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| Author | Al-Ghazālī |
|---|---|
| Translator | Aladdin M. Yaqub |
| Language | Arabic,English |
| Subject | Islamic Theology |
Publication date | 12th century |
| Publication place | Persia |
Al-Iqtisād fī al-iʿtiqad (Arabic:الاقتصاد في الاعتقاد), orThe Moderation in Belief is a major theological work byAbū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazali.[1]George Hourani indicated that theIqtisad andMizan al-amal were completed before or duringGhazali's crisis of faith. It led him to leave his post at theNiẓamiyya school inBaghdad and enter the path ofTasawwuf. In it, he offers what scholars consider as the best defence of theAsh'arite school of Islamic theology. He also expressed strong reservations about a theology based ontaqlid and marked bypolemics. In this book, Ghazali makes an attempt to respond to the extreme literalists and theMuʿtazilites. It is the balance between reason and revelation that led to the title of bookThe Moderation in Belief.[1][2][3]
Ghazali begins the book with praise for God and importance ofrevelation. On one hand, he says,a person who is not guided by reason will misunderstand the revelation while on theother hand arationalist may exceed the limits leading to rejection of the plain meaning ofrevelation. The right course, he says, is to reconcile reason with revelation, one that puts reason at the service of understanding and then interprets the revelation. Reason, togetherwith the Revelation, is light upon light as mentioned inQuran chapter 24, verse 35.Next comes an explanatory chapter with its four introductions and four main sections. Ghazali'smain topic throughout is in praise of God, depicting it as a work of theology.[3]
A translation into English of the first sections was published as a dissertation by Dennis Morgan Davis Jr. in 2005.[3]
The first complete English-language edition was translated by Aladdin M. Yaqub, and published by the University of Chicago Press in 2013.[1]
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