Deliverance from Error by Al-Ghazali (presentation)
Mocrach123
DeliverancefromErrorpresentation.pptxDeliverance from Error
Muhammad Al-Ghazali
Introduction
a source of intellectual analysis of Al-Ghazali’s spiritual growth and presents arguments that defend his view of a higher human apprehension as compared to rational apprehension.
In other words, this is the apprehension of the prophet when the truth is revealed to him by God.
The central theme of this book
The author solves the problem of knowledge and to ultimately be in the divine presence having a degree of comprehension that leaves the heart no room for doubt.
It is a journey of his life that begins with him as a teacher at a prestigious academic institution at the age of thirty-three, continues through his ascetic wanderings, and completes with his return to his teaching career but now as a complete God-orientated man, rather than a person “on the plain of native and second-hand belief”.
Self- doubt
Al-Ghazali acknowledged his self-doubt. He said that his actions were not focused purely towards god, but towards his own quest for fame and prestige. For a man to understand and leave no room for doubt in his heart he must get over his quest for attaining satisfaction in understanding knowledge.
what knowledge really is
He argues that true knowledge must be sure in such a way that there are no room for doubts or any possibilities of error to an extend that even the mind cannot have an illusion of being wrong. With this he makes a conclusion that any knowledge that he cannot be traced in this mode of certainty is not reliable and dependable knowledge.
standard of certainty
According to Al-Ghazali none of the knowledge he had, could pass the standard of certainty that he had set-up earlier except in the case of sense-perception and necessary truth. However, he could no longer trust sense-perception either. He goes ahead to argue that even the most powerful sense which is sight can make a wrong judgement.
he compares the size of the sun and says when one sees it, it looks small like the size of a coin but the geometrical calculation shows that it is bigger than the size of earth.
Intellect
Our intellectual apprehension in seeking the truth has the ability to falsify our intellect in its judging.
people in the state of dream. When we are asleep, we believe things that happen in our dream as real as it really happens in the real world and so long as we are in the dream-condition, we do not really doubt about them. Until when we awake and then we realize that all we have imagined, believed and experienced is not real and incompetent.
Al-Ghazali’s claims
After making all this assumptions he sets out to find the truth, he starts to question the different types of knowledge around him. He covers sciences like; theology, authoritative instruction, philosophy and mysticism, all of which still continue to play significant roles today.
seekers after truth are divided into three;
Scholastic theologians, who profess to follow theory and assumption, their main aim is to preserve the purity of traditional beliefs from all unorthodox modernisation.
The philosophers, who professed to rely upon recognised logic. In order to discover where the professors of any branch of knowledge have gone wrong, one must make a deep study of that science; must equal, or surpass, those who know most of it, so as to get an understanding. This is the only way of getting complete answers.
The Sufism, identified themselves as chosen by god. This is known as the way of the heart, which leads to a greater level of consciousness. It is based beyond thinking, it awakens the soul, to realization. It is a journey of belief that goes deeper and deeper with belief.
The author does not refer to a specific group of people who identify with Sufism, but to those who practise self-purification the perfection of the human being sincerely.
Al-ghazali came to his conclusion after his convictions as a person that Sufis was the way after critiquing the philosophers and theologians of his time.
Today if one seeks god with a lot of devotion, he will definitely be guided and shown more things of devein origin than if the person lived a casual life of the world.
Conclusion
‘Deliverance of Error’ proves to be a guide and an answer to those who desire the truth and do not want to follow blindly and want. this book is a journey, a path that will take it readers to experience reality for themselves from concept, from theory, idea, information towards the ultimate truth.
