wounded in the battle of Uhud.
Hanzala ibn Abi ‘Amir see Ghasil al-Mala’ika
Mala'ika, Ghasil al- see Ghasil al-Mala’ika
Ghasil al-Mala’ika (d. 623). Nickname of Hanzala ibn Abi ‘Amir, a Companion of the Prophet. He was mortally wounded in the battle of Uhud.
Hanzala ibn Abi ‘Amir see Ghasil al-Mala’ika
Mala'ika, Ghasil al- see Ghasil al-Mala’ika
Ghassanids
Ghassanids (in Arabic, Ghassan). Division of the great Arabian tribal group al-Azd. They settled in Syria, became Monophysite Christians and, at the eve of Islam, were allies of Byzantium against Sasanian Persia and against the Persia-oriented Lakhmids of al-Hira. They were swept away by the Muslim conquest of Syria. Some of the Arab Christian families of contemporary Southwest Asia trace their descent to the Ghassanids.
The Ghassanids (al-Ghasāsinah, also Banū Ghassān "Sons of Ghassān") were a group of South Arabian Christian tribes that emigrated in the early 3rd century from Yemen to the Hauran in southern Syria, Jordan and the Holy Land where some intermarried with Hellenized Roman settlers and Greek-speaking Early Christian communities. The term Ghassān refers to the kingdom of the Ghassanids.
The Ghassanid emigration has been passed down in the rich oral tradition of southern Syria. It is said that the Ghassanids came from the city of Ma'rib in Yemen. There was a dam in this city, however one year there was so much rain that the dam was carried away by the ensuing flood. Thus the people there had to leave. The inhabitants emigrated seeking to live in less arid lands and became scattered far and wide. The emigrants were from the southern Arab tribe of Azd of the Kahlan branch of Qahtani tribes.
The king Jafna bin ‘Amr emigrated with his family and retinue north and settled in Hauran (south of Damascus). where the Ghassanid state was founded. There it is assumed that the Ghassanids adopted the religion of Christianity.
The Romans found a powerful ally in the new coming Arabs of Southern Syria. The Ghassanids were the buffer zone against the other Bedouins penetrating Roman territory. More accurately the kings can be described as phylarchs, native rulers of subject frontier states. The capital was at Jabiyah in the Golan Heights. Geographically, it occupied much of Syria, Mount Hermon (Lebanon), Jordan and Israel, and its authority extended via tribal alliances with other Azdi tribes all the way to the northern Hijaz as far south as Yathrib (Medina).
The Byzantine Empire was focused more on the East and a long war with the Persians was always their main concern. The Ghassanids maintained their rule as the guardian of trade routes, policed Bedouin tribes and was a source of troops for the Byzantine army. The Ghassanid king al-Harith ibn Jabalah (reigned 529–569) supported the Byzantines against Sassanid Persia and was given the title patricius in 529 by the emperor Justinian I. Al-Harith was a Miaphysite Christian; he helped to revive the Syrian Miaphysite (Jacobite) Church and supported Miaphysite development despite Orthodox Byzantium regarding it as heretical. Later Byzantine mistrust and persecution of such religious unorthodoxy brought down his successors, al-Mundhir (reigned 569-582) and Nu'man.
The Ghassanids, who had successfully opposed the Persian allied Lakhmids of al-Hirah (Southern Iraq and Northern Arabia), prospered economically and engaged in much religious and public building; they also patronised the arts and at one time entertained the poets Nabighah adh-Dhubyani and Hassan ibn Thabit at their courts.
The Ghassanids remained a Byzantine vassal state until its rulers were overthrown by the Muslims in the 7th century, following the Battle of Yarmuk in 636. It is believed by the Christian historians of that era that it was at this battle that some 12,000 Ghassanid Arabs defected to the Muslim side, a fact which is mentioned in Muslim history as well.
There are different opinions why Jabalah and his followers did not convert to Islam. All the opinions go along the general idea that the Ghassanids were not interested yet in giving up their status as the lords and nobility of Syria below the famous story of Jabalah return to the Byzantine's land.
Jabalah and about 30,000 Ghassanids left Syria and settled the new Byzantine borders. They were never able to build another kingdom. However, they maintained a high status within the Byzantine empire and even produced the Nikephoros Byzantine dynasty that ruled the Byzantine empire from 802 to 813.
Nikephoros was credited for his efforts to revive the greatness of the Byzantine empire in the 9th century. He was the first Byzantine emperor to refuse paying the Tribute to the Caliph in Baghdad. However, he was betrayed by his own officers and later defeated in Phrygia, forcing him to make peace and focus on the Balkans. During his era, he settled Byzantine loyal tribes from Anatolia in what is today northern Greece to prevent Bulgar incursions.
Ghassanid Christian families are found in Syria, Palestine, Jordan, and Lebanon. Many native Christians in these countries are Ghassanid Christians. Many have since emigrated to the Americas, Europe and the rest of the world due to persecution during the Ottoman period in the 19th century, the creation of Israel in 1948, with the Palestinian Nakba as a result and following the Lebanese civil war.
A listing of the Ghassanid kings follows:
1. Jafnah I ibn `Amr (220-265)
2. `Amr I ibn Jafnah (265-270)
3. Tha'labah ibn Amr (270-287)
4. al-Harith I ibn Th`alabah (287-307)
5. Jabalah I ibn al-Harith I (307-317)
6. al-Harith II ibn Jabalah "ibn Maria" (317-327)
7. al-Mundhir I ibn al-Harith II (327-330) with
8. al-Aiham ibn al-Harith II (327-330) and...
9. al-Mundhir II ibn al-Harith II (327-340) and...
10. al-Nu`man I ibn al-Harith II (327-342) and...
11. `Amr II ibn al-Harith II (330-356) and...
12. Jabalah II ibn al-Harith II (327-361)
13. Jafnah II ibn al-Mundhir I (361-391) with...
14. al-Nu`man II ibn al-Mundhir I (361-362)
15. al-Nu`man III ibn 'Amr ibn al-Mundhir I (391-418)
16. Jabalah III ibn al-Nu`man (418-434)
17. al-Nu`man IV ibn al-Aiham (434-455) with...
18. al-Harith III ibn al-Aiham (434-456) and...
19. al-Nu`man V ibn al-Harith (434-453)
20. al-Mundhir II ibn al-Nu`man (453-472) with...
21. `Amr III ibn al-Nu`man (453-486) and...
22. Hijr ibn al-Nu`man (453-465)
23. al-Harith IV ibn Hijr (486-512)
24. Jabalah IV ibn al-Harith (512-529)
25. al- Amr IV ibn Machi(529)
26. al-Harith V ibn Jabalah (529-569)
27. al-Mundhir III ibn al-Harith (569-581) with...
28. Abu Kirab al-Nu`man ibn al-Harith (570-582)
29. al-Nu`man VI ibn al-Mundhir (582-583)
30. al-Harith VI ibn al-Harith (583)
31. al-Nu'man VII ibn al-Harith Abu Kirab (583- ?)
32. al-Aiham ibn Jabalah (? -614)
33. al-Mundhir IV ibn Jabalah (614- ?)
34. Sharahil ibn Jabalah (? -618)
35. Amr IV ibn Jabalah (618-628)
36. Jabalah V ibn al-Harith (628-632)
37. Jabalah VI ibn al-Aiham (632-638)
Ghassan see Ghassanids
Ghassanids (in Arabic, Ghassan). Division of the great Arabian tribal group al-Azd. They settled in Syria, became Monophysite Christians and, at the eve of Islam, were allies of Byzantium against Sasanian Persia and against the Persia-oriented Lakhmids of al-Hira. They were swept away by the Muslim conquest of Syria. Some of the Arab Christian families of contemporary Southwest Asia trace their descent to the Ghassanids.
The Ghassanids (al-Ghasāsinah, also Banū Ghassān "Sons of Ghassān") were a group of South Arabian Christian tribes that emigrated in the early 3rd century from Yemen to the Hauran in southern Syria, Jordan and the Holy Land where some intermarried with Hellenized Roman settlers and Greek-speaking Early Christian communities. The term Ghassān refers to the kingdom of the Ghassanids.
The Ghassanid emigration has been passed down in the rich oral tradition of southern Syria. It is said that the Ghassanids came from the city of Ma'rib in Yemen. There was a dam in this city, however one year there was so much rain that the dam was carried away by the ensuing flood. Thus the people there had to leave. The inhabitants emigrated seeking to live in less arid lands and became scattered far and wide. The emigrants were from the southern Arab tribe of Azd of the Kahlan branch of Qahtani tribes.
The king Jafna bin ‘Amr emigrated with his family and retinue north and settled in Hauran (south of Damascus). where the Ghassanid state was founded. There it is assumed that the Ghassanids adopted the religion of Christianity.
The Romans found a powerful ally in the new coming Arabs of Southern Syria. The Ghassanids were the buffer zone against the other Bedouins penetrating Roman territory. More accurately the kings can be described as phylarchs, native rulers of subject frontier states. The capital was at Jabiyah in the Golan Heights. Geographically, it occupied much of Syria, Mount Hermon (Lebanon), Jordan and Israel, and its authority extended via tribal alliances with other Azdi tribes all the way to the northern Hijaz as far south as Yathrib (Medina).
The Byzantine Empire was focused more on the East and a long war with the Persians was always their main concern. The Ghassanids maintained their rule as the guardian of trade routes, policed Bedouin tribes and was a source of troops for the Byzantine army. The Ghassanid king al-Harith ibn Jabalah (reigned 529–569) supported the Byzantines against Sassanid Persia and was given the title patricius in 529 by the emperor Justinian I. Al-Harith was a Miaphysite Christian; he helped to revive the Syrian Miaphysite (Jacobite) Church and supported Miaphysite development despite Orthodox Byzantium regarding it as heretical. Later Byzantine mistrust and persecution of such religious unorthodoxy brought down his successors, al-Mundhir (reigned 569-582) and Nu'man.
The Ghassanids, who had successfully opposed the Persian allied Lakhmids of al-Hirah (Southern Iraq and Northern Arabia), prospered economically and engaged in much religious and public building; they also patronised the arts and at one time entertained the poets Nabighah adh-Dhubyani and Hassan ibn Thabit at their courts.
The Ghassanids remained a Byzantine vassal state until its rulers were overthrown by the Muslims in the 7th century, following the Battle of Yarmuk in 636. It is believed by the Christian historians of that era that it was at this battle that some 12,000 Ghassanid Arabs defected to the Muslim side, a fact which is mentioned in Muslim history as well.
There are different opinions why Jabalah and his followers did not convert to Islam. All the opinions go along the general idea that the Ghassanids were not interested yet in giving up their status as the lords and nobility of Syria below the famous story of Jabalah return to the Byzantine's land.
Jabalah and about 30,000 Ghassanids left Syria and settled the new Byzantine borders. They were never able to build another kingdom. However, they maintained a high status within the Byzantine empire and even produced the Nikephoros Byzantine dynasty that ruled the Byzantine empire from 802 to 813.
Nikephoros was credited for his efforts to revive the greatness of the Byzantine empire in the 9th century. He was the first Byzantine emperor to refuse paying the Tribute to the Caliph in Baghdad. However, he was betrayed by his own officers and later defeated in Phrygia, forcing him to make peace and focus on the Balkans. During his era, he settled Byzantine loyal tribes from Anatolia in what is today northern Greece to prevent Bulgar incursions.
Ghassanid Christian families are found in Syria, Palestine, Jordan, and Lebanon. Many native Christians in these countries are Ghassanid Christians. Many have since emigrated to the Americas, Europe and the rest of the world due to persecution during the Ottoman period in the 19th century, the creation of Israel in 1948, with the Palestinian Nakba as a result and following the Lebanese civil war.
A listing of the Ghassanid kings follows:
1. Jafnah I ibn `Amr (220-265)
2. `Amr I ibn Jafnah (265-270)
3. Tha'labah ibn Amr (270-287)
4. al-Harith I ibn Th`alabah (287-307)
5. Jabalah I ibn al-Harith I (307-317)
6. al-Harith II ibn Jabalah "ibn Maria" (317-327)
7. al-Mundhir I ibn al-Harith II (327-330) with
8. al-Aiham ibn al-Harith II (327-330) and...
9. al-Mundhir II ibn al-Harith II (327-340) and...
10. al-Nu`man I ibn al-Harith II (327-342) and...
11. `Amr II ibn al-Harith II (330-356) and...
12. Jabalah II ibn al-Harith II (327-361)
13. Jafnah II ibn al-Mundhir I (361-391) with...
14. al-Nu`man II ibn al-Mundhir I (361-362)
15. al-Nu`man III ibn 'Amr ibn al-Mundhir I (391-418)
16. Jabalah III ibn al-Nu`man (418-434)
17. al-Nu`man IV ibn al-Aiham (434-455) with...
18. al-Harith III ibn al-Aiham (434-456) and...
19. al-Nu`man V ibn al-Harith (434-453)
20. al-Mundhir II ibn al-Nu`man (453-472) with...
21. `Amr III ibn al-Nu`man (453-486) and...
22. Hijr ibn al-Nu`man (453-465)
23. al-Harith IV ibn Hijr (486-512)
24. Jabalah IV ibn al-Harith (512-529)
25. al- Amr IV ibn Machi(529)
26. al-Harith V ibn Jabalah (529-569)
27. al-Mundhir III ibn al-Harith (569-581) with...
28. Abu Kirab al-Nu`man ibn al-Harith (570-582)
29. al-Nu`man VI ibn al-Mundhir (582-583)
30. al-Harith VI ibn al-Harith (583)
31. al-Nu'man VII ibn al-Harith Abu Kirab (583- ?)
32. al-Aiham ibn Jabalah (? -614)
33. al-Mundhir IV ibn Jabalah (614- ?)
34. Sharahil ibn Jabalah (? -618)
35. Amr IV ibn Jabalah (618-628)
36. Jabalah V ibn al-Harith (628-632)
37. Jabalah VI ibn al-Aiham (632-638)
Ghassan see Ghassanids
Ghatafan
Ghatafan (Banu Ghatafan). Name of a group of northern Arabian tribes, belonging to the Qays ‘Aylan. They played a role in the Prophet’s time and in early Islam.
The Banu Ghatafan are a massive ancient tribe north of Medinah and from them come the tribes of Banu Abs and Ashga and Banu Thibyaan. They were one of the Arab tribes that interacted with Muhammad. They are notable for allying themselves with the Banu Quraish in the Battle of the Trench.
Banu Ghatafan see Ghatafan
Ghatafan (Banu Ghatafan). Name of a group of northern Arabian tribes, belonging to the Qays ‘Aylan. They played a role in the Prophet’s time and in early Islam.
The Banu Ghatafan are a massive ancient tribe north of Medinah and from them come the tribes of Banu Abs and Ashga and Banu Thibyaan. They were one of the Arab tribes that interacted with Muhammad. They are notable for allying themselves with the Banu Quraish in the Battle of the Trench.
Banu Ghatafan see Ghatafan
Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-
Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al- (Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali) (Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazzali) (Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad at-Tusi al-Ghazali) (Algazel) (Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazālī) (1058-1111). Muslim theologian, jurist, original thinker, mystic, and religious reformer. His great work Revival of the Religious Sciences made Sufism an acceptable part of orthodox Islam.
Al-Ghazali is most famous for his contributions to Islamic philosophical theology (kalam), jurisprudence (fiqh), and mysticism (tassawwuf, or Sufism). He is also known as Algazel in the West. Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Tusi al-Shafi‘i al-Ghazali was born in 1058 in Tus [Khorman], near Meshed (Mashhad), Iran. Al-Ghazali was born into a family of scholars and mystics. He was first influenced by his father, who was a pious dervish, and later by a Sufi friend of his father, not to mention his brother, who is recognized as a distinguished mystic. Despite the presence of Sufis around him, al-Ghazali showed a great deal of interest in jurisprudence and speculative sciences.
Al-Ghazali’s father died while al-Ghazali was still very young but al-Ghazali had the opportunity of getting an education in the prevalent curriculum at Nishapur and Baghdad. His studies at Nishapur were guided by al-Juwaini, the Imam al-Haramain, until the latter’s death in 1085. Soon he acquired a high standard of scholarship in religion and philosophy.
Al-Ghazali studied with such masters as Muhammad al-Radadhkhani al-Tusi, Abu Nasr al-Isma‘ili, as well as with al-Juwaini, -- the “Imam al-Haramain.” Ghazali, who at one point was studying in the Nizamiyyah Academy, became the disciple of ‘Ali al-Farmadhi al-Tusi, through whom he became further acquainted with the theoretical as well as practical aspects of Sufism. He then applied himself to austere forms of ascetic practices, but to his dismay did not attain the desired spiritual states. This, in addition to the fact that al-Ghazali’s intellectual thirst was too strong to allow him to forget the intellectual pursuit of truth, contributed to his growing skepticism.
Having gained an excellent reputation as a scholar, in 1091 al-Ghazali was appointed by Nizam al-Mulk (1018-1092), an ardent al-Ghazali admirer and the vizier to the Seljuk sultan, to teach at Nizamiyya University in Baghdad, which was recognized as one of the most reputed institutions of learning in the golden era of Muslim history.
At this point in his life, al-Ghazali was the chair at the Nizamiyyah Academy and one of the supreme judges known for his numerous commentaries on jurisprudence. Although having attained such titles as the “Proof of Islam” (hujat al-Islam), the “Renewer of Religion” (mujaddid al-dini), and the “Ornament of Faith” (Zain al-Din), Ghazali was inwardly going through an intellectual and spiritual crisis. In his quest for certainty, he had begun to question the position of the scholastic theologians who derived the validity of their ideas from dictums of faith that they, the theologians, considered to be axiomatic. His doubt soon spread to other facets of his belief, and the inner turmoil of teaching the orthodox positions on the one hand and questioning them on the other intensified his spiritual crisis.
Adding to his spiritual crisis was the fact that al-Ghazali’s patron, Nizam al-Mulk was assassinated in 1092 by Batinites (Isma‘ilis) who were terrorizing the eastern empire, supported by the Fatimid authorities in Egypt.
In 1095, al-Ghazali’s personal crisis of faith reached a climax. He relinquished his position, left his family, and became an ascetic. This was a period of mystical transformation as al-Ghazali dedicated himself to the mystical quest, Sufism. An era of solitary life, devoted to contemplation and writing then ensued, which led to the authorship of a number of enduring books.
In the eleven years following his resignation, al-Ghazali traveled widely. During this time, al-Ghazali visited Mecca, Alexandria, Jerusalem (which he left shortly before its capture by the Crusaders) and Damascus. After ten years of wandering and meditation, he accepted another teaching position in Nishapur but left it shortly afterward and retired to Tus, where he composed his most influential work, the massive Ihya ulum al-din (The Revivification of the Religious Sciences). The work contains four volumes of ten books each. The first volume opens with two books that discuss knowledge and the foundations of religious orthodoxy. It then proceeds to a discussion of ibadat, that is, ritual purity, worship, the pillars of Islam, and other religious practices.
The second volume focuses on adat, the conduct of daily life, and the third and fourth volumes analyze the interior life. The third addresses muhlikat, those practices that lead to damnation. This is not a dry catalog of vices but an often subtle and astute inquiry into psychological and ascetic theory. Volume four explores those actions that lead to salvation (munjiyat) in terms that resonate strongly with the stages and states of the Sufi mystical path of repentance, patience, gratitude, fear, and hope.
In 1106, the vizier Fakhr al-Mulk, son of al-Ghazali’s former patron Nizam al-Mulk, convinced him to return to public life as professor at the Nizamiyya in Nishapur. Soon afterwards, al-Ghazali wrote his autobiography Al-munqidh min al-dalal (Deliverance from Error), which encapsulates his own personal religious crisis as well as his intellectual stance vis-a-vis Islamic philosophy and sectarian movements like that of the Batinites. Al-Ghazali’s own training in philosophy had begun under al-Juwaini, but while teaching at Baghdad he had pursued privately a thorough study of Arab Neoplatonism exemplified in the works of al-Farabi and Ibn Sina. Before his crisis he published a stinging refutation of their work in Tahafut al-falasifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers or The Destruction of the Philosophers).
In his autobiography, al-Ghazali does not reject philosophy outright. Logic and philosophical methodology are acceptable as long as they do not contradict the truth of God’s word, which is ultimately inaccessible to the fallible human intellect. Al-Ghazali’s personal crisis convinced him that philosophical theology and law were by themselves inadequate means to knowledge of God. It is mysticism that affords the seeker a true personal taste (dhauq) of the divine. Both mysticism and the religious sciences must be pursued if one is fully to experience Islamic life.
A short time before his death, al-Ghazali retired again to Tus, where he established a Sufi convent (a khanaqah). There he taught his disciples and directed their spiritual progress.
Al-Ghazali died on December 18, 1111. He is revered by Muslims and non-Muslims alike as an intellectual giant who wedded philosophical method to theology and established mysticism on a firm intellectual base within the mainstream Muslim community.
Al-Ghazali made major contributions in religion, philosophy and Sufism. A number of Muslim philosophers had been following and developing several viewpoints of Greek philosophy, including the Neoplatonic philosophy, and this was leading to conflict with several Islamic teachings. On the other hand, the movement of Sufism was assuming such excessive proportions as to avoid observance of obligatory prayers and duties of Islam. Based on his brilliant scholarship and his personal mystical experience, al-Ghazali sought to rectify these trends, both in philosophy and Sufism.
In philosophy, al-Ghazali upheld the approach of mathematics and exact sciences as essentially correct. However, he adopted the techniques of Aristotelian logic and the Neoplatonic procedures and employed these very tools to lay bare the flaws and lacunas of the then prevalent Neoplatonic philosophy and to diminish the negative influences of Aristotelianism and excessive rationalism. In contrast to some of the Muslim philosophers, e.g., al-Farabi, he portrayed the inability of reason to comprehend the absolute and the infinite. Reason could not transcend the finite and was limited to the observation of the relative. Also, several Muslim philosophers had held that the universe was finite in space but infinite in time. Al-Ghazali argued that an infinite time was related to an infinite space. With his clarity of thought and force of argument, he was able to create a balance between religion and reason, and identified their respective spheres as being the infinite and the finite, respectively.
In religion, particularly mysticism, al-Ghazali cleansed the approach of Sufism of its excesses and re-established the authority of the orthodox religion. Yet, he stressed the importance of genuine Sufism, which he maintained was the path to attain the absolute truth.
Al-Ghazali was a prolific writer. His most noted books include Tuhafat al-Falasifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), Ihya al-‘Ulum al-Islamia (The Revival of the Religious Sciences), The Beginning of Guidance, and Deliverance from Error. Some of his works were translated into European languages in the Middle Ages. He also wrote a summary of astronomy.
Al-Ghazali’s influence was deep and enduring. He is one of the greatest theologians of Islam. His theological doctrines penetrated Europe and influenced Jewish and Christian scholasticism. Indeed, several of al-Ghazali’s theses appear to have been adopted by Thomas Aquinas in order to similarly re-establish the authority of orthodox Christian religion in the West. So forceful were al-Ghazali’s arguments in the favor of religion that he was accused of damaging the cause of philosophy compelling Ibn Rushd (Averroes) to write a rejoinder to al-Ghazali’s Tuhafat.
Al-Ghazali documented his internal struggle and the religious solution he finally achieved in The Deliverance from Error (or The Deliverer from Error), a work that has been compared to The Confessions of Saint Augustine. In this work, al-Ghazali describes his examination of kalam (orthodox Muslim scholasticism), falsafa (metaphysics based on those of the Greeks) and t’lim (the doctrine of those who accept, without criticism, the teaching of an infallible Imam) before deciding for Sufism.
Al-Ghazali’s great work is the The Revival of the Religious Sciences (The Revivification of the Religious Sciences). In The Revival of the Religious Sciences, al-Ghazali presented his unified view of religion incorporating elements from all three sources formerly considered contradictory: tradition, intellectualism, and mysticism. The work has been considered the greatest religious book written by a Muslim, second only to the Qur’an.
After having mastered the methods of philosophy, al-Ghazali set out to refute the Neo-platonic theories of other Muslim philosophers, particularly those of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), which were opposed to such orthodox religious doctrines as that of the creation, the immortality of the soul, and divine providence. The resultant attack on philosophical theory and speculation, set forth in al-Ghazali’s Destruction of the Philosophers (or The Incoherence of the Philosophers), was in large measure responsible for the eventual decline of the element of rationalism in Islam.
Assuming that reason leads to certainty and a firm ground upon which one can establish belief, al-Ghazali immersed himself in the study of philosophy. To his dismay, he then discovered that reason goes only so far. It fails to bring about ultimate certainty. Al-Ghazali alluded to inconsistencies among the philosophers and discussed twenty points on which, according to al-Ghazali, they could be proven to be mistaken.
With his hope for attaining certainty dashed, al-Ghazali collapsed, physically and mentally going through an intense state of despair, losing his appetite and power of speech. Having become convinced that truth is not attainable through the study of jurisprudence or philosophy, he began a mystical journey in 1095 when he left Baghdad for Damascus, where he practiced austere forms of ascetic practices. al-Ghazali wandered in Islamic lands for eleven years, during which time he meditated and engaged himself in ascetic practices, until he returned to his native city of Tus. From then on al-Ghazali either taught or spent time in seclusion.
In travelling on his intellectual journey, al-Ghazali questioned everything that can be questioned, searching for a truth which could not be doubted. In his search for the indubitable truth, al-Ghazali questioned the original identity of the self or the “I” before the self is placed within the context of a given religion. Believing himself to have found the “I” which serves as the foundation of knowledge, al-Ghazali touched on a number of epistemological issues. He pointed to the dubious nature of sense perception and of reality itself.
Having criticized the traditional views of the Peripatetics’ epistemology, al-Ghazali went on to offer a critique of four classes of knowers: mystics, Batinis, theologians, and philosophers. As to mystics, al-Ghazali was opposed to those Sufis who did not observe the religious law (shari‘a) and who propagated the Doctrine of the Unity of Being (wah dat al-wujud), which for him had pantheistic implications. Al-Ghazali was vehemently against the Isma‘ili Shi‘ites, also referred to as the Batinis, for they rejected the shari‘a and argued that only an infallible Imam has access to truth.
According to al-Ghazali, theologians were blameworthy only for their methodology, and not for the content of their discussion. Al-Ghazali (who in the opinion of many, remained a theologian for his whole life despite his criticism of them) found the attempt to establish a reason-based theology a futile effort. Theology, he argued, does not begin with axiomatic principles, but with premises whose validity should ultimately be accepted on the basis of faith alone.
In the autobiographical al-Munqidh min al-dalal (The Deliverer [Deliverance] from Error), al-Ghazali describes how his intense pursuit of truth led him to investigate all academic disciplines available to an educated medieval Muslim. None, including Sufism, satisfied him because, as he discovered, truth was gained only through immediate experience. Oral instruction and the study of Sufism were no substitute for walking in the Way. After agonizing self-examination, al-Ghazali resigned his post at the prestigious Baghdad Nizamiyya Madrasa.
For more than ten years, al-Ghazali remained outside public life, opting for solitary reflection interrupted only by consultations with “men of the heart” -- consultations with Sufis. However, al-Ghazali did not merely meditate he also wrote. The resulting spiritual diary was a formidable book, one that surpassed all his previous literary productions in scope and insight.
Entitled Ihya ‘ulum ad-din (The Bringing to Life of the Sciences of Religions or The Revival of the Religious Sciences, al-Ghazali’s diary is a survey of the entire range of Muslim theological, philosophical, devotional, and sectarian thought in the eleventh and twelfth centuries of the Christian era. The mystical fervor of the Ihya is cloaked in a tight schematic garb. It is divided into two parts, each of which has two quarters, the first two with matters of the heart, corresponding to the most common Sufi dyad, the outer -- the Zahir -- and the inner -- the Batin. Each of the quarters, in turn, has ten books, for a total of forty books, a number whose symbolic reference to the forty-day retreat of Sufis was not lost on al-Ghazali’s contemporaries.
The Ihya, despite its length of over one thousand pages, was widely read and quoted in Arabic. Al-Ghazali himself rendered it into a Persian abridgment entitled Kimiya-yi sa’adat (The Elixir of Happiness). Other adaptations, translations, and commentaries appeared throughout the medieval, and even into the modern, period.
Having mastered Greek philosophy -- in particular Aristotle -- as well as his Muslim counterparts, al-Ghazali wrote Intentions of the Philosophers (Maqasid al-falasifah) and a lucid exposition of Aristotelian philosophy entitled Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-falasifah), in which by the dialectical method he attempted to destroy the philosophers’ positions.
Al-Ghazali divides the philosophers into three groups: the materialists (dahriyyun), who reject the existence of God and argue for the eternity of the world; the theists (ilahiyyun), who accept the existence of God; and the naturalists (tabi ‘iyyun), who are not necessarily opposed to the existence of a creator, but who argue against the immortality of the soul.
Al-Ghazali, whose thorough understanding of the philosophers’ position had led him to believe that pursuing reason alone would lead to the destruction of religion and morality, considered the philosophers to be heretical on three accounts: For accepting the eternity of the world, for denying God’s knowledge of particulars, and for denying bodily resurrection.
Acceptance of the eternity of the world entails making the world co-eternal with God, an unacceptable conclusion to the orthodoxy, al-Ghazali points out. Philosophers argue that the eternity of the world follows by necessity from three fundamental axioms: (1) Nothing comes out of nothing, or to put it differently, something cannot come from nothing; (2) Given a particular cause, the effect necessarily and immediately follows; (3) A cause is different from and external to the effect.
Al-Ghazali offers a series of arguments against the axioms that philosophers regard to be self-evident. In numerous arguments, he alludes to inconsistencies within these axioms. The denial of God’s knowledge of particulars necessitates God’s relative ignorance, a position unacceptable by the Islamic credo. Furthermore, the denial of bodily resurrection is contrary to numerous Qur’anic references concerning bodily resurrection. The philosophers, al-Ghazali argues, make the following three claims as the basis for denying the belief in bodily resurrection: (1) There is no logical necessity that bodies be resurrected in their physical forms, (2) If there are no bodies in the hereafter, there can be neither pain nor pleasure in the other world, (3) Hell and Heaven in their physical sense do not exist, they are of a purely spiritual nature.
Al-Ghazali then proceeds to argue against the above premises, using the rationalistic method of the Peripatetics. Al-Ghazali specifically criticizes the philosophers for holding twenty fallacious opinions to which the use of reason has led them. Among the fallacious views al-Ghazali attributes to the Peripatetics in his Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-falasifah): The world has no beginning and no end; God did not create the universe ex nihilo; God is simple and has no quiddity (distinguishing character); God can know nothing but himself; God cannot know particulars; heavenly bodies have animal souls that move by volition; miracles are impossible; human souls are not immortal; and corporeal resurrection is impossible.
Al-Ghazali contends in his critique of the above notions that through faith and faith alone can one come to the truth. The reliance on reason leads only to frustration and incoherence.
Al-Ghazali undertook a scathing attack against several philosophical positions, among them the theory of divine emanation. Al-Ghazali meticulously demonstrates that the theory of emanation propagated by philosophers fails to achieve the very purpose for which philosophers have postulated it. First, it does not solve the problem of how multiplicity came from unity and second, it fails to retain the divine unity that the theory of emanation is supposed to safeguard.
On the question of God’s knowledge of particulars, al-Ghazali is adamant that God knows all the particulars and anything short of this acknowledgment negates God’s omniscience. Even Ibn Sina, who accepts God’s omniscience, is criticized by Ghazali for stating that even though God knows everything, he does so in a universal way, that is, in a way that is beyond the spatio-temporal (space-time) limitations of human cognition.
Knowing that philosophers base many of their arguments on the law of cause and effect, al-Ghazali critically analyzes it. His criticism, which is very similar to David Hume’s argument, maintains that the relationship between a cause and the effect is not a logical necessity. Knowledge of the causal relations between fire and burning or water and wetness is not based on reasoning about necessary relations, but on sense observation.
Having argued against the necessary connection between a cause and its effect, al-Ghazali uses this to offer an explanation of the phenomenon of miracle. To those who argue for the impossibility of miracles on the ground that a miracle violates natural laws, al-Ghazali’s critique of causality explains how the continuity of the so-called “laws” of nature can be disrupted without violating any law.
Al-Ghazali elaborates extensively on ethics and moral problems. Relying on the Qur’anic concepts, he uses Aristotelian notions to shed light on some of the complex issues. One of the issues that al-Ghazali was particularly interested in was the problem of free will and determination and how that is related to the problem of human choices.
Al-Ghazali, both as a theologian and a jurist, believed that causal determinism is incompatible with moral responsibility. To solve the problem he offers an ingenious argument that contains three levels: first, there is the level of the material world, where events occur out of necessity; second, there is the sensuous world, where there is relative freedom of action; and finally there is the Divine realm, where there is absolute free will.
Al-Ghazali realizes the significance of having free will, since without it Heaven and Hell would be meaningless. Having established the relative nature of human will, al-Ghazali discusses vices and virtues and man’s duty to exercise his noble gift of free will to do what is good. He defines vices as desires of the flesh and ego (nafs) that lead to bodily excesses such as unrestrained sex; overindulgence in food; misuse of speech; love of wealth, position, name, and self-assertion. There are also sicknesses of the soul that ought to be cured by such virtues as repentance; renunciation of the materialistic world; abstinence from giving in to the desires of flesh; spiritual poverty or emptiness, which signifies a desire and ability to be filled by divine truth; patience; reliance on God as the spiritual center of the world; and finally love, the most important of all virtues. Love, for al-Ghazali, leads to an unmediated mode of cognition between the human being and God (‘arif). This subject was extensively treated in the post-Ghazali period and it reached its climax in the School of Isfahan during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Persia.
Al-Ghazali has sometimes been compared unfavorably with his younger brother, Ahmad al-Ghazali, a Sufi Shaikh and consummate poet. Both men charted new directions for the future course of Muslim spirituality, but to date the prolific and scholarly Abu Hamid al-Ghazali has attracted the greater attention.
History now records that Abu Hamid al-Ghazali was a major figure in the intellectual life of medieval Islam. As a jurist, al-Ghazali defended the integrity of the Sunni creed, and was especially concerned to show its superiority to the system of the Nizari Ismailis, a Shi‘ite sectarian group whose speculations attracted and challenged him. As a scholastic theologian, al-Ghazali inherited the Neoplatonic philosophical categories introduced into Islam through Arabic translations from Greek, popularized by the rationalist, free-thinking Mu’tazila movement and elaborated by the Turkish metaphysician al-Farabi and his Persian successor, Ibn Sina. Al-Ghazali reworked the dialectical categories of earlier Muslim theologians such as al-Ash’ari and his own teacher, al-Juwayni, but it was as a mystic that he attained his greatest fame and effected his most lasting influence.
Philosophers rarely have an impact on the history of philosophy through their lives as well as through their ideas. Al-Ghazali, however, is such a figure in that various phases of his life left an indelible mark on the history of Islamic philosophy by strengthening Sufism while curtailing the influence of rationalistic philosophy, particularly in the eastern part of the Islamic world.
Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali see Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-
Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazzali see Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-
Ghazzali, al- see Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-
Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad at-Tusi al-Ghazali see Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-
Algazel see Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-
“Proof of Islam” see Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-
Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al- (Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali) (Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazzali) (Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad at-Tusi al-Ghazali) (Algazel) (Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazālī) (1058-1111). Muslim theologian, jurist, original thinker, mystic, and religious reformer. His great work Revival of the Religious Sciences made Sufism an acceptable part of orthodox Islam.
Al-Ghazali is most famous for his contributions to Islamic philosophical theology (kalam), jurisprudence (fiqh), and mysticism (tassawwuf, or Sufism). He is also known as Algazel in the West. Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Tusi al-Shafi‘i al-Ghazali was born in 1058 in Tus [Khorman], near Meshed (Mashhad), Iran. Al-Ghazali was born into a family of scholars and mystics. He was first influenced by his father, who was a pious dervish, and later by a Sufi friend of his father, not to mention his brother, who is recognized as a distinguished mystic. Despite the presence of Sufis around him, al-Ghazali showed a great deal of interest in jurisprudence and speculative sciences.
Al-Ghazali’s father died while al-Ghazali was still very young but al-Ghazali had the opportunity of getting an education in the prevalent curriculum at Nishapur and Baghdad. His studies at Nishapur were guided by al-Juwaini, the Imam al-Haramain, until the latter’s death in 1085. Soon he acquired a high standard of scholarship in religion and philosophy.
Al-Ghazali studied with such masters as Muhammad al-Radadhkhani al-Tusi, Abu Nasr al-Isma‘ili, as well as with al-Juwaini, -- the “Imam al-Haramain.” Ghazali, who at one point was studying in the Nizamiyyah Academy, became the disciple of ‘Ali al-Farmadhi al-Tusi, through whom he became further acquainted with the theoretical as well as practical aspects of Sufism. He then applied himself to austere forms of ascetic practices, but to his dismay did not attain the desired spiritual states. This, in addition to the fact that al-Ghazali’s intellectual thirst was too strong to allow him to forget the intellectual pursuit of truth, contributed to his growing skepticism.
Having gained an excellent reputation as a scholar, in 1091 al-Ghazali was appointed by Nizam al-Mulk (1018-1092), an ardent al-Ghazali admirer and the vizier to the Seljuk sultan, to teach at Nizamiyya University in Baghdad, which was recognized as one of the most reputed institutions of learning in the golden era of Muslim history.
At this point in his life, al-Ghazali was the chair at the Nizamiyyah Academy and one of the supreme judges known for his numerous commentaries on jurisprudence. Although having attained such titles as the “Proof of Islam” (hujat al-Islam), the “Renewer of Religion” (mujaddid al-dini), and the “Ornament of Faith” (Zain al-Din), Ghazali was inwardly going through an intellectual and spiritual crisis. In his quest for certainty, he had begun to question the position of the scholastic theologians who derived the validity of their ideas from dictums of faith that they, the theologians, considered to be axiomatic. His doubt soon spread to other facets of his belief, and the inner turmoil of teaching the orthodox positions on the one hand and questioning them on the other intensified his spiritual crisis.
Adding to his spiritual crisis was the fact that al-Ghazali’s patron, Nizam al-Mulk was assassinated in 1092 by Batinites (Isma‘ilis) who were terrorizing the eastern empire, supported by the Fatimid authorities in Egypt.
In 1095, al-Ghazali’s personal crisis of faith reached a climax. He relinquished his position, left his family, and became an ascetic. This was a period of mystical transformation as al-Ghazali dedicated himself to the mystical quest, Sufism. An era of solitary life, devoted to contemplation and writing then ensued, which led to the authorship of a number of enduring books.
In the eleven years following his resignation, al-Ghazali traveled widely. During this time, al-Ghazali visited Mecca, Alexandria, Jerusalem (which he left shortly before its capture by the Crusaders) and Damascus. After ten years of wandering and meditation, he accepted another teaching position in Nishapur but left it shortly afterward and retired to Tus, where he composed his most influential work, the massive Ihya ulum al-din (The Revivification of the Religious Sciences). The work contains four volumes of ten books each. The first volume opens with two books that discuss knowledge and the foundations of religious orthodoxy. It then proceeds to a discussion of ibadat, that is, ritual purity, worship, the pillars of Islam, and other religious practices.
The second volume focuses on adat, the conduct of daily life, and the third and fourth volumes analyze the interior life. The third addresses muhlikat, those practices that lead to damnation. This is not a dry catalog of vices but an often subtle and astute inquiry into psychological and ascetic theory. Volume four explores those actions that lead to salvation (munjiyat) in terms that resonate strongly with the stages and states of the Sufi mystical path of repentance, patience, gratitude, fear, and hope.
In 1106, the vizier Fakhr al-Mulk, son of al-Ghazali’s former patron Nizam al-Mulk, convinced him to return to public life as professor at the Nizamiyya in Nishapur. Soon afterwards, al-Ghazali wrote his autobiography Al-munqidh min al-dalal (Deliverance from Error), which encapsulates his own personal religious crisis as well as his intellectual stance vis-a-vis Islamic philosophy and sectarian movements like that of the Batinites. Al-Ghazali’s own training in philosophy had begun under al-Juwaini, but while teaching at Baghdad he had pursued privately a thorough study of Arab Neoplatonism exemplified in the works of al-Farabi and Ibn Sina. Before his crisis he published a stinging refutation of their work in Tahafut al-falasifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers or The Destruction of the Philosophers).
In his autobiography, al-Ghazali does not reject philosophy outright. Logic and philosophical methodology are acceptable as long as they do not contradict the truth of God’s word, which is ultimately inaccessible to the fallible human intellect. Al-Ghazali’s personal crisis convinced him that philosophical theology and law were by themselves inadequate means to knowledge of God. It is mysticism that affords the seeker a true personal taste (dhauq) of the divine. Both mysticism and the religious sciences must be pursued if one is fully to experience Islamic life.
A short time before his death, al-Ghazali retired again to Tus, where he established a Sufi convent (a khanaqah). There he taught his disciples and directed their spiritual progress.
Al-Ghazali died on December 18, 1111. He is revered by Muslims and non-Muslims alike as an intellectual giant who wedded philosophical method to theology and established mysticism on a firm intellectual base within the mainstream Muslim community.
Al-Ghazali made major contributions in religion, philosophy and Sufism. A number of Muslim philosophers had been following and developing several viewpoints of Greek philosophy, including the Neoplatonic philosophy, and this was leading to conflict with several Islamic teachings. On the other hand, the movement of Sufism was assuming such excessive proportions as to avoid observance of obligatory prayers and duties of Islam. Based on his brilliant scholarship and his personal mystical experience, al-Ghazali sought to rectify these trends, both in philosophy and Sufism.
In philosophy, al-Ghazali upheld the approach of mathematics and exact sciences as essentially correct. However, he adopted the techniques of Aristotelian logic and the Neoplatonic procedures and employed these very tools to lay bare the flaws and lacunas of the then prevalent Neoplatonic philosophy and to diminish the negative influences of Aristotelianism and excessive rationalism. In contrast to some of the Muslim philosophers, e.g., al-Farabi, he portrayed the inability of reason to comprehend the absolute and the infinite. Reason could not transcend the finite and was limited to the observation of the relative. Also, several Muslim philosophers had held that the universe was finite in space but infinite in time. Al-Ghazali argued that an infinite time was related to an infinite space. With his clarity of thought and force of argument, he was able to create a balance between religion and reason, and identified their respective spheres as being the infinite and the finite, respectively.
In religion, particularly mysticism, al-Ghazali cleansed the approach of Sufism of its excesses and re-established the authority of the orthodox religion. Yet, he stressed the importance of genuine Sufism, which he maintained was the path to attain the absolute truth.
Al-Ghazali was a prolific writer. His most noted books include Tuhafat al-Falasifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), Ihya al-‘Ulum al-Islamia (The Revival of the Religious Sciences), The Beginning of Guidance, and Deliverance from Error. Some of his works were translated into European languages in the Middle Ages. He also wrote a summary of astronomy.
Al-Ghazali’s influence was deep and enduring. He is one of the greatest theologians of Islam. His theological doctrines penetrated Europe and influenced Jewish and Christian scholasticism. Indeed, several of al-Ghazali’s theses appear to have been adopted by Thomas Aquinas in order to similarly re-establish the authority of orthodox Christian religion in the West. So forceful were al-Ghazali’s arguments in the favor of religion that he was accused of damaging the cause of philosophy compelling Ibn Rushd (Averroes) to write a rejoinder to al-Ghazali’s Tuhafat.
Al-Ghazali documented his internal struggle and the religious solution he finally achieved in The Deliverance from Error (or The Deliverer from Error), a work that has been compared to The Confessions of Saint Augustine. In this work, al-Ghazali describes his examination of kalam (orthodox Muslim scholasticism), falsafa (metaphysics based on those of the Greeks) and t’lim (the doctrine of those who accept, without criticism, the teaching of an infallible Imam) before deciding for Sufism.
Al-Ghazali’s great work is the The Revival of the Religious Sciences (The Revivification of the Religious Sciences). In The Revival of the Religious Sciences, al-Ghazali presented his unified view of religion incorporating elements from all three sources formerly considered contradictory: tradition, intellectualism, and mysticism. The work has been considered the greatest religious book written by a Muslim, second only to the Qur’an.
After having mastered the methods of philosophy, al-Ghazali set out to refute the Neo-platonic theories of other Muslim philosophers, particularly those of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), which were opposed to such orthodox religious doctrines as that of the creation, the immortality of the soul, and divine providence. The resultant attack on philosophical theory and speculation, set forth in al-Ghazali’s Destruction of the Philosophers (or The Incoherence of the Philosophers), was in large measure responsible for the eventual decline of the element of rationalism in Islam.
Assuming that reason leads to certainty and a firm ground upon which one can establish belief, al-Ghazali immersed himself in the study of philosophy. To his dismay, he then discovered that reason goes only so far. It fails to bring about ultimate certainty. Al-Ghazali alluded to inconsistencies among the philosophers and discussed twenty points on which, according to al-Ghazali, they could be proven to be mistaken.
With his hope for attaining certainty dashed, al-Ghazali collapsed, physically and mentally going through an intense state of despair, losing his appetite and power of speech. Having become convinced that truth is not attainable through the study of jurisprudence or philosophy, he began a mystical journey in 1095 when he left Baghdad for Damascus, where he practiced austere forms of ascetic practices. al-Ghazali wandered in Islamic lands for eleven years, during which time he meditated and engaged himself in ascetic practices, until he returned to his native city of Tus. From then on al-Ghazali either taught or spent time in seclusion.
In travelling on his intellectual journey, al-Ghazali questioned everything that can be questioned, searching for a truth which could not be doubted. In his search for the indubitable truth, al-Ghazali questioned the original identity of the self or the “I” before the self is placed within the context of a given religion. Believing himself to have found the “I” which serves as the foundation of knowledge, al-Ghazali touched on a number of epistemological issues. He pointed to the dubious nature of sense perception and of reality itself.
Having criticized the traditional views of the Peripatetics’ epistemology, al-Ghazali went on to offer a critique of four classes of knowers: mystics, Batinis, theologians, and philosophers. As to mystics, al-Ghazali was opposed to those Sufis who did not observe the religious law (shari‘a) and who propagated the Doctrine of the Unity of Being (wah dat al-wujud), which for him had pantheistic implications. Al-Ghazali was vehemently against the Isma‘ili Shi‘ites, also referred to as the Batinis, for they rejected the shari‘a and argued that only an infallible Imam has access to truth.
According to al-Ghazali, theologians were blameworthy only for their methodology, and not for the content of their discussion. Al-Ghazali (who in the opinion of many, remained a theologian for his whole life despite his criticism of them) found the attempt to establish a reason-based theology a futile effort. Theology, he argued, does not begin with axiomatic principles, but with premises whose validity should ultimately be accepted on the basis of faith alone.
In the autobiographical al-Munqidh min al-dalal (The Deliverer [Deliverance] from Error), al-Ghazali describes how his intense pursuit of truth led him to investigate all academic disciplines available to an educated medieval Muslim. None, including Sufism, satisfied him because, as he discovered, truth was gained only through immediate experience. Oral instruction and the study of Sufism were no substitute for walking in the Way. After agonizing self-examination, al-Ghazali resigned his post at the prestigious Baghdad Nizamiyya Madrasa.
For more than ten years, al-Ghazali remained outside public life, opting for solitary reflection interrupted only by consultations with “men of the heart” -- consultations with Sufis. However, al-Ghazali did not merely meditate he also wrote. The resulting spiritual diary was a formidable book, one that surpassed all his previous literary productions in scope and insight.
Entitled Ihya ‘ulum ad-din (The Bringing to Life of the Sciences of Religions or The Revival of the Religious Sciences, al-Ghazali’s diary is a survey of the entire range of Muslim theological, philosophical, devotional, and sectarian thought in the eleventh and twelfth centuries of the Christian era. The mystical fervor of the Ihya is cloaked in a tight schematic garb. It is divided into two parts, each of which has two quarters, the first two with matters of the heart, corresponding to the most common Sufi dyad, the outer -- the Zahir -- and the inner -- the Batin. Each of the quarters, in turn, has ten books, for a total of forty books, a number whose symbolic reference to the forty-day retreat of Sufis was not lost on al-Ghazali’s contemporaries.
The Ihya, despite its length of over one thousand pages, was widely read and quoted in Arabic. Al-Ghazali himself rendered it into a Persian abridgment entitled Kimiya-yi sa’adat (The Elixir of Happiness). Other adaptations, translations, and commentaries appeared throughout the medieval, and even into the modern, period.
Having mastered Greek philosophy -- in particular Aristotle -- as well as his Muslim counterparts, al-Ghazali wrote Intentions of the Philosophers (Maqasid al-falasifah) and a lucid exposition of Aristotelian philosophy entitled Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-falasifah), in which by the dialectical method he attempted to destroy the philosophers’ positions.
Al-Ghazali divides the philosophers into three groups: the materialists (dahriyyun), who reject the existence of God and argue for the eternity of the world; the theists (ilahiyyun), who accept the existence of God; and the naturalists (tabi ‘iyyun), who are not necessarily opposed to the existence of a creator, but who argue against the immortality of the soul.
Al-Ghazali, whose thorough understanding of the philosophers’ position had led him to believe that pursuing reason alone would lead to the destruction of religion and morality, considered the philosophers to be heretical on three accounts: For accepting the eternity of the world, for denying God’s knowledge of particulars, and for denying bodily resurrection.
Acceptance of the eternity of the world entails making the world co-eternal with God, an unacceptable conclusion to the orthodoxy, al-Ghazali points out. Philosophers argue that the eternity of the world follows by necessity from three fundamental axioms: (1) Nothing comes out of nothing, or to put it differently, something cannot come from nothing; (2) Given a particular cause, the effect necessarily and immediately follows; (3) A cause is different from and external to the effect.
Al-Ghazali offers a series of arguments against the axioms that philosophers regard to be self-evident. In numerous arguments, he alludes to inconsistencies within these axioms. The denial of God’s knowledge of particulars necessitates God’s relative ignorance, a position unacceptable by the Islamic credo. Furthermore, the denial of bodily resurrection is contrary to numerous Qur’anic references concerning bodily resurrection. The philosophers, al-Ghazali argues, make the following three claims as the basis for denying the belief in bodily resurrection: (1) There is no logical necessity that bodies be resurrected in their physical forms, (2) If there are no bodies in the hereafter, there can be neither pain nor pleasure in the other world, (3) Hell and Heaven in their physical sense do not exist, they are of a purely spiritual nature.
Al-Ghazali then proceeds to argue against the above premises, using the rationalistic method of the Peripatetics. Al-Ghazali specifically criticizes the philosophers for holding twenty fallacious opinions to which the use of reason has led them. Among the fallacious views al-Ghazali attributes to the Peripatetics in his Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-falasifah): The world has no beginning and no end; God did not create the universe ex nihilo; God is simple and has no quiddity (distinguishing character); God can know nothing but himself; God cannot know particulars; heavenly bodies have animal souls that move by volition; miracles are impossible; human souls are not immortal; and corporeal resurrection is impossible.
Al-Ghazali contends in his critique of the above notions that through faith and faith alone can one come to the truth. The reliance on reason leads only to frustration and incoherence.
Al-Ghazali undertook a scathing attack against several philosophical positions, among them the theory of divine emanation. Al-Ghazali meticulously demonstrates that the theory of emanation propagated by philosophers fails to achieve the very purpose for which philosophers have postulated it. First, it does not solve the problem of how multiplicity came from unity and second, it fails to retain the divine unity that the theory of emanation is supposed to safeguard.
On the question of God’s knowledge of particulars, al-Ghazali is adamant that God knows all the particulars and anything short of this acknowledgment negates God’s omniscience. Even Ibn Sina, who accepts God’s omniscience, is criticized by Ghazali for stating that even though God knows everything, he does so in a universal way, that is, in a way that is beyond the spatio-temporal (space-time) limitations of human cognition.
Knowing that philosophers base many of their arguments on the law of cause and effect, al-Ghazali critically analyzes it. His criticism, which is very similar to David Hume’s argument, maintains that the relationship between a cause and the effect is not a logical necessity. Knowledge of the causal relations between fire and burning or water and wetness is not based on reasoning about necessary relations, but on sense observation.
Having argued against the necessary connection between a cause and its effect, al-Ghazali uses this to offer an explanation of the phenomenon of miracle. To those who argue for the impossibility of miracles on the ground that a miracle violates natural laws, al-Ghazali’s critique of causality explains how the continuity of the so-called “laws” of nature can be disrupted without violating any law.
Al-Ghazali elaborates extensively on ethics and moral problems. Relying on the Qur’anic concepts, he uses Aristotelian notions to shed light on some of the complex issues. One of the issues that al-Ghazali was particularly interested in was the problem of free will and determination and how that is related to the problem of human choices.
Al-Ghazali, both as a theologian and a jurist, believed that causal determinism is incompatible with moral responsibility. To solve the problem he offers an ingenious argument that contains three levels: first, there is the level of the material world, where events occur out of necessity; second, there is the sensuous world, where there is relative freedom of action; and finally there is the Divine realm, where there is absolute free will.
Al-Ghazali realizes the significance of having free will, since without it Heaven and Hell would be meaningless. Having established the relative nature of human will, al-Ghazali discusses vices and virtues and man’s duty to exercise his noble gift of free will to do what is good. He defines vices as desires of the flesh and ego (nafs) that lead to bodily excesses such as unrestrained sex; overindulgence in food; misuse of speech; love of wealth, position, name, and self-assertion. There are also sicknesses of the soul that ought to be cured by such virtues as repentance; renunciation of the materialistic world; abstinence from giving in to the desires of flesh; spiritual poverty or emptiness, which signifies a desire and ability to be filled by divine truth; patience; reliance on God as the spiritual center of the world; and finally love, the most important of all virtues. Love, for al-Ghazali, leads to an unmediated mode of cognition between the human being and God (‘arif). This subject was extensively treated in the post-Ghazali period and it reached its climax in the School of Isfahan during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Persia.
Al-Ghazali has sometimes been compared unfavorably with his younger brother, Ahmad al-Ghazali, a Sufi Shaikh and consummate poet. Both men charted new directions for the future course of Muslim spirituality, but to date the prolific and scholarly Abu Hamid al-Ghazali has attracted the greater attention.
History now records that Abu Hamid al-Ghazali was a major figure in the intellectual life of medieval Islam. As a jurist, al-Ghazali defended the integrity of the Sunni creed, and was especially concerned to show its superiority to the system of the Nizari Ismailis, a Shi‘ite sectarian group whose speculations attracted and challenged him. As a scholastic theologian, al-Ghazali inherited the Neoplatonic philosophical categories introduced into Islam through Arabic translations from Greek, popularized by the rationalist, free-thinking Mu’tazila movement and elaborated by the Turkish metaphysician al-Farabi and his Persian successor, Ibn Sina. Al-Ghazali reworked the dialectical categories of earlier Muslim theologians such as al-Ash’ari and his own teacher, al-Juwayni, but it was as a mystic that he attained his greatest fame and effected his most lasting influence.
Philosophers rarely have an impact on the history of philosophy through their lives as well as through their ideas. Al-Ghazali, however, is such a figure in that various phases of his life left an indelible mark on the history of Islamic philosophy by strengthening Sufism while curtailing the influence of rationalistic philosophy, particularly in the eastern part of the Islamic world.
Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali see Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-
Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazzali see Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-
Ghazzali, al- see Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-
Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad at-Tusi al-Ghazali see Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-
Algazel see Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-
“Proof of Islam” see Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-
Ghazali, Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-
Ghazali, Ahmad ibn Muhammad al- (Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali) (Ahmad Ghazali) (Maid al-Din Abu'l Fotuh Ahmad Ghazali) (1061-1126). Brother of the more renowned Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. He was a Sufi and a popular preacher.
Ahmad Ghazali, known as Majd al-Din Abu'l Fotuh Ahmad Ghazali, was an outstanding mystic, writer, and eloquent preacher. The younger brother of the celebrated theologian, jurist, and Sufi, Abū Ḥāmid al-Ḡhazālī, Aḥmad Ghazali was born in a village near Tus Khorasan. In Tus, he was educated primarily in jurisprudence. He turned to Sufism while still young, becoming the pupil first of Abu Bakr Nassaj Tusi (d. 1094) and then of Abu Ali Farmadi (d. 1084). He was advanced in Sufism by 1095 and his brother Abū Ḥāmid asked him to teach in his place in the Nezamiya of Baghdad and assume responsibility during his planned absence. Ahmad Ghazali travelled extensively in the capacities of both Sufi master and a popular preacher. He visited Neyshapur, Maragha, Hamadan and Isfahan. He died in Qazvin and is buried there. He initiated and trained imminent masters of Sufism including Ayn al-Quzat Hamadani, Abu al-Najib al-Suhrawardi. The latter was the founder of the Suhrawardi order and its derivatives such as the Kubrawiya, Molawiya and Nematollahi orders.
The works of Ahmad Ghazali include:
* Sawaneh, written around 1114 and comprising some 77 short chapters, was innovative in form. For a time when Persian Sufi authors used only prose, Ḡhazālī had recourse to verse in order to illustrate in metaphorical fashion the themes he expounded more technically in the prose sections of his work.
* Resālat al-ṭayr (or al-ṭoyūr) in which Ahmad Ghazali employs the metaphor of a bird and its journey. This work set a precedent for the conference of the birds of Attar.
Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali see Ghazali, Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-
Ahmad Ghazali see Ghazali, Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-
Maid al-Din Abu'l Futuh Ahmad Ghazali see Ghazali, Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-
Ghazali, Ahmad ibn Muhammad al- (Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali) (Ahmad Ghazali) (Maid al-Din Abu'l Fotuh Ahmad Ghazali) (1061-1126). Brother of the more renowned Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. He was a Sufi and a popular preacher.
Ahmad Ghazali, known as Majd al-Din Abu'l Fotuh Ahmad Ghazali, was an outstanding mystic, writer, and eloquent preacher. The younger brother of the celebrated theologian, jurist, and Sufi, Abū Ḥāmid al-Ḡhazālī, Aḥmad Ghazali was born in a village near Tus Khorasan. In Tus, he was educated primarily in jurisprudence. He turned to Sufism while still young, becoming the pupil first of Abu Bakr Nassaj Tusi (d. 1094) and then of Abu Ali Farmadi (d. 1084). He was advanced in Sufism by 1095 and his brother Abū Ḥāmid asked him to teach in his place in the Nezamiya of Baghdad and assume responsibility during his planned absence. Ahmad Ghazali travelled extensively in the capacities of both Sufi master and a popular preacher. He visited Neyshapur, Maragha, Hamadan and Isfahan. He died in Qazvin and is buried there. He initiated and trained imminent masters of Sufism including Ayn al-Quzat Hamadani, Abu al-Najib al-Suhrawardi. The latter was the founder of the Suhrawardi order and its derivatives such as the Kubrawiya, Molawiya and Nematollahi orders.
The works of Ahmad Ghazali include:
* Sawaneh, written around 1114 and comprising some 77 short chapters, was innovative in form. For a time when Persian Sufi authors used only prose, Ḡhazālī had recourse to verse in order to illustrate in metaphorical fashion the themes he expounded more technically in the prose sections of his work.
* Resālat al-ṭayr (or al-ṭoyūr) in which Ahmad Ghazali employs the metaphor of a bird and its journey. This work set a precedent for the conference of the birds of Attar.
Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali see Ghazali, Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-
Ahmad Ghazali see Ghazali, Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-
Maid al-Din Abu'l Futuh Ahmad Ghazali see Ghazali, Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-
Ghazali, Muhammad al-
Ghazali, Muhammad al- (Muhammad al-Ghazali) (Mohammed al-Ghazali al-Saqqa) (1917-1996).. Egyptian religious scholar and former leading member of al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun (Muslim Brotherhood). Born in Buhayra Province, he graduated from al-Azhar in 1941 and occupied influential positions in his own country and in other Arab states. In Egypt, he was director of the Mosques Department, director general of Islamic Call (da‘wah), and under secretary of the Ministry of Awqaf. He also taught at the Universities of al-Azhar (Egypt), King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz and Umm al-Qura (Saudi Arabia), and Qatar and was the academic director of Amir ‘Abd al-Qadir’s Islamic University in Algeria.
Al-Ghazali was dismissed from his position in the hay’ah ta’ sisiyah (constituent body) of the Ihkwan in December 1953, reportedly after attempting, with two other prominent members, to unseat the organization’s leader, Hasan al-Hudaybi (with the approval, some Muslim Brothers suspected, of Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Free Officers).
Active in publishing, al-Ghazali wrote approximately forty titles including such important works as Moral Character of the Muslim; Islam and Economic Affairs; Islam and Political Despotism; A Constitution for Cultural Unity; and Prejudice and Tolerance in Christianity and Islam. He established a reputation for being a reasonable, well-balanced, and independent scholar. He was a rigorous jurist, although by no means a traditionalist, and his positions on various issues were taken seriously by the mainstream of the Islamic movement.
Substantively, al-Ghazali submitted the important thesis that contemporary Muslims have paid excessively detailed jurisprudential attention to matters of cleanliness, prayers, pilgrimage, and rituals while lagging far behind the West with regard to matters of government, the economy, and finance.
Al-Ghazali was strongly supportive of an extensively defined concept of shura (political consultation), and he was regarded as somewhat modernist in social and technological matters, condemning the austere, simplistic orientation of what he termed al-fiqh al-badawi (“nomadic jurisprudence”), and he did not preclude the experience of other (non-Muslim) societies as a source of inspiration for Muslim societies. For example, he cited both historical Islamic as well as contemporary non-Islamic examples to support the case that a woman may legitimately assume any high post in society.
Methodologically, al-Ghazali’s main, and rather daring, contribution was his attempt to reduce what he regarded as an excessive reliance on the hadith in contemporary jurisprudence. He admitted only the hadiths that had a Qur’anic credibility and excluded ahadith al-ahad (“single sayings”), if they appear odd or ill reasoned. He maintained that “a little reading of the blessed Qur’an and a lot of reading of the ahadith did not give an accurate picture of Islam.” In his view, it was this lopsided methodology in approaching Islam that partly explains what he regards as the “infantile” attitude of militant Islamists. For Muhammad al-Ghazali, the Islamists are obsessed with power but poorly trained doctrinally.
Al-Ghazali’s strict scrutiny of the hadith thus enables him to criticize simultaneously both the Muslim social reactionaries, who use hadiths on the flimsiest grounds to justify such practices as beating and sodomizing wives, and the Islamist political radicals who have used similar hadiths to justify forcing their own views and authority on society at large.
The works of al-Ghazali include:
* Islam and the Modern Economy
* Islam and Political Despotism
* Fanaticism and Tolerance Between Christianity and Islam
* Fiqh Al Seerah
Muhammad al-Ghazali see Ghazali, Muhammad al-
Ghazali, Muhammad al- (Muhammad al-Ghazali) (Mohammed al-Ghazali al-Saqqa) (1917-1996).. Egyptian religious scholar and former leading member of al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun (Muslim Brotherhood). Born in Buhayra Province, he graduated from al-Azhar in 1941 and occupied influential positions in his own country and in other Arab states. In Egypt, he was director of the Mosques Department, director general of Islamic Call (da‘wah), and under secretary of the Ministry of Awqaf. He also taught at the Universities of al-Azhar (Egypt), King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz and Umm al-Qura (Saudi Arabia), and Qatar and was the academic director of Amir ‘Abd al-Qadir’s Islamic University in Algeria.
Al-Ghazali was dismissed from his position in the hay’ah ta’ sisiyah (constituent body) of the Ihkwan in December 1953, reportedly after attempting, with two other prominent members, to unseat the organization’s leader, Hasan al-Hudaybi (with the approval, some Muslim Brothers suspected, of Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Free Officers).
Active in publishing, al-Ghazali wrote approximately forty titles including such important works as Moral Character of the Muslim; Islam and Economic Affairs; Islam and Political Despotism; A Constitution for Cultural Unity; and Prejudice and Tolerance in Christianity and Islam. He established a reputation for being a reasonable, well-balanced, and independent scholar. He was a rigorous jurist, although by no means a traditionalist, and his positions on various issues were taken seriously by the mainstream of the Islamic movement.
Substantively, al-Ghazali submitted the important thesis that contemporary Muslims have paid excessively detailed jurisprudential attention to matters of cleanliness, prayers, pilgrimage, and rituals while lagging far behind the West with regard to matters of government, the economy, and finance.
Al-Ghazali was strongly supportive of an extensively defined concept of shura (political consultation), and he was regarded as somewhat modernist in social and technological matters, condemning the austere, simplistic orientation of what he termed al-fiqh al-badawi (“nomadic jurisprudence”), and he did not preclude the experience of other (non-Muslim) societies as a source of inspiration for Muslim societies. For example, he cited both historical Islamic as well as contemporary non-Islamic examples to support the case that a woman may legitimately assume any high post in society.
Methodologically, al-Ghazali’s main, and rather daring, contribution was his attempt to reduce what he regarded as an excessive reliance on the hadith in contemporary jurisprudence. He admitted only the hadiths that had a Qur’anic credibility and excluded ahadith al-ahad (“single sayings”), if they appear odd or ill reasoned. He maintained that “a little reading of the blessed Qur’an and a lot of reading of the ahadith did not give an accurate picture of Islam.” In his view, it was this lopsided methodology in approaching Islam that partly explains what he regards as the “infantile” attitude of militant Islamists. For Muhammad al-Ghazali, the Islamists are obsessed with power but poorly trained doctrinally.
Al-Ghazali’s strict scrutiny of the hadith thus enables him to criticize simultaneously both the Muslim social reactionaries, who use hadiths on the flimsiest grounds to justify such practices as beating and sodomizing wives, and the Islamist political radicals who have used similar hadiths to justify forcing their own views and authority on society at large.
The works of al-Ghazali include:
* Islam and the Modern Economy
* Islam and Political Despotism
* Fanaticism and Tolerance Between Christianity and Islam
* Fiqh Al Seerah
Muhammad al-Ghazali see Ghazali, Muhammad al-
Ghazali, Zaynab al-
Ghazali, Zaynab al- (Zaynab al-Ghazali) (January 2, 1917 – August 8, 2005). Writer and teacher of the Muslim Brotherhood and the founder of the Muslim Women’s Association (1936-1964). The daughter of an al-Azhar educated independent religious teacher and cotton merchant, she was privately tutored in Islamic studies in the home in addition to attending public school through the secondary level, and she obtained certificates in hadith, preaching, and Qur’anic exegesis. Her father encouraged her to become an Islamic leader, citing the example of Nusaybah bint Ka‘b al-Maziniyah, a woman who fought alongside the Prophet in the Battle of Uhud. Although for a short time she joined Huda Sha‘rawi’s Egyptian Feminist Union, she came to see this as a mistaken path for women, believing that women’s rights were guaranteed in Islam. At the age of eighteen she founded the Jama‘at al-Sayyidat al-Muslimat (Muslim Women’s Association), which had a membership of three million throughout the country by the time it was dissolved by government order in 1964. Her weekly lectures to women at the Ibn Tulun Mosque drew a crowd of three thousand, which grew to five thousand during the holy months of the year. Besides offering lessons for women, the association published a magazine, maintained an orphanage, offered assistance to poor families, and mediated family disputes. The association also took a political stance, demanding that Egypt be ruled by the Qur’an.
The similar goals of the Muslim Brotherhood were noted by its founder, Hasan al-Banna’, who requested that al-Ghazali’s association merge with the Muslim Sisters, the women’s branch of his organization. She refused until 1949, shortly before al-Banna’s assassination, when, sensing that it was critical for all Muslims to unite behind al-Banna’s leadership, she gave him her oath of allegiance and offered him her association. He accepted her oath and said that the Muslim Women’s Association could remain independent. During the 1950s, the Muslim Women’s Association cooperated with the Muslim Sisters to provide for families who had lost wealth and family members as a result of Nasser’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.
Al-Ghazali was instrumental in re-grouping the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1960s. Imprisoned for her activities in 1965, she was sentenced to twenty-five years of hard labor but was released under Anwar al-Sadat’s presidency in 1971. She described her prison experiences, which included suffering many heinous forms of torture, in a book entitled Ayyam min hayati (Days from My Life) which was published in 1977. Al-Ghazali depicted herself as enduring torture with strength beyond that of most men, and she attested to both miracles and visions that strengthened her and enabled her to survive. She saw herself as the object of President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s personal hatred, for she and her colleague ‘Abd al-Fattah Isma‘il “robbed” Nasser of the generation that had been raised on his propaganda. She believed that the superpowers were involved in singling her out to Nasser as a threat, and indeed she affirmed that Islam’s mission means the annihilation of the power of the United States and the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, she denied that the Muslim Brotherhood intended to assassinate Nasser, for “killing the unjust ruler does not do away with the problem” of a society that needs to be entirely re-educated in Islamic values. In her book, she condemned tactics of murder, torture, and terrorism and denied that the Muslim Brotherhood wanted to usurp power. Later, however, she justified the threat of violence against unbelievers in order to bring them forcibly “from darkness to light,” comparing such tactics to snatching poison from the hands of a child. She defined the Muslim Brotherhood as the association of all Muslims and said that Muslims who did not belong to it were deficient, although she did not go so far as to call them unbelievers. At that time, she supported the Iranian Revolution, but in a later interview (September 13, 1988) she said that both the Shiism of the regime and the tactics of violence against its citizens had led her to conclude that it was not really an Islamic state.
The Muslim Women’s Association was taken from al-Ghazali’s hands in 1965 and merged with a rival association of the same name founded by a former member of her group. The rival group was a religious voluntary association. Such associations, which number in the thousands, have played a major role in the religious life of women in Egypt in this century, offering lessons in the Qur’an and Islamic law, classes in sewing and other crafts, and pre-schools for children, among other social services.
After her release from prison, al-Ghazali resumed teaching and writing, first for the revived Muslim Brotherhood’s monthly magazine, Al-da‘wah, banned by Sadat in September 1981, and then for another Islamist publication, Liwa’ al-islam. She described herself as a “mother” to the Muslim Sisters, as well as to the young men she helped organize in the early 1960s. She was editor of a women’s and children’s section in Al-da‘wah, in which she encouraged women to become educated, but to be obedient to their husbands and stay at home while raising their children. She blamed many of the ills of society on the absence of mothers from the home. This conservative stance appears to be contradicted by the historical figures she used as models of womanhood in short vignettes in that same section, courageous women warriors from the early period of Islam, including members of the extremist Khariji sect, which was virtually obliterated in warfare with the larger Muslim community.
Al-Ghazali’s own example as an activist in the public sphere who divorced her first husband for interfering with her Islamic activities and threatened her second husband with the same also appears to contradict her own advice. When asked about this discrepancy, she said that her case was special, because God had given her the “blessing” – although not viewed as such by most people – of not having conceived any children. This gave her a great deal of freedom. Her husband was also quite wealthy, so she had servants to do her housework. She further regarded it as a boon that her husband was a polygamist, for whenever he went to see one of his other wives, “it was like a vacation” for her. She insisted, nonetheless, that she remained obedient to her husband. She believed that Islam allows women to be active in all aspects of public life, as long as it does not interfere with their first and most sacred duty: to be a wife and mother. Her second husband died while she was in prison (having divorced her under threat of imprisonment himself). Having fulfilled her duty of marriage, she felt free to devote all of her energies to the Islamic cause. Although the Islamist movement throughout the Muslim world today has attracted large numbers of young women, especially since the 1970s, Zaynab al-Ghazali stands out thus far as the only woman to distinguish herself as one of its major leaders.
Zaynab al-Ghazali see Ghazali, Zaynab al-
Ghazali, Zaynab al- (Zaynab al-Ghazali) (January 2, 1917 – August 8, 2005). Writer and teacher of the Muslim Brotherhood and the founder of the Muslim Women’s Association (1936-1964). The daughter of an al-Azhar educated independent religious teacher and cotton merchant, she was privately tutored in Islamic studies in the home in addition to attending public school through the secondary level, and she obtained certificates in hadith, preaching, and Qur’anic exegesis. Her father encouraged her to become an Islamic leader, citing the example of Nusaybah bint Ka‘b al-Maziniyah, a woman who fought alongside the Prophet in the Battle of Uhud. Although for a short time she joined Huda Sha‘rawi’s Egyptian Feminist Union, she came to see this as a mistaken path for women, believing that women’s rights were guaranteed in Islam. At the age of eighteen she founded the Jama‘at al-Sayyidat al-Muslimat (Muslim Women’s Association), which had a membership of three million throughout the country by the time it was dissolved by government order in 1964. Her weekly lectures to women at the Ibn Tulun Mosque drew a crowd of three thousand, which grew to five thousand during the holy months of the year. Besides offering lessons for women, the association published a magazine, maintained an orphanage, offered assistance to poor families, and mediated family disputes. The association also took a political stance, demanding that Egypt be ruled by the Qur’an.
The similar goals of the Muslim Brotherhood were noted by its founder, Hasan al-Banna’, who requested that al-Ghazali’s association merge with the Muslim Sisters, the women’s branch of his organization. She refused until 1949, shortly before al-Banna’s assassination, when, sensing that it was critical for all Muslims to unite behind al-Banna’s leadership, she gave him her oath of allegiance and offered him her association. He accepted her oath and said that the Muslim Women’s Association could remain independent. During the 1950s, the Muslim Women’s Association cooperated with the Muslim Sisters to provide for families who had lost wealth and family members as a result of Nasser’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.
Al-Ghazali was instrumental in re-grouping the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1960s. Imprisoned for her activities in 1965, she was sentenced to twenty-five years of hard labor but was released under Anwar al-Sadat’s presidency in 1971. She described her prison experiences, which included suffering many heinous forms of torture, in a book entitled Ayyam min hayati (Days from My Life) which was published in 1977. Al-Ghazali depicted herself as enduring torture with strength beyond that of most men, and she attested to both miracles and visions that strengthened her and enabled her to survive. She saw herself as the object of President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s personal hatred, for she and her colleague ‘Abd al-Fattah Isma‘il “robbed” Nasser of the generation that had been raised on his propaganda. She believed that the superpowers were involved in singling her out to Nasser as a threat, and indeed she affirmed that Islam’s mission means the annihilation of the power of the United States and the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, she denied that the Muslim Brotherhood intended to assassinate Nasser, for “killing the unjust ruler does not do away with the problem” of a society that needs to be entirely re-educated in Islamic values. In her book, she condemned tactics of murder, torture, and terrorism and denied that the Muslim Brotherhood wanted to usurp power. Later, however, she justified the threat of violence against unbelievers in order to bring them forcibly “from darkness to light,” comparing such tactics to snatching poison from the hands of a child. She defined the Muslim Brotherhood as the association of all Muslims and said that Muslims who did not belong to it were deficient, although she did not go so far as to call them unbelievers. At that time, she supported the Iranian Revolution, but in a later interview (September 13, 1988) she said that both the Shiism of the regime and the tactics of violence against its citizens had led her to conclude that it was not really an Islamic state.
The Muslim Women’s Association was taken from al-Ghazali’s hands in 1965 and merged with a rival association of the same name founded by a former member of her group. The rival group was a religious voluntary association. Such associations, which number in the thousands, have played a major role in the religious life of women in Egypt in this century, offering lessons in the Qur’an and Islamic law, classes in sewing and other crafts, and pre-schools for children, among other social services.
After her release from prison, al-Ghazali resumed teaching and writing, first for the revived Muslim Brotherhood’s monthly magazine, Al-da‘wah, banned by Sadat in September 1981, and then for another Islamist publication, Liwa’ al-islam. She described herself as a “mother” to the Muslim Sisters, as well as to the young men she helped organize in the early 1960s. She was editor of a women’s and children’s section in Al-da‘wah, in which she encouraged women to become educated, but to be obedient to their husbands and stay at home while raising their children. She blamed many of the ills of society on the absence of mothers from the home. This conservative stance appears to be contradicted by the historical figures she used as models of womanhood in short vignettes in that same section, courageous women warriors from the early period of Islam, including members of the extremist Khariji sect, which was virtually obliterated in warfare with the larger Muslim community.
Al-Ghazali’s own example as an activist in the public sphere who divorced her first husband for interfering with her Islamic activities and threatened her second husband with the same also appears to contradict her own advice. When asked about this discrepancy, she said that her case was special, because God had given her the “blessing” – although not viewed as such by most people – of not having conceived any children. This gave her a great deal of freedom. Her husband was also quite wealthy, so she had servants to do her housework. She further regarded it as a boon that her husband was a polygamist, for whenever he went to see one of his other wives, “it was like a vacation” for her. She insisted, nonetheless, that she remained obedient to her husband. She believed that Islam allows women to be active in all aspects of public life, as long as it does not interfere with their first and most sacred duty: to be a wife and mother. Her second husband died while she was in prison (having divorced her under threat of imprisonment himself). Having fulfilled her duty of marriage, she felt free to devote all of her energies to the Islamic cause. Although the Islamist movement throughout the Muslim world today has attracted large numbers of young women, especially since the 1970s, Zaynab al-Ghazali stands out thus far as the only woman to distinguish herself as one of its major leaders.
Zaynab al-Ghazali see Ghazali, Zaynab al-
Ghazal, Yahya ibn Hakam al-
Ghazal, Yahya ibn Hakam al- (Yahya ibn Hakam al-Ghazal). Poet at the court of the ninth century Spanish Umayyads, known for his satires and avarice. In 840, the amir ‘Abd al-Rahman II sent him on a diplomatic mission to the Byzantine emperor Theophilus.
Yahya ibn Hakam al-Ghazal see Ghazal, Yahya ibn Hakam al-
Ghazal, Yahya ibn Hakam al- (Yahya ibn Hakam al-Ghazal). Poet at the court of the ninth century Spanish Umayyads, known for his satires and avarice. In 840, the amir ‘Abd al-Rahman II sent him on a diplomatic mission to the Byzantine emperor Theophilus.
Yahya ibn Hakam al-Ghazal see Ghazal, Yahya ibn Hakam al-
Ghazan
Ghazan (Mahmud Ghazan) (Qazaan the Khan of the Mongol Khanate in Middle Asia) (Casanus) (Cassanus) (November 5, 1271 – May 11, 1304).. First Muslim Il-Khanid ruler who was the ruler of Iran (r.1295-1304). Ghazan is considered the greatest of the Mongol Ilkhans. Although he had an active military career, Ghazan is remembered primarily for his administrative achievements. Brought up as a Buddhist, Ghazan became a Muslim shortly before his accession and set out to reimpose Islam as the official religion of the realm. His first decree ordered the destruction of the churches, synagogues, and Buddhist temples built by earlier, non-Muslim Il-khans. Ghazan also instituted reforms systematizing the chaotic administration of the Ilkhanid realm. He reorganized taxation, currency, weights and measures, and the system of military support. These reforms did much to improve the Ilkhanid economy and administration. Ghazan was a patron of culture, both Islamic and foreign. He valued his Mongolian heritage highly and was expert in Mongol history and traditions. The historical treatise (History of the Mongols) that he commissioned from his vizier, Rashid al-Din Tabib, includes the history of the Turks, the Mongols, Europe, India, and China. Ghazan died on May 11, 1304, at the age of thirty-two.
Western chroniclers sometimes referred to Mahmud Ghazan as Casanus or Cassanus. Ghazan converted Mongol Persia to Islam. He also delivered the only major Mongol victory over the Mamelukes in 1299, though he did not have sufficient army to hold Syria.
Ghazan was the eldest son of the crown prince Arghun and Qutlugh of the Dorben clan. He was also the nephew of the earlier Ilkhan ruler Gaykhatu, and a cousin of his predecessor Baydu, whom Ghazan toppled.
Ghazan was baptized and raised a Christian, along with his brother Oljeitu. When he was born, his father, Arghun, was viceroy in Khorasan for Abaqa Khan.
During Ghazan's youth, he followed Buddhism, one of the dominant religions in the Mongol empire at that time. During Ghazan's fourth year, Abaqa Khan placed him in the Ordo (palace-tent) of his childless khatun Bulughan. Ghazan's grandparents had a Chinese Buddhist monk teach him Mongolian and Uighur scripts and Buddhism. It is said that little Ghazan learned to ride a horse quickly and that his grandfather was proud of him. His step-grandmother Bulughan took good care of him.
After the Ilkhan Abaqa’s death Bulughan’s Ordo moved to Khorasan with Ghazan in 1282. His father Arghun was crowned as Ilkhan the next year and Ghazan was left in Khorasan as viceroy.
In spite of his traditional Mongolian hobby hunting, he liked handicrafts. Ghazan built a major Buddhist temple at Quchan, though he was surrounded by amazing Muslim culture. Ghazan found his loyal companions such as Qutlughshah of the Manghud, Nurin agha of the Jurkhin, and Sad-ud-Din Savaji Persian there.
In 1289, a notable Oirat noble's son Nawroz rebelled and joined the alliance of Kaidu, the ruler of both the House of Ogedei and the Chagatai Khanate. Ghazan resided for the next 10 years and defended the frontier against the Chagatai Mongols of Central Asia. When Arghun khan was murdered in 1291, Nawroz’s raids and rebellion and famine in Khorasan and Nishapur kept Ghazan from pressing his claim in the capital. Ghazan’s uncle Gaykhatu became new Ilkhan and took over most of Abagha’s wives and properties.
Ghazan's principal wife during his lifetime was Kökechin, who had been brought from the Empire of the Great Khan by Marco Polo. She had originally been betrothed to the Ilkhan Arghun, but he died before her arrival, so she instead married Ghazan, his son, when his uncle Gaykhatu was ruling Mongol Persia. Ghazan refused to introduce paper currency to his province, though he was loyal to the Ilkhan Gaykhatu. Ghazan explained that the weather of Khorasan was too humid to handle paper and he subsequently set printing machines of paper notes on fire. He probably understood that the introduction of paper money would be contrary to the customs of the Muslims in North-East Persia.
After Nawroz and Nishapur surrendered in 1294-95, Ghazan was finally free to pursue his claim to the throne of the Ilkhanate and his father's properties. It coincided with the death of Gaykhatu in 1295.
Ghazan annexed power from Baydu in 1295 with the help of the prominent Muslim Mongol amir Nawruz, who persuaded Ghazan to convert to Shi'a Islam, as a condition for the latter's military support in toppling Baidu. When he converted, Ghazan changed his first name to the Arab name Mahmud, and Islam gained popularity within Mongol territories. However, various sources stated that even with Ghazan's conversion to Islam, he still practiced Mongol Shamanism at large and worshipped Tengri because he honored his ancestors' worship of heaven as a kind of proto-Islamic monotheism. The Yassa code remained in place and Mongol Shamans were allowed to remain in the Ilkhanate. The shamans remained politically influential throughout the reign of both Ghazan and Oljeitu, but ancient Mongol traditions eventually went into decline after the demise of Oljeitu.
Ghazan was a man of high culture, with numerous hobbies including linguistics, agro-techniques, painting, chemistry and dispension. He spoke numerous languages, including Chinese, Arabic and "Frank" (probably Latin) as well as his own native language Mongolian. Numerous Europeans are known to have worked for Ghazan often in high positions.
Nawrūz loyalists destroyed Buddhist temples (pagodas had been built in Tabriz and Sultaniye, and numerous monks had immigrated from Sin-Kiang, Tibet or China) and chased Buddhists out of Ilkhan dominion or converted them to Islam, a move from which Iranian Buddhism never recovered. The Christians were also severely affected. The cathedral of Maragha, the Mongol capital, was looted. Churches in Tabriz and Hamadan were also destroyed.
Ghazan soon however put a stop to these exactions by issuing an edict exempting the Christians from the jizya and stated that "none of them shall abandon his faith, that the Catholicus shall live in the state to which he hath been accustomed". Mar Yaballaha was reestablished in his functions in 1296, signaling a return to previous policies. Ghazan also saw political necessity of respecting the religion of his Georgian and Armenian client kings.
Ghazan eliminated the partisans of Nawrūz for treason in May 1297. He then marched against Nawrūz, then commander of the army of Khorassan, in 1297, and vanquished him near Nishapur. Nawrūz took refuge at the court of the malik of Herat, in northern Afghanistan, but the latter actually betrayed him and delivered him to Ghazan, who had him executed immediately on August 13.
Ghazan thereafter attempted to control the situation. The following year he nominated Rashid al-Din, a Jew converted to Islam, as prime minister, a post he would hold continuously between 1298 to 1318. Despite his conversion, due to his cultural roots, Ghazan also encouraged the original archaic Mongol culture to flourish. He tolerated the Shiites as well.
Ghazan eased the troubles with the Golden Horde, but the Ogedeids and Chagataids in Central Asia posed serious threat to the Ilkhanate and his overlord and ally Great Khan in China. When Ghazan was crowned, the Chagatayid Khan Duwa invaded Khorasan in 1295. Ghazan sent two of his relatives against the army of Chagatai Khanate but they deserted. Although, the traitors were captured and executed, some of the notable Mongol nobles began to leave his side. Baltu of the Jalayir and Sulemish of the Oirat revolted against the Ilkhan's rule in Turkey in 1296 and 1299. Sulemish welcomed the Mamelukes to Anatolia and postponed Ghazan's plan to invade Syria, though two Mongol rebels were defeated by Ghazan. A large group of the Oirats fled Syria, defeating the contingent sent by Ghazan in 1299. Ghazan may have discriminated against non-Muslim Oirats. Along with those rebellions, invasions of the Neguderis of the Chagatai Khanate caused difficulties to Ghazan's military operations in Syria.
Ghazan disliked the intervention in internal affairs of other Mongol Khanates of the Mongol Empire. When Nogai and Tokhta, the khan of the Jochids, asked him for military support against each other, he refused twice. This action increased Ghazan's reputation among Tokhta and his Mongols of the Golden Horde. However, Tokhta demanded the Transcaucasus. Tokhta exchanged presents and envoys with Ghazan regularly. Ghazan also well received Nogai's wife and young son after her husband's defeat in 1299.
Ghazan well maintained his strong ties with the Great Khan of the Yuan and the Golden Horde. In 1296 Temur Khan, the successor of the Great Khan Kublai, dispatched Baiju, the military commander, to Mongol Persia, the western region of the Mongol Empire. Ghazan was so impressed with Baiju's abilities. Five years later, Ghazan sent his Mongolian and Persian retainers to collect income from Hulegu's appanages in China. They presented tribute to Khagan Temur and inspected properties granted to Hulegu in North China. Ghazan's envoys were involved in cultural exchange across Mongol Eurasia. Ghazan called upon other Mongol Khans to unite under the Khagan Temur. Kaidu's enemy Bayan Khan of the White Horde strongly supported his appeal.
Even though Ghazan was a Muslim, he attempted to conquer the Muslim lands of Syria. He was also one of a long line of Mongol leaders who engaged in diplomatic communications with the Europeans in attempts to form a Franco-Mongol alliance against their common enemy, primarily the Egyptian Mamelukes. He already had the use of forces from Christian vassal countries such as Cilician Armenia and Georgia. The plan was to coordinate actions between Ghazan's forces, the Christian military orders, and the aristocracy of Cyprus, to defeat the Muslims, after which Jerusalem would be returned to the Christians.
In October 1299, Ghazan marched with his forces towards Syria and invited the Christians to join him. His forces took the city of Aleppo, and were there joined by King Hethum II of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, whose forces included some Templars and Hospitallers, and who participated in the rest of the offensive. The Mongols and their allies defeated the Mamelukes in the Battle of Wadi al-Khazandar, on December 23 or 24, 1299. Ghazan's personal courage led the Mongols to crush the Mamelukes. One group of Mongols then split off from Ghazan's army, and pursued the retreating Mameluke troops as far as Gaza, pushing them back to Egypt. The bulk of Ghazan's forces then proceeded on to Damascus, which surrendered somewhere between December 30, 1299, and January 6, 1300, though its Citadel resisted. Ghazan then retreated most of his forces in February, probably because their horses needed fodder. He promised to return in the winter of 1300-1301 to attack Egypt.
In the meantime the remaining forces of the Mongols, about 10,000 horsemen under the Mongol general Mulay, briefly ruled over Syria and engaged in raids as far south as Jerusalem and Gaza, before retreating in February.
In July 1300, the Crusaders formed a small fleet of sixteen galleys with some smaller vessels, to raid the coast, and Ghazan's ambassador traveled with them.
In addition to his religious deep impact on Persia, Ghazan unified measures, coinage and weights in the Ilkhanate. Ghazan ordered a new census in Persia to define the Dynasty's fiscal policy. He began to reuse wilderness or abandoned lands to raise corps. And Mongol soldiers were given iqtas by the Ilkhanid court. Ghazan strongly supported the introduction of Eastern Asian crops in Persia. We are told that Ghazan planted crops in person. Ghazan improved the yam, constructing hostels, hospitals, schools and posts. Envoys from the court received a per diem stipend, and those of the nobility traveled at their own expense. Ghazan ordered only envoys bearing urgent military intelligence to use the staffed postal relay service.
Ghazan introduced a unified bi-metallic currency including Ghazani dinars to Persia. Ghazan organized purchases of raw materials and payment to artisans. He decided to purchase most weapons on the open market and replaced the traditional Mongol policy on craftsmen in the Ilkhanate.
Several new guard units, mostly Mongols, were created by Ghazan for his army center. However, he restricted new guards’ political significance. Seeing Mongol commoners selling their children into slavery as damaging to both the manpower and the prestige of the Mongol army, the Ilkhan budgeted funds to redeem Mongol slave boys. Ghazan made Bolad commander of a military unit of redeemed Mongol slave boys. Ghazan was worried that the now-Islamic Mongols might loose sight of their ancestral traditions and commissioned Rashid al-Din to produce a comprehensive history, the Jami al-Tawarikh, of the people.
In late 1300, the Crusaders attempted to establish a base at the small island of Ruad, from which raids were launched on Tortosa, while awaiting the arrival of the Mongols. However, Ghazan's forces were delayed, and the Crusader forces ended up returning to Cyprus, leaving a garrison on Ruad, which was besieged and captured by Mamelukes by 1303 (see Siege of Ruad).
In February 1301, the Mongols did arrive with a force of 60,000, but could do little else than engage in some raids around Syria. Kutlushah (Qutlugh-Shah for the Mongols, Cotelesse in Frank sources) stationed 20,000 horsemen in the Jordan valley to protect Damas, where a Mongol governor was stationed. Soon however, they had to withdraw.
Plans for combined operations with the Crusaders were again made for the following winter offensive, and in late 1301, Ghazan asked the Pope to send troops, priests, peasants, in order to make the Holy Land a Frank state again. But again, Ghazan did not appear with his own troops. He wrote again to the Pope in 1302, and his ambassadors also visited the court of Charles II of Anjou. When the Mongol envoys returned to Persia after April 27, 1303, they were accompanied by Gualterius de Lavendel, as ambassador of Charles II to Ghazan.
In 1303, the Mongols appeared in great strength (about 80,000) together with the Armenians after repelling the raiders of Chagatai noyan Qutlugh Khwaja. Ruad having been lost, Crusader forces from Cyprus were deprived of the possibility to make contact with Mongol troops in 1303, and only conducted naval attacks on the Syrian coast, raiding Damour, south of Beyrout.
However, Mongol forces with their Armenian allies were defeated at Homs on March 30, 1303, and at the decisive Battle of Marj al-Saffar, south of Damascus, in April 1303. It is considered to be the last major Mongol invasion of Syria.
Also in 1303, Ghazan had again sent a letter to Edward I, in the person of Buscarello de Ghizolfi, reiterating Hulagu's promise that they would give Jerusalem to the Franks in exchange for help against the Mamelukes.
Ghazan died on May 10, 1304, and Crusader dreams of a rapid reconquest of the Holy Land were destroyed. In his final illness, Ghazan nominated his brother Oljeitu, who continued the adoption of Islam, as his successor because he had no surviving son. After Oljeitu's death, Ghazan's legacy was succeeded by his nephew Abu Sa'id and niece Sati Beg.
Mahmud Ghazan see Ghazan
Qazaan the Khan of the Mongol Khanate in Middle Asia see Ghazan
Casanus see Ghazan
Cassanus see Ghazan
Ghazan (Mahmud Ghazan) (Qazaan the Khan of the Mongol Khanate in Middle Asia) (Casanus) (Cassanus) (November 5, 1271 – May 11, 1304).. First Muslim Il-Khanid ruler who was the ruler of Iran (r.1295-1304). Ghazan is considered the greatest of the Mongol Ilkhans. Although he had an active military career, Ghazan is remembered primarily for his administrative achievements. Brought up as a Buddhist, Ghazan became a Muslim shortly before his accession and set out to reimpose Islam as the official religion of the realm. His first decree ordered the destruction of the churches, synagogues, and Buddhist temples built by earlier, non-Muslim Il-khans. Ghazan also instituted reforms systematizing the chaotic administration of the Ilkhanid realm. He reorganized taxation, currency, weights and measures, and the system of military support. These reforms did much to improve the Ilkhanid economy and administration. Ghazan was a patron of culture, both Islamic and foreign. He valued his Mongolian heritage highly and was expert in Mongol history and traditions. The historical treatise (History of the Mongols) that he commissioned from his vizier, Rashid al-Din Tabib, includes the history of the Turks, the Mongols, Europe, India, and China. Ghazan died on May 11, 1304, at the age of thirty-two.
Western chroniclers sometimes referred to Mahmud Ghazan as Casanus or Cassanus. Ghazan converted Mongol Persia to Islam. He also delivered the only major Mongol victory over the Mamelukes in 1299, though he did not have sufficient army to hold Syria.
Ghazan was the eldest son of the crown prince Arghun and Qutlugh of the Dorben clan. He was also the nephew of the earlier Ilkhan ruler Gaykhatu, and a cousin of his predecessor Baydu, whom Ghazan toppled.
Ghazan was baptized and raised a Christian, along with his brother Oljeitu. When he was born, his father, Arghun, was viceroy in Khorasan for Abaqa Khan.
During Ghazan's youth, he followed Buddhism, one of the dominant religions in the Mongol empire at that time. During Ghazan's fourth year, Abaqa Khan placed him in the Ordo (palace-tent) of his childless khatun Bulughan. Ghazan's grandparents had a Chinese Buddhist monk teach him Mongolian and Uighur scripts and Buddhism. It is said that little Ghazan learned to ride a horse quickly and that his grandfather was proud of him. His step-grandmother Bulughan took good care of him.
After the Ilkhan Abaqa’s death Bulughan’s Ordo moved to Khorasan with Ghazan in 1282. His father Arghun was crowned as Ilkhan the next year and Ghazan was left in Khorasan as viceroy.
In spite of his traditional Mongolian hobby hunting, he liked handicrafts. Ghazan built a major Buddhist temple at Quchan, though he was surrounded by amazing Muslim culture. Ghazan found his loyal companions such as Qutlughshah of the Manghud, Nurin agha of the Jurkhin, and Sad-ud-Din Savaji Persian there.
In 1289, a notable Oirat noble's son Nawroz rebelled and joined the alliance of Kaidu, the ruler of both the House of Ogedei and the Chagatai Khanate. Ghazan resided for the next 10 years and defended the frontier against the Chagatai Mongols of Central Asia. When Arghun khan was murdered in 1291, Nawroz’s raids and rebellion and famine in Khorasan and Nishapur kept Ghazan from pressing his claim in the capital. Ghazan’s uncle Gaykhatu became new Ilkhan and took over most of Abagha’s wives and properties.
Ghazan's principal wife during his lifetime was Kökechin, who had been brought from the Empire of the Great Khan by Marco Polo. She had originally been betrothed to the Ilkhan Arghun, but he died before her arrival, so she instead married Ghazan, his son, when his uncle Gaykhatu was ruling Mongol Persia. Ghazan refused to introduce paper currency to his province, though he was loyal to the Ilkhan Gaykhatu. Ghazan explained that the weather of Khorasan was too humid to handle paper and he subsequently set printing machines of paper notes on fire. He probably understood that the introduction of paper money would be contrary to the customs of the Muslims in North-East Persia.
After Nawroz and Nishapur surrendered in 1294-95, Ghazan was finally free to pursue his claim to the throne of the Ilkhanate and his father's properties. It coincided with the death of Gaykhatu in 1295.
Ghazan annexed power from Baydu in 1295 with the help of the prominent Muslim Mongol amir Nawruz, who persuaded Ghazan to convert to Shi'a Islam, as a condition for the latter's military support in toppling Baidu. When he converted, Ghazan changed his first name to the Arab name Mahmud, and Islam gained popularity within Mongol territories. However, various sources stated that even with Ghazan's conversion to Islam, he still practiced Mongol Shamanism at large and worshipped Tengri because he honored his ancestors' worship of heaven as a kind of proto-Islamic monotheism. The Yassa code remained in place and Mongol Shamans were allowed to remain in the Ilkhanate. The shamans remained politically influential throughout the reign of both Ghazan and Oljeitu, but ancient Mongol traditions eventually went into decline after the demise of Oljeitu.
Ghazan was a man of high culture, with numerous hobbies including linguistics, agro-techniques, painting, chemistry and dispension. He spoke numerous languages, including Chinese, Arabic and "Frank" (probably Latin) as well as his own native language Mongolian. Numerous Europeans are known to have worked for Ghazan often in high positions.
Nawrūz loyalists destroyed Buddhist temples (pagodas had been built in Tabriz and Sultaniye, and numerous monks had immigrated from Sin-Kiang, Tibet or China) and chased Buddhists out of Ilkhan dominion or converted them to Islam, a move from which Iranian Buddhism never recovered. The Christians were also severely affected. The cathedral of Maragha, the Mongol capital, was looted. Churches in Tabriz and Hamadan were also destroyed.
Ghazan soon however put a stop to these exactions by issuing an edict exempting the Christians from the jizya and stated that "none of them shall abandon his faith, that the Catholicus shall live in the state to which he hath been accustomed". Mar Yaballaha was reestablished in his functions in 1296, signaling a return to previous policies. Ghazan also saw political necessity of respecting the religion of his Georgian and Armenian client kings.
Ghazan eliminated the partisans of Nawrūz for treason in May 1297. He then marched against Nawrūz, then commander of the army of Khorassan, in 1297, and vanquished him near Nishapur. Nawrūz took refuge at the court of the malik of Herat, in northern Afghanistan, but the latter actually betrayed him and delivered him to Ghazan, who had him executed immediately on August 13.
Ghazan thereafter attempted to control the situation. The following year he nominated Rashid al-Din, a Jew converted to Islam, as prime minister, a post he would hold continuously between 1298 to 1318. Despite his conversion, due to his cultural roots, Ghazan also encouraged the original archaic Mongol culture to flourish. He tolerated the Shiites as well.
Ghazan eased the troubles with the Golden Horde, but the Ogedeids and Chagataids in Central Asia posed serious threat to the Ilkhanate and his overlord and ally Great Khan in China. When Ghazan was crowned, the Chagatayid Khan Duwa invaded Khorasan in 1295. Ghazan sent two of his relatives against the army of Chagatai Khanate but they deserted. Although, the traitors were captured and executed, some of the notable Mongol nobles began to leave his side. Baltu of the Jalayir and Sulemish of the Oirat revolted against the Ilkhan's rule in Turkey in 1296 and 1299. Sulemish welcomed the Mamelukes to Anatolia and postponed Ghazan's plan to invade Syria, though two Mongol rebels were defeated by Ghazan. A large group of the Oirats fled Syria, defeating the contingent sent by Ghazan in 1299. Ghazan may have discriminated against non-Muslim Oirats. Along with those rebellions, invasions of the Neguderis of the Chagatai Khanate caused difficulties to Ghazan's military operations in Syria.
Ghazan disliked the intervention in internal affairs of other Mongol Khanates of the Mongol Empire. When Nogai and Tokhta, the khan of the Jochids, asked him for military support against each other, he refused twice. This action increased Ghazan's reputation among Tokhta and his Mongols of the Golden Horde. However, Tokhta demanded the Transcaucasus. Tokhta exchanged presents and envoys with Ghazan regularly. Ghazan also well received Nogai's wife and young son after her husband's defeat in 1299.
Ghazan well maintained his strong ties with the Great Khan of the Yuan and the Golden Horde. In 1296 Temur Khan, the successor of the Great Khan Kublai, dispatched Baiju, the military commander, to Mongol Persia, the western region of the Mongol Empire. Ghazan was so impressed with Baiju's abilities. Five years later, Ghazan sent his Mongolian and Persian retainers to collect income from Hulegu's appanages in China. They presented tribute to Khagan Temur and inspected properties granted to Hulegu in North China. Ghazan's envoys were involved in cultural exchange across Mongol Eurasia. Ghazan called upon other Mongol Khans to unite under the Khagan Temur. Kaidu's enemy Bayan Khan of the White Horde strongly supported his appeal.
Even though Ghazan was a Muslim, he attempted to conquer the Muslim lands of Syria. He was also one of a long line of Mongol leaders who engaged in diplomatic communications with the Europeans in attempts to form a Franco-Mongol alliance against their common enemy, primarily the Egyptian Mamelukes. He already had the use of forces from Christian vassal countries such as Cilician Armenia and Georgia. The plan was to coordinate actions between Ghazan's forces, the Christian military orders, and the aristocracy of Cyprus, to defeat the Muslims, after which Jerusalem would be returned to the Christians.
In October 1299, Ghazan marched with his forces towards Syria and invited the Christians to join him. His forces took the city of Aleppo, and were there joined by King Hethum II of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, whose forces included some Templars and Hospitallers, and who participated in the rest of the offensive. The Mongols and their allies defeated the Mamelukes in the Battle of Wadi al-Khazandar, on December 23 or 24, 1299. Ghazan's personal courage led the Mongols to crush the Mamelukes. One group of Mongols then split off from Ghazan's army, and pursued the retreating Mameluke troops as far as Gaza, pushing them back to Egypt. The bulk of Ghazan's forces then proceeded on to Damascus, which surrendered somewhere between December 30, 1299, and January 6, 1300, though its Citadel resisted. Ghazan then retreated most of his forces in February, probably because their horses needed fodder. He promised to return in the winter of 1300-1301 to attack Egypt.
In the meantime the remaining forces of the Mongols, about 10,000 horsemen under the Mongol general Mulay, briefly ruled over Syria and engaged in raids as far south as Jerusalem and Gaza, before retreating in February.
In July 1300, the Crusaders formed a small fleet of sixteen galleys with some smaller vessels, to raid the coast, and Ghazan's ambassador traveled with them.
In addition to his religious deep impact on Persia, Ghazan unified measures, coinage and weights in the Ilkhanate. Ghazan ordered a new census in Persia to define the Dynasty's fiscal policy. He began to reuse wilderness or abandoned lands to raise corps. And Mongol soldiers were given iqtas by the Ilkhanid court. Ghazan strongly supported the introduction of Eastern Asian crops in Persia. We are told that Ghazan planted crops in person. Ghazan improved the yam, constructing hostels, hospitals, schools and posts. Envoys from the court received a per diem stipend, and those of the nobility traveled at their own expense. Ghazan ordered only envoys bearing urgent military intelligence to use the staffed postal relay service.
Ghazan introduced a unified bi-metallic currency including Ghazani dinars to Persia. Ghazan organized purchases of raw materials and payment to artisans. He decided to purchase most weapons on the open market and replaced the traditional Mongol policy on craftsmen in the Ilkhanate.
Several new guard units, mostly Mongols, were created by Ghazan for his army center. However, he restricted new guards’ political significance. Seeing Mongol commoners selling their children into slavery as damaging to both the manpower and the prestige of the Mongol army, the Ilkhan budgeted funds to redeem Mongol slave boys. Ghazan made Bolad commander of a military unit of redeemed Mongol slave boys. Ghazan was worried that the now-Islamic Mongols might loose sight of their ancestral traditions and commissioned Rashid al-Din to produce a comprehensive history, the Jami al-Tawarikh, of the people.
In late 1300, the Crusaders attempted to establish a base at the small island of Ruad, from which raids were launched on Tortosa, while awaiting the arrival of the Mongols. However, Ghazan's forces were delayed, and the Crusader forces ended up returning to Cyprus, leaving a garrison on Ruad, which was besieged and captured by Mamelukes by 1303 (see Siege of Ruad).
In February 1301, the Mongols did arrive with a force of 60,000, but could do little else than engage in some raids around Syria. Kutlushah (Qutlugh-Shah for the Mongols, Cotelesse in Frank sources) stationed 20,000 horsemen in the Jordan valley to protect Damas, where a Mongol governor was stationed. Soon however, they had to withdraw.
Plans for combined operations with the Crusaders were again made for the following winter offensive, and in late 1301, Ghazan asked the Pope to send troops, priests, peasants, in order to make the Holy Land a Frank state again. But again, Ghazan did not appear with his own troops. He wrote again to the Pope in 1302, and his ambassadors also visited the court of Charles II of Anjou. When the Mongol envoys returned to Persia after April 27, 1303, they were accompanied by Gualterius de Lavendel, as ambassador of Charles II to Ghazan.
In 1303, the Mongols appeared in great strength (about 80,000) together with the Armenians after repelling the raiders of Chagatai noyan Qutlugh Khwaja. Ruad having been lost, Crusader forces from Cyprus were deprived of the possibility to make contact with Mongol troops in 1303, and only conducted naval attacks on the Syrian coast, raiding Damour, south of Beyrout.
However, Mongol forces with their Armenian allies were defeated at Homs on March 30, 1303, and at the decisive Battle of Marj al-Saffar, south of Damascus, in April 1303. It is considered to be the last major Mongol invasion of Syria.
Also in 1303, Ghazan had again sent a letter to Edward I, in the person of Buscarello de Ghizolfi, reiterating Hulagu's promise that they would give Jerusalem to the Franks in exchange for help against the Mamelukes.
Ghazan died on May 10, 1304, and Crusader dreams of a rapid reconquest of the Holy Land were destroyed. In his final illness, Ghazan nominated his brother Oljeitu, who continued the adoption of Islam, as his successor because he had no surviving son. After Oljeitu's death, Ghazan's legacy was succeeded by his nephew Abu Sa'id and niece Sati Beg.
Mahmud Ghazan see Ghazan
Qazaan the Khan of the Mongol Khanate in Middle Asia see Ghazan
Casanus see Ghazan
Cassanus see Ghazan
Ghazi al-Din Haydar
Ghazi al-Din Haydar (Ghazi-ud-Din Haider) (b.c. 1769 - d.c. 1827) was fifth nawab wazir of Oudh from 11 July 1814 to 19 October 1818 and first King of Oudh from October 19, 1818 to October 19, 1827.
He was the third son of Nawab Saadat Ali Khan and Mushir Zadi was his mother. He became Nawab Wazir of Oudh on July 11, 1814 after the death of his father. In 1818, under the influence of Lord Hastings, the British Governor General, he declared himself as the independent Padshah-i-Avadh (King of Oudh). He died in the Farhat Bakhsh palace in Lucknow in 1827. He was succeeded by his son Nasir-ud-Din Haider after his death.
Several monuments in Lucknow were constructed by Ghazi-ud-Din Haider. He built the Chattar Manzil palace and added the Mubarak Manzil and the Shah Manzil in the Moti Mahal complex for better viewing of the animal fights. He also constructed the tombs of his parents, Sadat Ali Khan and Mushir Zadi Begum. For his European wife, he constructed a European style building known as the Vilayati Bagh. Another creation, the Shah Najaf Imambara (1816), his mausoleum, on the bank of the Gomti is a copy of the fourth Caliph Ali’s burial place in Najaf, Iraq. His three wives, Sarfaraz Mahal, Mubarak Mahal and Mumtaz Mahal were also buried here.
Ghazi-ud-Din first appointed a British artist, Robert Home (1752 – 1834) as his court artist and after his retirement in 1828, he appointed another British, George Duncan Beechey (1798 – 1852) as his court artist. In 1815, Raja Ratan Singh (1782-1851), a noted astronomer, poet and scholar of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Sanskrit and English joined his court. Because of his initiative, a royal litho printing press in Lucknow was set up in 1821 and the Haft Qulzum, a dictionary and grammar of the Persian language in two volumes was published from this press in the same year.
Haydar, Ghazi al-Din see Ghazi al-Din Haydar
Ghazi-ud-Din Haider see Ghazi al-Din Haydar
Haider, Ghazi-ud-Din see Ghazi al-Din Haydar
Ghazi al-Din Haydar (Ghazi-ud-Din Haider) (b.c. 1769 - d.c. 1827) was fifth nawab wazir of Oudh from 11 July 1814 to 19 October 1818 and first King of Oudh from October 19, 1818 to October 19, 1827.
He was the third son of Nawab Saadat Ali Khan and Mushir Zadi was his mother. He became Nawab Wazir of Oudh on July 11, 1814 after the death of his father. In 1818, under the influence of Lord Hastings, the British Governor General, he declared himself as the independent Padshah-i-Avadh (King of Oudh). He died in the Farhat Bakhsh palace in Lucknow in 1827. He was succeeded by his son Nasir-ud-Din Haider after his death.
Several monuments in Lucknow were constructed by Ghazi-ud-Din Haider. He built the Chattar Manzil palace and added the Mubarak Manzil and the Shah Manzil in the Moti Mahal complex for better viewing of the animal fights. He also constructed the tombs of his parents, Sadat Ali Khan and Mushir Zadi Begum. For his European wife, he constructed a European style building known as the Vilayati Bagh. Another creation, the Shah Najaf Imambara (1816), his mausoleum, on the bank of the Gomti is a copy of the fourth Caliph Ali’s burial place in Najaf, Iraq. His three wives, Sarfaraz Mahal, Mubarak Mahal and Mumtaz Mahal were also buried here.
Ghazi-ud-Din first appointed a British artist, Robert Home (1752 – 1834) as his court artist and after his retirement in 1828, he appointed another British, George Duncan Beechey (1798 – 1852) as his court artist. In 1815, Raja Ratan Singh (1782-1851), a noted astronomer, poet and scholar of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Sanskrit and English joined his court. Because of his initiative, a royal litho printing press in Lucknow was set up in 1821 and the Haft Qulzum, a dictionary and grammar of the Persian language in two volumes was published from this press in the same year.
Haydar, Ghazi al-Din see Ghazi al-Din Haydar
Ghazi-ud-Din Haider see Ghazi al-Din Haydar
Haider, Ghazi-ud-Din see Ghazi al-Din Haydar
Ghazi Celebi
Ghazi Celebi. Ruler of Sinop on the Black Sea in Turkey (r.1300-1330(?)). He is known for his practical exploits against the Genoese, making sometimes alliance with and sometimes against the Greeks of Trabzon.
Celebi, Ghazi see Ghazi Celebi.
Ghazi Celebi. Ruler of Sinop on the Black Sea in Turkey (r.1300-1330(?)). He is known for his practical exploits against the Genoese, making sometimes alliance with and sometimes against the Greeks of Trabzon.
Celebi, Ghazi see Ghazi Celebi.
Ghazi Giray II
Ghazi Giray II (Bora) (b. 1554). One of the greatest khans of the Crimea (r.1588-1607). He managed to steer a course between the Ottoman sultan and the Crimean aristocracy, which was seeking independence from Istanbul.
Bora see Ghazi Giray II
Giray, Ghazi see Ghazi Giray II
Ghazi Giray II (Bora) (b. 1554). One of the greatest khans of the Crimea (r.1588-1607). He managed to steer a course between the Ottoman sultan and the Crimean aristocracy, which was seeking independence from Istanbul.
Bora see Ghazi Giray II
Giray, Ghazi see Ghazi Giray II
Ghazi ibn Faysal I
Ghazi ibn Faysal I (Ghazi bin Faisal) (March 21, 1912 - April 4, 1939). King of Iraq (r. 1933-1939). His short reign was marked by the short-lived coup of General Bakr Sidqi in 1936. Ghazi was born in Mecca. In 1921, when his father, Faisal, became the king of Iraq, Ghazi, as his only son, was installed as the crown prince. On September 8, 1933, Ghazi became the king of Iraq. In October of 1936, Ghazi had the civilian government of Yassinu al-Hashemi overthrown. In April of 1939, Ghazi died from injuries sustained in a car crash. Ghazi was driving his sports car at the time. He was succeeded by his son, Faisal. Ghazi’s short rule was marked by divisions in the Iraqi society where groups inside the military forces clashed. Ghazi was himself part of these clashes, and commanded the military to remove the civilian government of Iraq. Ghazi was considered a popular leader, because of his nationalist approach in confronting the British.
Ghazi bin Faisal was born in Mecca (in present-day Saudi Arabia), the only son of Faisal I, the first King of Iraq.
As Ghazi was the only son of Faisal I, he was left to take care of his grandfather, Hussein bin Ali, the Grand Sharif of Mecca, while his father was busy in his campaigns and travels. He therefore grew up, unlike his worldly father, a shy and inexperienced young man. He left the Hijaz to Jordan with the rest of the Hashimites in 1924. He came to Baghdad in the same year and was appointed as the crown prince. When he was 16 Ghazi was taken for his first airplane flight by the American adventurer Richard Halliburton and pilot Moye Stephens. They buzzed the school yard so his school mates could see him in the biplane and stopped in Samarra to have a picnic atop the famed spiral minaret.
On the September 8, 1933, King Faisal I died and Ghazi was crowned as King Ghazi I. On the same day, Ghazi was appointed Admiral of the Fleet in the Royal Iraqi Navy, Field Marshal of
the Royal Iraq Army, and Marshal of the Royal Iraqi Air Force. A staunch pan-Arab nationalist, opposed to British interests in his country, Ghazi's reign was characterized by tensions between civilians and the army, which sought control of the government. He supported General Bakr Sidqi in his coup, which replaced the civilian government with a military one. This was the first coup d'état to take place in the Arab world. He was rumored to harbor sympathies for Nazi Germany and also put forth a claim for Kuwait to be annexed to Iraq. For this purpose he had his own radio station in al-Zuhoor royal palace in which he promoted that claim and other radical views.
Ghazi died in 1939 in a mysterious accident involving a sports car he was driving. Some believe he was killed on the orders of Nuri as-Said.
Faisal, Ghazi's only son, succeeded him as King Faisal II. Because Faisal was under age, Prince Abdul Ilah served as Regent until 1953.
On January 25, 1934 Ghazi married Princess Aliya bint Ali daughter of King Ali of Hejaz in Baghdad Iraq. They had only one son:
* Faisal II, King of Iraq - born May 2, 1935 died July 14, 1958
Faysal, Ghazi ibn see Ghazi ibn Faysal I
Ghazi bin Faisal see Ghazi ibn Faysal I
Faisal, Ghazi bin see Ghazi ibn Faysal I
Ghazi died in 1939 in a mysterious accident involving a sports car he was driving. Some believe he was killed on the orders of Nuri as-Said.
Faisal, Ghazi's only son, succeeded him as King Faisal II. Because Faisal was under age, Prince Abdul Ilah served as Regent until 1953.
On January 25, 1934 Ghazi married Princess Aliya bint Ali daughter of King Ali of Hejaz in Baghdad Iraq. They had only one son:
* Faisal II, King of Iraq - born May 2, 1935 died July 14, 1958
Faysal, Ghazi ibn see Ghazi ibn Faysal I
Ghazi bin Faisal see Ghazi ibn Faysal I
Faisal, Ghazi bin see Ghazi ibn Faysal I
Ghazi Miyan
Ghazi Miyan (Sipah Salar Mas‘ud) (d.1033). One of the earliest and most celebrated of Indo-Muslim saints. His tomb at Bahraic in Uttar Pradesh is visited by Hindus and Muslims.
Miyan, Ghazi see Ghazi Miyan
Sipah Salar Mas‘ud see Ghazi Miyan
Mas'ud, Sipah Salar see Ghazi Miyan
Ghazi Miyan (Sipah Salar Mas‘ud) (d.1033). One of the earliest and most celebrated of Indo-Muslim saints. His tomb at Bahraic in Uttar Pradesh is visited by Hindus and Muslims.
Miyan, Ghazi see Ghazi Miyan
Sipah Salar Mas‘ud see Ghazi Miyan
Mas'ud, Sipah Salar see Ghazi Miyan
Ghaznavid
Ghaznavid. Sunni Turkish dynasty (r.977-1186 [1187?]) in Khurasan (Khorasan), Afghanistan, and northern India (the Punjab), with its center at Lahore. The Ghaznavid empire was comprised of Afghanistan and parts of Iran and Central Asia and conquered much of India.
The Ghaznavids were a Turkish dynasty in Afghanistan, Khorasan (Persia), and northern India (977-1150), in the Punjab until 1186. Their main capitals were Ghazna, and from 1156 Lahore. It was founded by Alptigin (d. 963), a Samanid slave, who conquered the strategic mountain town of Ghazni in 962 and made it into an independent kingdom. Following the conquest of the town of Ghazna (an outpost in mountainous east-central Afghanistan) by the Samanid army commander Alptegin (Alptigin) in 962, his successor Sebuktegin (Subuktigin) (r. 977-997) became governor of the Samanids in the Ghazna region, where he enjoyed de facto independent rule and conquered lands in Khorasan.
Sebuktegin’s son, Mahmud of Ghazna (r. 998-1030), the most important early Islamic conqueror, eliminated the Samanid rule over Khorasan in 999, conquered Baluchistan and Khwarazm, neutralized the Qarakhanids and fought as a strict Sunnite against the Buyids (Rayy was captured in 1029). Mahmud was acknowledged by the caliph and given an honorary title. From 1001, his Indian conquests extended as far as Gujarat, Sind, and Kanauj in the center of the subcontinent, and paved the way for Islam in India.
Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni (971-1030) was the greatest of the Ghaznavids. Mahmud led numerous raids into the Punjab, looting Indian cities of enormous wealth that he used to convert Ghazni into one of the great centers of Islamic culture. Before his death, Mahmud annexed the Punjab to this kingdom.
Mahmud’s son, Mas'ud I (r. 1030-1040), concentrated on India but was defeated on May 23, 1040, by the Seljuks at Dandanqan, who expelled the Ghaznavids from Khorasan, driving them eastward.
Under Maudud (r. 1041-1048), the murdered Mas'ud’s successor, the dynasty was able to hold its central Afghanistan homeland as well as its possessions in the Punjab. Ibrahim I (r. 1059-1099), another of Mas'ud’s sons, came to power after a decade of internecine strife following Maudud’s death. By making peace with the Seljuks, Ibrahim was able partially to reconsolidate the family’s position. Ibrahim I (r. 1059-1099) relinquished all territories in the Oxus region. His rule was limited to eastern Afghanistan and northern India. Ibrahim’s son, Mas'ud III (r. 1099-1115), continued his father’s policies.
None of their successors was able to maintain successfully the territorial claims of the Ghaznavids against the aspirations of the Seljuks, the Ghuzz (Oghuz) Turks, and the newly powerful Ghurid sultans.
Bahram Shah (r. 1118-1152) enforced his rule in the Punjab under the authority of the Ghurids, who captured Ghazna.
Ghazna was devastated by the Ghurid Ala al-Din Husain in 1150. In 1160, the Ghaznavid capital was moved to Lahore.
In1186, the Ghurids removed the Ghaznavids after the conquest of Lahore. Muhammad of Ghur (Ghurid Shihab al-Din) (d. 1206) deposed the last Ghaznavid ruler in 1186.
The Ghaznavids introduce several themes of subsequent Islamic history: the concept of a “slave” dynasty attaining independence; the interaction of Turkish, Persian, nomadic, and sedentary traditions and systems; and the attractiveness of India for income, refuge, “holy war,” and empire.
Hundreds of scholars, including the poet Firdausi and the scientist Biruni, were in residence at Mahmud’s court. Baihaqi’s history of Mas'ud’s reign is exemplary of a new Persian prose style; the architect of the Seljuk state, the vizier Nizam al-Mulk, began his career in the Ghaznavid chancellery. Although the minarets of Ghazna are the better known architectural remains of this dynasty, the ruins of the palaces at Bust, comprising residences, mosques, baths, and so on, are more spectacular.
Cultivating a Persian civilization, the Ghaznavids executed works of art in towns like Ghazna, Bust, Balkh, Herat, and Nishapur. Archaeological remains provide an insight into the art that flourished under the aegis of the Ghaznavids.
Ghaznavid. Sunni Turkish dynasty (r.977-1186 [1187?]) in Khurasan (Khorasan), Afghanistan, and northern India (the Punjab), with its center at Lahore. The Ghaznavid empire was comprised of Afghanistan and parts of Iran and Central Asia and conquered much of India.
The Ghaznavids were a Turkish dynasty in Afghanistan, Khorasan (Persia), and northern India (977-1150), in the Punjab until 1186. Their main capitals were Ghazna, and from 1156 Lahore. It was founded by Alptigin (d. 963), a Samanid slave, who conquered the strategic mountain town of Ghazni in 962 and made it into an independent kingdom. Following the conquest of the town of Ghazna (an outpost in mountainous east-central Afghanistan) by the Samanid army commander Alptegin (Alptigin) in 962, his successor Sebuktegin (Subuktigin) (r. 977-997) became governor of the Samanids in the Ghazna region, where he enjoyed de facto independent rule and conquered lands in Khorasan.
Sebuktegin’s son, Mahmud of Ghazna (r. 998-1030), the most important early Islamic conqueror, eliminated the Samanid rule over Khorasan in 999, conquered Baluchistan and Khwarazm, neutralized the Qarakhanids and fought as a strict Sunnite against the Buyids (Rayy was captured in 1029). Mahmud was acknowledged by the caliph and given an honorary title. From 1001, his Indian conquests extended as far as Gujarat, Sind, and Kanauj in the center of the subcontinent, and paved the way for Islam in India.
Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni (971-1030) was the greatest of the Ghaznavids. Mahmud led numerous raids into the Punjab, looting Indian cities of enormous wealth that he used to convert Ghazni into one of the great centers of Islamic culture. Before his death, Mahmud annexed the Punjab to this kingdom.
Mahmud’s son, Mas'ud I (r. 1030-1040), concentrated on India but was defeated on May 23, 1040, by the Seljuks at Dandanqan, who expelled the Ghaznavids from Khorasan, driving them eastward.
Under Maudud (r. 1041-1048), the murdered Mas'ud’s successor, the dynasty was able to hold its central Afghanistan homeland as well as its possessions in the Punjab. Ibrahim I (r. 1059-1099), another of Mas'ud’s sons, came to power after a decade of internecine strife following Maudud’s death. By making peace with the Seljuks, Ibrahim was able partially to reconsolidate the family’s position. Ibrahim I (r. 1059-1099) relinquished all territories in the Oxus region. His rule was limited to eastern Afghanistan and northern India. Ibrahim’s son, Mas'ud III (r. 1099-1115), continued his father’s policies.
None of their successors was able to maintain successfully the territorial claims of the Ghaznavids against the aspirations of the Seljuks, the Ghuzz (Oghuz) Turks, and the newly powerful Ghurid sultans.
Bahram Shah (r. 1118-1152) enforced his rule in the Punjab under the authority of the Ghurids, who captured Ghazna.
Ghazna was devastated by the Ghurid Ala al-Din Husain in 1150. In 1160, the Ghaznavid capital was moved to Lahore.
In1186, the Ghurids removed the Ghaznavids after the conquest of Lahore. Muhammad of Ghur (Ghurid Shihab al-Din) (d. 1206) deposed the last Ghaznavid ruler in 1186.
The Ghaznavids introduce several themes of subsequent Islamic history: the concept of a “slave” dynasty attaining independence; the interaction of Turkish, Persian, nomadic, and sedentary traditions and systems; and the attractiveness of India for income, refuge, “holy war,” and empire.
Hundreds of scholars, including the poet Firdausi and the scientist Biruni, were in residence at Mahmud’s court. Baihaqi’s history of Mas'ud’s reign is exemplary of a new Persian prose style; the architect of the Seljuk state, the vizier Nizam al-Mulk, began his career in the Ghaznavid chancellery. Although the minarets of Ghazna are the better known architectural remains of this dynasty, the ruins of the palaces at Bust, comprising residences, mosques, baths, and so on, are more spectacular.
Cultivating a Persian civilization, the Ghaznavids executed works of art in towns like Ghazna, Bust, Balkh, Herat, and Nishapur. Archaeological remains provide an insight into the art that flourished under the aegis of the Ghaznavids.
Ghazzali
Ghazzali. See Ghazali.
Ghazzali. See Ghazali.
Ghazzawi
Ghazzawi (Izzat al-Ghazzawi) (b. 1951). Palestinian author. He was born in Dayr al-Ghusoun, of refugee parents, on December 4, 1951. In 1974, he graduated from the University of Jordan with a bachelor of arts degree in American-British literature. In 1982, Ghazzawi graduated from the University of South Dakota with a master’s degree in American-British literature. In this same year, Ghazzawi began working as a lecturer at Bir Zeit University in Palestine.
In February of 1989, Ghazzawi was imprisoned for political activity in the Ashkelon prison of Beersheba, Israel. In May of 1991, he was released from prison. Ghazzawi’s son, Rami, was shot dead while participating in the intifada in 1993.
In 1994, Ghazzawi received the International Prize for Freedom of expression in Stavanger, Norway, and, in 1995, Ghazzawi was elected president of the Palestinian Writers Union.
Ghazzawi’s literature is centered around the troubles and sufferings from the Israeli occupation on the Palestinian territories. A central component of his writings was his personal sufferings, which he thought could be directed into a power that could heal. Ghazzawi’s literature was also concerned with the many qualities of life and its blessings. All of his books have been translated into English, and certain works have been translated into German, French, Hebrew and Norwegian. Ghazzawi was one of the leaders behind the intifada, heading the group of the intellectuals. He worked as a lecturer in comparative literature at the Bir Zeit University and was also the leader of the Palestinian Writers Union. He was married and had seven children.
Ghazzawi’s works include: The Woman Prisoner (Lebanon, 1986); A Critical View (Palestine, 1989); Letters Underway (Lebanon, 1989); The Edges (Palestine, 1993); Nebo Mountain (Lebanon, 1995); and Abdullah at-Tilali (Palestine, 1997).
Ghazzawi died on April 4 in his home in Ramallah.
Izzat al-Ghazzawi see Ghazzawi
Ghazzawi (Izzat al-Ghazzawi) (b. 1951). Palestinian author. He was born in Dayr al-Ghusoun, of refugee parents, on December 4, 1951. In 1974, he graduated from the University of Jordan with a bachelor of arts degree in American-British literature. In 1982, Ghazzawi graduated from the University of South Dakota with a master’s degree in American-British literature. In this same year, Ghazzawi began working as a lecturer at Bir Zeit University in Palestine.
In February of 1989, Ghazzawi was imprisoned for political activity in the Ashkelon prison of Beersheba, Israel. In May of 1991, he was released from prison. Ghazzawi’s son, Rami, was shot dead while participating in the intifada in 1993.
In 1994, Ghazzawi received the International Prize for Freedom of expression in Stavanger, Norway, and, in 1995, Ghazzawi was elected president of the Palestinian Writers Union.
Ghazzawi’s literature is centered around the troubles and sufferings from the Israeli occupation on the Palestinian territories. A central component of his writings was his personal sufferings, which he thought could be directed into a power that could heal. Ghazzawi’s literature was also concerned with the many qualities of life and its blessings. All of his books have been translated into English, and certain works have been translated into German, French, Hebrew and Norwegian. Ghazzawi was one of the leaders behind the intifada, heading the group of the intellectuals. He worked as a lecturer in comparative literature at the Bir Zeit University and was also the leader of the Palestinian Writers Union. He was married and had seven children.
Ghazzawi’s works include: The Woman Prisoner (Lebanon, 1986); A Critical View (Palestine, 1989); Letters Underway (Lebanon, 1989); The Edges (Palestine, 1993); Nebo Mountain (Lebanon, 1995); and Abdullah at-Tilali (Palestine, 1997).
Ghazzawi died on April 4 in his home in Ramallah.
Izzat al-Ghazzawi see Ghazzawi
