Al-Ghazali's Critique of Philosophy and His Place in the History of Islamic Science

Modern studies speak more about Ghazali's influence on the history of Islamic science than about his atti-tude to the philosophical thought of the Islamic world. The main reason for this is that philosophy at that time was also a system of sciences. Whereas, during the Islamic Middle Ages, sciences were an integral part of philosophy, being recognized as a system of rational sciences, just as in the Middle Ages in the West, the seven liberal arts were part of philosophy. That is, philosophy preserved the humanities and the exact sci-ences, and sciences were not separated from philosophy. At the same time, the acceptance of philosophy as a system of sciences was a consequence of the fact that it also had the character of an educational program. In fact, the foundations of this thought go back to Aristotle and developed in the Hellenistic period. For this reason, Ghazali, criticizing the worldview of philosophers in general, also criticized their philosophical sys-tem of sciences in general. This criticism, in the form in which Ghazali interpreted the philosophical sci-ences, demonstrates the extent to which it coincides or does not coincide with the general Islamic worldview, and corresponds to an approach that analyzes these sciences through the prism of a religious worldview. Ghazali set boundaries for the analysis and interpretation of scientific innovations, preparing the ground for the rejection of scientific concepts that ran counter to the Sharia or did not support it. He pre-vented the inclusion of philosophical sciences in the educational system of madrasahs, defended the idea of the uselessness of religious and philosophical sciences, and was the initiator of the emergence of an ap-proach in Islamic culture, the supporters of which doubted the expediency of philosophical sciences. It even went so far as to establish a view according to which such concepts as philosopher, philosophical sci-ence, reason were equated with unbelief ( kufr), apostasy and zindiqism . It can be said that similar views, the cause of which was Ghazali, are still defended in the Islamic world today.