Iḥyāʾ Readings — Prof. Dr. Ömer Türker

Prof. Dr. Ömer Türker

One of the most influential figures in Islamic intellectual history, Imām al-Ghazālī (1058–1111) left his post at the Niẓāmiyya after an epistemological and spiritual crisis at the height of his career and set out in search of truth. The central fruit of that search, the Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn, aims to take the religious sciences beyond a merely theoretical discipline and turn them into a means of “piety” that transforms the person. Al-Ghazālī’s project is a revolutionary attempt to mend the rupture between sharʿī and rational sciences, to place Sufism at the center of the search for truth, and to restore the disturbed balance of piety.

Seminar sessions

• Introduction to the Iḥyāʾ: claim, historical place, project
• The book of knowledge and an introduction to the classification of the sciences
• Classification of the sciences: religious knowledge / worldly knowledge
• Technical reading in the book of knowledge: the project and the fate of the text
• Reminder of the rubʿs and the complexity of intentions
• The Munqidh axis: deliverance from error, sainthood, inheritance