`Augustine, Confessions:

Augustine was a Manichaean. Manicheans believe that life is a drama; it is a struggle

between 2 gods, a good one and an evil one. Everything in life that is good comes
from the good god, and everything that is evil comes from the evil god, and people are
no more than recipients of this good and evil, and thus they are driven by things
beyond their power. Therefore people can control nothing in life, and they are
predestined, which means that it is decided in advance who will go to hell or heaven.

Augustine's starting point: There must be something different, since if we had no

choice, then heaven and hell are meaningless. Unlike Manicheans, he felt that he
could decide what to do; he felt that he had the will and thus he had responsibilities.
He shifted from Manichaeism to Christianity and became a bishop, and later on he
became a saint.

Question: How do we know that what we know is true?

The “Confessions” is an autobiography written by Augustine, it talks about his

internal journey of discovering himself and how he shifted. He discusses the issues of
subjectivity and objectivity. Before Augustine, people only used objectivity.

Augustine studied the relation between pleasure and happiness. Although he lived a
very pleasurable life, he didn't feel he was happy. He said that he and everyone seek
happiness. He did everything that he thought would make him happy, but he wasn't,
and thus he asked the question: “What is happiness?”

Happiness is different from pleasure. Pleasure is the satisfaction of immediate desires

and needs, while happiness has to do with your spirit and mind. It has to do with your
relation and view of yourself. A happy person is that who is happy with himself and
in love with it. So when you are satisfied with yourself, you will feel happy. A person
can live a very pleasurable life, but he could be miserable, and on the other hand, he
may live a very painful life, but he could be really happy. Thus happiness has to do
with your spiritual satisfaction; it isn't materialistic. It is the tranquility of your soul
and mind. A happy life is not a constantly pleasurable life; it is a tranquil life with
moments of pleasure and pain.

And therefore Augustine was able to discover himself because he gave up his belief in
2 gods where humans are irresponsible for their actions (Manichaeism), to discover
that he had the will to produce good or evil. He shifted to Christianity where god is
one and pure goodness.

The question then was: “If there is only one good god, where does evil come from?”

Good and evil are relative; there is neither pure good nor pure evil things. When we
talk about good and evil, we are talking about things that have will and morality.
Things that lack will cannot be described as good or evil. And since humans have the
will, then they can be good or evil. According to Augustine, evil doesn't exist as a
substance, it exists as a relationship. What is good or evil relates to how will is
directed. Good actions result from the well-direction of the will, while bad actions

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result from the bad-direction of the will. Animals for example do not have will, and
thus cannot be described as good or evil. Adam and Eve's move from the paradise to
the Earth was a move from the level of innocence to the level of knowledge.

According to Augustine, we are born as sinners, and the rest of our life is a process of
purification of ourselves from that original sin. The virtue is due to the good direction
of the will, and the sin is due to the bad direction of the will. We must direct our wills
towards the ultimate legitimate objective.

Our history starts with a sin and must end. There are two theories explaining life on
Earth, the Cyclical History Theory and the Linear Theory.

The Cyclical History Theory: Life on Earth has no beginning, no development, and
no end. It is a self-development process, and it assumes pantheism. There is no
particular god, god is present in everything. We are a combination of both energy and
material. The scale of existence moves from down (material) to up (energy), and the
more we grow up, we move upwards on the scale of existence. There's no unique
soul, when we die it goes out as energy. The bad goes down (e.g. insect) and the good
goes up (e.g. hero). Thus there's no ultimate death, and energy will be a shape of
reincarnation. There is no heaven and no hell. Your soul is felt by energy (not during
sleeping). This kind of ideas has entered into some monotheistic beliefs (tendency to
nature). Drooz, for example, attain a part of pantheism, they are more pantheistic than
monotheistic. Pantheism is in universe, while monotheism is outside the universe. In
pantheism, there’s no separation between god and people, god is found everywhere,
while in monotheism, separation exists between god and people. Pantheism believes
in imminence; god is imminent in the universe, while monotheism believes in
transcendence; god is beyond the universe.

The Linear (Monotheistic) Theory: Life on Earth started with Adam and Eve. When
we die, we are not reincarnated; we go either to heaven or to hell. Life is unique, it is
short and you have no other chance, so it is somehow dangerous and you must not do
mistakes. Life is developing to an end. According to monotheism, life started with
Adam ad Eve’s original sin, and our role is to purify (Christians only). Well-directed
life is that directed to god, while ill-directed life is that directed to other than god.
Monotheistic life is to empower you to live a virtuous life where god is the center of
all good.

Augustine talks about the city of god and the city of man. Without the will of people,
we cannot classify any place or thing as an element of the city of god or the city of
man. Since we can change our wills, then we cannot make any final judgment about
anybody that he is a citizen of any of the two cities. We are the memories of ourselves
as people, and if we take our memories, we still exist as material but we lose our
individualities. We talk and define ourselves through our conscience, which is our
memory of ourselves as we view now, and not through physical materials. In the
present, we view ourselves through history, and for the future, through the projection
of what we want now. As long as we are alive, we can oscillate between the two
cities. The city of god and the city of man aren’t two physically found cities, they
depend on the spiritual and psychological state of each individual, and thus the two
cities are physically mixed together. According to Augustine, we die physically once

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(when we disintegrate), and spiritually twice (we go either to heaven or to hell, but
also the soul will be either happy and enjoying being with god, or will be miserable
when god shuns it).

Question: Why does god create us?

God creates us out of perfection not of necessity. Because he is perfect, he creates.

The entire universe is created by perfection of god. God is like a writer who writes
without a need to do that, not like a student. We, by religion and praying, become
closer to being perfect, closer to god. Praying is a way of knowledge of imperfection.
To understand god, we should get out of the formalistic definitions and religion, we
should purify ourselves.

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Al-Ghazali:

Al-Ghazali wrote his book “The Savior from Aimlessness”. Unlike Augustine, Al-
Ghazali was a prominent visited by many people seeking study. At a certain time, he
felt that all his motivation is by self-interest (fame). At the peak of his career, he
asked himself the following question: “What am I doing?” He started doubting his
own knowledge: “How much of what I know is true?”, “how do I know whether what
I know is true or not?” His knowledge didn’t integrate in his personality, so he asked:
“Where is the starting point in our knowledge?”

We are all born in context, of pure nature, but then we socialize with Muslims,
Christians, etc. So Al-Ghazali asked: “How much of what I know is valuable for me?
And when does knowledge become true?” He felt empty; he felt he had knowledge
but not certain knowledge. Our knowledge is materialistic. Al-Ghazali used
methodological skepticism: doubt in order to know (oriented skepticism). This was
Al-Ghazali’s method of arriving at the ultimate knowledge.

Then Al-Ghazali became ill and depressed. He said that satisfaction is in the internal
world not as most people that try to be satisfied by the external world, so you must
experience yourself as an individual not as a member of the society. He asked the
question: “How can I create knowledge that is beneficial to me?” After all these
questions, he felt more depressed. He felt an existential crisis: “Who am I? Is there
god? Is what I know true? Is it beneficial to me or to god?”

He wrote his book “‫ ” إحياء علوم الدين‬in which he restructured Islam in a new manner.
Al-Ghazali was from the ones whom renewed religion. He was skeptic of everything
and wanted to make a solid ground for true knowledge that cannot be doubted.

He started with the senses; he wanted to know whether they could be a solid ground
for true knowledge. He said that senses provide us with information, since we
perceive most of our information using our senses. He said that we cannot recognize
all the changes that occur around us by perception, because some changes are too
small and sometimes our vision is blocked. So he asked the question: “How true is the
information that we perceive?” Al-Ghazali said that what makes our perception
correct is our reason. So reason corrects what we perceive. We create the definitions
of things and we teach them, but our minds are limited by context. So the truth cannot
be based on reason, because reason is based on reality, it is based on assumptions
after experience. So our logical conclusions are only temporary. We understand
phenomena at the current time but we don't understand the essence of things. For
example, when we say that (1+1=2), our minds generate it, but this generation may be
false. And thus Al-Ghazali distinguished between noumena and phenomena. While
phenomena are what we can see or perceive, noumena are the essences of things.
From our experience, we make rules (e.g. the sun will rise tomorrow). What if that
wasn't true? We don't know the essence of things. We know that the soul exists, for
example, but we don't know what the soul is.

Therefore, Al-Ghazali concluded that we can arrive at certain knowledge neither by

senses (perception), nor by experience and reason.

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So, could there be something that I can depend on to reach certainty?

When we sleep our souls join“‫”عالم الملكوت‬, and when we wake up our souls join “
‫”عالم الناسوت‬, but what is common between dreaming and living? The only thing
common is “I”. The real certain thing is that I exist. This is the methodology of
knowing the truth. It is by knowing ourselves.

Al-Ghazali found out that there are four different schools of thought that aim at
arriving at knowledge:

1- Theologians.
2- Instructionists.
3- Philosophers.
4- Sufis.

1) Theology starts with assumptions. You must believe in certain texts and ideas. The
role of theology is thus to be an internal defense of religion, no an external conviction
of others. It is used between people that have the same religion or belief.
Thus Al-Ghazali felt that theology cannot help him, because he didn't seek an internal
defense, but he wanted to reach the real ultimate truth.

2) Knowledge can only be taken from an instructor. He meant “‫ ”الفاطميين‬or “‫”الباطنيين‬.

These believed that each text has an exterior meaning and another interior meaning.
They believed that truth has levels. Al-Ghazali disagreed with them, and he felt that
even if he agreed with them, he cannot arrive at the ultimate truth using the method of
their school.

3) Al-Ghazali also rejected philosophers; he said that they took what is physical and
turned it into metaphysical. Their arguments are all based on cause-effect
relationships. He said that we cannot understand the metaphysics by just
understanding the physics. They said that god is the uncaused cause. Al-Ghazali
decided that philosophers are unbelievers, because they believe in these three ideas:

a) That the universe is eternal.

b) That the heaven and hell are spiritual and not physical.
c) That god doesn't know particulars; he knows and cares only about the universe in
general.

4) And thus Al-Ghazali found out that the fourth school of thought, Sufism, is the best
school that can lead him to arrive at the ultimate truth and certain knowledge.

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Ibn Tufail:

Ibn Tufail wrote a book called “Hay Bin Yakzan” (‫)حي بن يقظان‬, which is written in a
metaphorical way. He decided to write a story instead of a straight philosophical book
to prevent clash with the community.

Question: Can human beings arrive at certain knowledge without revelation?

Al-Ghazali said that we can reach certain knowledge only by revelation, and based on
it we can know other things. And thus reason, senses and spirit cannot tell the truth.

Ibn Tufail said that we can, to a certain extent, arrive at certain knowledge using our
minds, and without revelation.

The Story:

Hay Bin Yakzan was the baby of an illegitimately pregnant woman. Her brother was a
king, so she was afraid of him and she put her baby in a box and threw him in the
river. He arrived at an island, where a dear adopted him, and he was brought up
between animals and he took their traits.

One day his mother, the dear, died. He started thinking. He asked: “What is the source
of life?”, “Why can't we revive the dead?” He wanted to know the reason of his
mother's death and the source of life. He dissected his mother, and specifically her
heart. He noticed that her heart was hot and cooling. After that he dissected several
animals on the island. He discovered that heat is the source of life. That was his first
conclusion. After that he studied the fire, and he started studying everything around
him, where he finally concluded that everything has three characteristics:
1) Matter.
2) Form.
3) Dimensions.
He concluded that all things are like fire but they differ in matter, form and
dimension. For example, when we die, we change in form (dust). The difference
between people is in form not in mater and dimension. All of life is made up of one
substance but having different forms.

Then Hay asked himself the following question: “Where does the form come from?”
Form cannot come from earth, which is illogical. Also form cannot come from
heavenly bodies, such as stars and planets, because these bodies themselves have
forms, then they created themselves, which requires that they are prior to themselves.
So Hay Bin Yakzan arrived at the conclusion that everything is created by the “Giver
of Forms”, which could be called god.

And thus Ibn Tufail said that we can arrive at the truth by reason and without the
revelation. He was against Al-Ghazali since he re-empowered reason instead of
existential understanding.

Conclusion: Reason can lead us to the truth that god exists.

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We are made of three emulations, three imitations:

1) By virtue of having a body.

2) By virtue of having an animal spirit.
3) By virtue of having a soul.

Could I arrive by all these to the “Giver of Forms”?

The more we develop our body through certain sleeping and eating programs, the
more we can arrive at the truth. Ibn Tufail ate once a day, he didn't eat meat and fish,
and he ate the lowest ripe fruit and replanted their seeds. He was very aware of the
nature. He decreased his animal spirit (instincts, anger, love…).
In Sufism, the entire world is a huge animal. The best things are the moon, sun, stars,
and other heavenly bodies. If we imitate these heavenly bodies, we will reach the
giver of forms. He started helping animals as the heavenly bodies help us. He started
to move in a circle (cycle).

He found out that the reason with physical surroundings took him to certain
knowledge but not ultimate knowledge, which is existential not rational. Ibn Tufail
and Al-Ghazali disagree in the initial stage of knowledge, but agree in the existential
understanding to reach high and ultimate knowledge.

Al-Halaj, on of the most important Sufis, said that “If you look at god you look at me
and if you look at me you look at god”. He meant that he was empowered by god.
This man was killed then.

Before Al-Ghazali, Sufis tried to be different from others. They prayed at different
times, ate in Ramadan… Al-Ghazali asked the Sufis to adjust their track like the rest
of the Islamic community. He said: “Follow the religion and the community”. He
meant that you should start from the bases do more beyond these bases.

Stage of emulation is when you lose your individualism and feel you are not separated
from god. For example, praying is a type of communication with god and energization
of yourself.

Al-Ghazali changed Sufism from a heresy to a start, and improved it starting from
Islamic bases. He said that we can't attain spiritual understanding by physics but by
spirit and soul. The ultimate state of knowledge is by soul. If your soul is clean, you
reach knowledge and happiness. Physics helps reaching knowledge, but then only the
spirit and soul are the way.

The second part of the story talks about another island populated by another
community. In this island there were 2 forms of religion: The exterior interpretation,
represented by Salaman, and the interior (mystic) interpretation, represented by Asal.
Both were forms of Islam. Asal was able through religion to follow the same path
leading to the same conclusion that Hay Bin Yakzan arrived at.

Conclusion: with or without religion, we can arrive at the ultimate truth. Asal decided
to leave the island to worship god. He arrived at the same island where Hay was.
After a period of chasing, Hay and Asal met. Asal was very afraid from Hay and they

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couldn't communicate. Asal taught Hay the language, and then they started sharing
their experience. They found out that the truth each one arrived at was the same.

But Hay was not able to understand 2 things:

1) Why does prophet Mohammad use metaphors and symbols to talk to people instead
of stating things directly and clearly?
2) Why does the prophet allow people to own property?

Hay told Asal that he wanted to go to his island to teach people the truth. Asal tried to
convince Hay not to go, but Hay insisted and they went together. When they arrived,
Salaman was the president of the island. Hay started talking to people about the truth.
He asked them: “Why do you pray to god and worship him through symbols and
physical actions without really understanding what god is?” Most people didn't
respond to what Hay said. He discovered that people have variable capacities to
understand the truth. At that time he knew why the prophet talks through symbols and
metaphors, because if he told them the truth, they wouldn't understand. When god
sent the message he sent it to all. Religion has a social and moral function. Even if it
doesn't give the real truth, it provides some symbols, it organizes the society, and it
increases morality. He concluded that he was mistaken and the prophet was right. He
was wrong by assuming that all people had the same intellectual and intelligence
level. Moreover Hay knew why the prophet allowed property. He discovered that
people have tendency to compete and own things. The society should organize this
competition and ownership of property. When Hay lived alone in that island he wasn't
competing with anybody, and that's why he felt that people shouldn't have the right to
own property. Competition is thus an external not internal issue, and once you deal
publicly with issues, they become of different nature.

Conclusion: The prophet was right because he dealt with public issues of the
community and society. He was dealing with different people of different natures and
capacities. So the prophet wanted people not to lose their intrinsic primitive belief in
god while trying to reach higher knowledge.

Finally, Asal and Hay apologized to people at the island and told them that they were
mistaken. They went back to the island where they met first and separated to worship
god, because they both were seeking knowledge of god not social life. They died
separately at that island.

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Ibn Rushd:

He is one of the greatest philosophers in Islam. He is called the third teacher, after the
first teacher, Aristotle, and the second teacher, Al-Farabi. Ibn Rushd was a legal
lawyer and a famous physician. He combined Greek and Islamic philosophies. He
wrote the book “‫ ما بين الشريعة والحكمة من التصال‬:‫” فصل المقال‬. He also wrote the book: “
‫” الكلّيات في الطب‬, which was a medical reference for Europe for about 400 years.

The purpose of the first book was to refute Al-Ghazali's argument about philosophers.
He wrote as a lawyer not as a philosopher, and thus he based his philosophy on a
religious not on a philosophical ground, so that he can refute Al-Ghazali's argument
using religion. Al-Ghazali says that we can know nothing using reason. Ibn Rushd
wanted to show that the Islamic Sharia calls upon us to think rationally and
philosophically.

He started his argument by the following: The Qur'an commands us to think:

“ ‫”أفل ينظرون إلى السماء كيف رفعت وإلى الرض كيف بسطت‬

This means that god wants us to think of the power of creation. He wants us to
contemplate our life, to speculate the universe. When we are commanded to think, we
should think in the best possible manner, which is to study teleology. Teleology is the
study of the essence (noumena) of things and not the phenomena. For example people
have essence (souls) and phenomena (bodies).

According to Al-Ghazali, we can only make suggestions of the phenomena, and we

can never know the noumena except by the Sufi manner, and thus philosophers cannot
arrive at the truth.

On the other hand, Ibn Rushd said that we can study noumena, and we can arrive at
the truth only through reason and rationality, and we can understand the ultimate truth
as it is. Ibn Rushd said that god is the ultimate thought, and we have thoughts, then we
can meet with god.

Teleology is the study of essence, and the method used in it is logic, then Muslims
should adopt logic. Should we adopt logic from non-Islamic cultures (Greek)?

Al-Ghazali said that we may adopt all sciences from non-Islamic cultures, but not
philosophical and metaphysical sciences, and he refuses logic since it is a human
construction.

On the other hand, Ibn Rushd said that knowledge is a universal general theme; it is
not related to a certain culture. Knowledge is based on accumulation of knowledge of
many cultures. So Ibn Rushd is with the exchange of knowledge between different
human cultures. Human development requires interaction between cultures.

According to Ibn Rushd, god provided us with 2 means of knowledge: reason and
religion. Religion and reason don't contradict each other since their source is one and
the same.

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Question: What happens if it seems to have contradictions between reason and
religion when differences exist? Which one should yield or interpret the other?

Al-Ghazali said that there is no order of the universe, and god constantly recreates it
every second (there's no specific rational order). He also said that religion is the
ultimate interpreter.

On the other hand, Ibn Rushd said that the universe has an order created by god, and
that reason should interpret religion, because religion is symbolic while reason is
scientific. We cannot change reason to suit religion, but we can change the
interpretation of religion and not the religion itself. Ibn Rushd said that in case of
contradiction, we resort to the allegorical interpretation, which is the extension of the
significance of the meaning of the text.

Al-Ghazali used three charges of unbelief against philosophers:

1) God doesn't know particulars.

2) The universe is coeternal with god.
3) Heaven and hell are spiritual and not physical.

Ibn Rushd responded to these charges:

1) When we talk about particulars and generalities we talk about human knowledge
which is based on cause-effect relationships. God knows in a different mode and
method, not by cause-effect, because he is the cause of everything. People know
differently from god and differently from animals. So god doesn't know particulars in
the human sense, but he knows everything.

2) There are three kinds of beings:

a) Extreme, being created without agent and material and doesn't exist on time (god).
b) Extreme, being created with agent and material and do exist on time (humans).
c) Middle, being created with agent and material but doesn't exist on time (universe).
Agent Material Time
Extreme No No No
Extreme Yes Yes Yes
Middle Yes Yes No

God created the universe out of time since time itself is a creation; therefore the
universe is coeternal with god. It exists from eternity since it exists out of time.

Al-Ghazali says that the universe is created (‫ )مخلوق‬based on agent and material, while
Ibn Rushd says that it is eternal ((‫ أبدي‬based on time. Thus there's no real conflict
between both. Both are correct but the difference is in naming and shouldn't lead to
charges of unbelief. One focuses on creation and the other focuses on eternity.

Note: Creation is a divine end which is eternal.

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