The Incoherence of the Philosophers, 2nd Edition (Brigham Young University - Islamic Translation Series)

This is an excellent volume for those interested in classical Islamic scholastic thought. Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali is in many ways to orthodox Sunni Islamic thought what St. Thomas Aquinas was to Roman Catholic theological and philosophical thought. The translation is good, however I would not suggest this book to someone not already familiar with classical philosophical (both Greek and Islamic) arguments. For one already familiar with the writings and arguments of Plato, Aristotle, al-Farabi, and ibn Sina (Avicenna), will find this book as an invaluable intellectual and philosophical source.

This is an excellent source for comparing and understanding the subtle but, strong doctrinal and historical differentiating issues between THEOLOGY and PHILOSOPHY, i.e., the differences and doctrinal conflict between religious 'dogma' and philosophical 'theory;' i.e., between the literal meaning or interpretation, and the metaphorical meaning or interpretation of scripture and religiousity.

An excellent and thought-provoking treatise on Islamic philosophy compared with that of Greeks. Needs a lot of concentration and I recommend have a small sip each time to internalize the discussions by one of the most influential scholar and Great Imam of 11th-12th century.

Superb product and excellent service. Thank you.

While this is an exellent translation and is especially useful in that it includes the original Arabic text. Sadly however there is little in the way of a biography of al-Ghazali or an in depth study of the book itself. The introduction just gives the reader a brief introduction to the book itself and al-Ghazali. I would have liked a lot more of a comentary on the text and perhaps a comparison with ibn Rushds famous reply to this book the "Tahafut al-Tahafut" The actual translation however, is well written and presented in an English that is fairly easy to understand thought the readers would need more of a background both in al-Ghazali and in philosophical thought in the Muslim middle ages. To help with this I would recomend first Watts Islamic philosophy and theology which gives both an exellent introduction to the topic and also the conflicting debates that raged throughout Islams history. Secondly I would recomend "On the harmoy of religion and philosophy" by Averroes better known as ibn Rushd. This book was a more brief reply to al-Ghazalis book. It should be pointed out that al-Ghazali's writing of this book was concidered a turning point in Islamic history, it is generally thought that from this point onwards philosophy in the Islamic world went on the decline after receiving such a crushing blow from religion in the form of al-Ghazalis writings. While there wsa a decline in philosophy post al-Ghazali it is far too simplistic to claim that he was responsible for this (It is almost as bad as the Arab nationalist theory that the decline of philosophy in the Arab world was due to Turkish dominiance. Needless to say, this agrument completely ignores the fact that many 'Arab' philosophers were not even Arabs anyway). If anything, philosophy (albeit in another form) was studied even more so in the form of Sufism post al-Ghazali. Well written and well translated but the reader will need a fair bit of background reading before starting this one.

Al-Ghazali sets the standard for medieval Islamic trash talking in this one.

Hard to find academic text. Glad to track down and at a reasonable price. Not light reading. Three more words

Though only a sparse number of Medieval Muslim thinkers are familiar to Western readers, al-Ghazali is likely to be one of the most often mentioned names as THE representative classical intellectual of Sunni Islam. Not too rarely is he compared with the Christian intellectual giant, St. Augustine. This is not an inaccurate portrait. As such, many curious readers may desire to read something by al-Ghazali in order to sample his thought. This volume might be tempting to some since it is one of his most famous works. I regret to say that I must recommend against it, for although the work itself is a classic, a masterpiece of Islamic scholarship, it is also deeply abstruse. Moreover, there is little that is asserted in the positive sense of al-Ghazali's personal beliefs. Being that the main aim of the work is to show the feebleness and vanity of philosophy to surpass revelation, most of the work can be characterized as principally deconstructive. In this regard, it is as vicious as it is systematic, rigorous and disarming even if the consequences al-Ghazali pointed to, such as atomism and the denial of all forms of causality, appear highly tendentious to all modern currents of thought. All but the most intrepid readers, I fear, may despair at its contents. I wholeheartedly recommend the potential to start elsewhere, such as Deliverance from Error, an autobiographical work. With this caveat in mind, a few words about this edition for the non-initiate. The translation and the editing of the Arabic text are absolutely top-notch, and the parallel placement of the English-Arabic columns are easily followed by those familiar with both languages. Accompanying the text throughout are expository and explanatory notes that are immanently useful for both understanding cross-referencing the text with the works of the likes of Ibn Sina and al-Farabi. The aim of this series to create a parallel of the `Loeb Classics' for Islamic Studies appears to be directly on course.