Islam Times - Ghazali and Islamic Reform (2)

Ghazali lived in a time period, the second half of the fifth hijri century, which was a period of political, military, intellectual, and ethical weakness.

By: Muhammad Jawad Sahibi

The foundations of power where shaken some time before and the Isma’iliyah movement and the Fatimiyan calling engulfed the entire Islamic world. This was especially the case in Ahsa’ where the Qurmatiyan government was still in place. The Turks seeped into the depths of Mukhtasar al-Abbasi’s government and took control of Baghdad. They took control of Iraq three years before Ghazali was born.

In the age of Salujuqiyan the Nizamiyah school was founded in order to defend religion and support the sunnah. Salujuqiyan knew nothing of the principles of religion. The reason that he presented himself as a believer was in order to reach power. Since he had such a goal the doors of enmity were opened. The environment was such that it seemed as if everyone was competing to gain power.

The purpose of establishing schools and the relations with others schools was both political and religious. When Salujuqiyan came to power the authority that the Abbasid caliphate had over the Shia was abolished. Likewise, the establishment of Al-Azhar by the Fatimid government in Egypt, which occurred a century earlier, was in order to confirm the Shia sect. Nizamiyah schools, which are schools that were established by Nizam al-Mulk, supported the Sunni schools of thought – the school of thought that all Sunni scholars supported from Damascus to Khurasan.

In the age of Ghazali, Hassan Sabbah, the founder of the Hashashin Society, appeared. This group later took on forms of sects far from Islam, such as the Nasiriyah and Yazidiyah. Likewise, in his age the first crusades started. Jerusalem fell into the hands of the crusaders. Ghazali was forty years old at the time. [Tarikh-i Filsifah dar Jahan-i Islam, p.518]