Al-Ghazali

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Al-Ghazali - Wikipedia

Al-Ghazali had an important influence on both later Muslim philosophers and Christianmedieval philosophers. Margaret Smith writes in her book Al-Ghazali: The Mystic (London 1944): "There can be no doubt that al-Ghazali’s works would be among the first to attract the attention of these European scholars" (page 220). Then she emphasizes, "The greatest of these Christian writers who was influenced by al-Ghazali was St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), who made a study of the Arabic writers and admitted his indebtedness to them, having studied at the University of Naples where the influence of Arab literature and culture was predominant at the time." In addition, Aquinas' interest in Islamic studies could be attributed to the infiltration of ‘Latin Averroism’ in the 13th century, especially at the University of Paris.

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The staple of his religious philosophy was arguing that the creator was the center point of all human life that played a direct role in all world affairs. Al-Ghazali's influence was not limited to Islam, but in fact his works were widely circulated among Christian and Hebrew scholars and philosophers. Some of the more notable philosophers and scholars in the west include David Hume, Dante, and St. Thomas Aquinas. Moses Ben Maimon, a Jewish theologian was deeply interested and vested in the works of Al-Ghazali. One of the more notable achievements of Ghazali were his writing and reform of education that laid the path of Islamic Education from the 12th to the 19th centuries. Al-Ghazali's works were heavily relied upon by Islamic mathematicians and astronomers such as At-Tusi.^[79]

How do we not have a thread on Al-Ghazali? You people get up every day and argue religion and there is not a single thread on this person who, as far as I know, formalized the idea that you can and should argue any religion you might happen to believe or disbelieve in rather than only ones that are Ancient Greek in origin.

[Exodus]

From what I know LII or maybe IEI seem like good candidates - he was very broad-minded and came up with "Cartesian doubt" hundreds of years before Descartes did. He engaged with a lot of different strands of thought including Greek-influenced philosophers, jurists, and Sufis, and wrote comprehensive arguments addressing the philosophers' views.