al-ghazali on attributes

Al-Ghazalı on Accidental Identity andthe Attributesmuwo_1367 658..679

Taneli Kukkonen*University of Jyväskylä

Al-Ghazalı’s (1056–1111) Al-maqs·ad al-asna fı sharh· ma‘anı asma’ Allahal-h· usna, hereafter referred to as the Beautiful Names, is widely regarded ashaving ushered in a new phase in the tradition of commenting on the names of

God. The ontological status of the divine attributes had been probed by kalamtheologians over the past two centuries; for their part, Sufi writers had been keen toexploit the famous Prophetic saying according to which the believer who recounts thedivine names will one day enter Paradise.1 But before al-Ghazalı no-one had attemptedto wed a theoretical analysis of the names and attributes to that devotional focus whichtheir remembrance (dhikr ) is meant to evoke. It is this dual emphasis that lendsal-Ghazalı’s work its particular character and force, and yet it also proved a difficult modelto emulate. For the centuries following al-Ghazalı it is hard to find examples of treatisesthat would replicate all the features of his writing. If anything, al-Ghazalı’s BeautifulNames provided later writers with a toolkit upon which they could draw, with some of itslessons being absorbed while others went largely unheeded. The situation in this respectdoes not differ substantially from what happened with al-Ghazalı’s other mature works.

In a previous study I have argued for the distinctiveness of al-Ghazalı’s approachwhen it comes to establishing the parameters for accurate God-talk. What is novel in anIslamic context is how explicitly al-Ghazalı relies on the commentary tradition onAristotle’s On Interpretation when it comes to resolving the question of how the divinenames are supposed to signify. The issue of whether the meaning of divine names can

* Parts of this essay have been rehearsed in seminars and colloquia in Helsinki, Cambridge, Seattle,Winnipeg, New Haven, and Boston. The article was completed during a fellowship at the SwedishCollegium for Advanced Study. I wish to thank the Collegium and the European Research Council fortheir support of my research, and all the kind people who have improved it through questions andcomments.1 For al-Ghazalı’s version of this h· adıth, attested to by Muslim, see al-Maqs·ad al-asna fı sharh· ma‘anıasma’ Allah al-h· usna, ed. F. Shehadi (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 2nd ed. 1982), 63.4–6. Allreferences to the Arabic text are to this edition, hereafter abbreviated as Maqs·ad. As regards the actuallist of 99 names, al-Ghazalı professes to follow in the footsteps of Abu Hurayra.

© 2011 Hartford Seminary.Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148USA.DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-1913.2011.01367.x

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properly be explicated is resolved through the application of Peripatetic semantics, evenas al-Ghazalı flags up some of the problems that this raises for his own designs on ameditation upon the names.2

In this small companion piece I will argue that al-Ghazalı’s indebtedness to thePeripatetic tradition extends beyond issues of signification to the way in which the divineattributes are said to reside in the divine essence. Specifically, al-Ghazalı suggests thatthe issue of how contradictory qualities can be predicated of God can be resolved byrecourse to the Aristotelian notion of accidental identity or unity (wah· da bi al-‘ard· ).What looks to be a throwaway comment in al-Ghazalı’s Beautiful Names is in actualityanything but: the notion of accidental identity puts a particular spin on the wholequestion of the attributes, which by that time had become a well-worn topic in kalamtheological manuals. Al-Ghazalı’s explanation of the relation of the attributes to theessence also allows us to understand what he means when he says that our aim is toapproximate God and to strive to be close to Him.3

1. Names and SignificationOne needs first to give a brief account of how al-Ghazalı frames the initial problem.

The question, al-Ghazalı avers, is whether (a) the name is the same as that which isnamed or (b) whether the name should rather be identified with the act of naming. Theseare customary descriptions of the traditionalist and Mu‘tazilite positions as regards theattributes: the first formulation emphasizes that there is something real and distinct (thenamed) to which each divine name refers, while the second sees the names andattributes merely as so many descriptions of God’s actions, as perceived from the pointof view of the creature. A third party, which according to al-Ghazalı was famed for itsskills in the art of dialectic and speculative theology,4 had claimed that (c) a more refinedposition could be staked out that would retain aspects of each solution while rejectingthe extremity of both. This attempt at mediation, which is found in numerous Ash‘arite

2 See Taneli Kukkonen, “Al-Ghazalı on the Signification of Names”, Vivarium 48/1–2 (2010): 55–74.Notice the way the aim of the treatise is framed by its title: what al-Ghazalı intends to stake out is thehighest pinnacle in explicating the meaning of the names. Each word here carries weight.3 For the limited purposes of this essay I disregard the discussion of the divine attributes in al-Ghazalı’sMean in Belief (al-Iqtis·ad fı al-i ‘tiqad) as well as his so-called Jerusalem Letter (reproduced in theRevivification of the Religious Sciences, bk. 2). Although Michael Marmura, above all, has managed toextract much that is interesting from the discussion of the attributes in the Mean in Belief, I am not surethat there is much of a connection with the specific issues that I discuss. A fuller assessment of how thepresentations of the attributes in the three works cohere must await a further occasion.4 sina‘a al-jadal wa-kalam: notice the singular form here, as it appears to indicate that for al-Ghazalıkalam and dialectical disputation are at heart one and the same art. This squares with what is said, e.g.,in al-Ghazalı’s autobiography (see the section on kalam in al-Munqidh min al-d· alal ) and putsal-Ghazalı in the corner of the philosophers when it comes to describing the ultimate limitations of thekalamı theological project. Al-Ghazalı’s understanding of kalam accordingly differs from theself-understanding of the mutakallimın, for whom see Richard M. Frank, “The Science of kalam”,Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 2/1 (1992): 7–37.

Al-Ghazali on Accidental Identity and the Attributes

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manuals from the classical period, seeks to distinguish those attributes which denotethe divine essence from those that merely describe God’s actions (s·ifat al-dhat, s·ifatal-af ‘al ). But while the latter can easily be explained away as mere relationaldescriptions, that still leaves untouched the former. Accordingly, there would be littlechoice but to say that the essential attributes are neither identical with nor different fromthe divine essence. (Maqs·ad, 17.5–10) This neither-nor is perhaps an appropriatelyhumble way to signal our incomprehension in the face of the divine mystery or secret(sirr ), but is not especially helpful in terms of logical analysis. Al-Ghazalı thereforemoves that the proponents of the third position, even if they put on the airs of enjoyinggreater sophistication, in fact are the most confused of all, since their position is the mostconfusing. (Maqs·ad, 25.8–10; cf. 29.11ff.) It is nonetheless in their musings that hepurports to find a kernel of the truth as he sees it.

Given the muddy state of the earlier discussion (especially when it comes tomixing linguistic with ontological terminology — why should names and attributes betreated as convertible terms in the first place?) it is not surprising that al-Ghazalıshould seek to clear the ground before attempting his own resolution of the issue.What is remarkable is how decisively al-Ghazalı moves in the Beautiful Namestowards an appropriation of Peripatetic semantics as the instrument of choice forcutting through the thicket. This means at the same time an acceptance of theattendant metaphysical framework of the Aristotelian tradition, and again what isremarkable is how unblinkingly al-Ghazalı does just that. Even in this unquestionablydogmatic and hortative work, then, one that stems from al-Ghazalı’s mature periodand is presented very much in his own voice, al-Ghazalı, without hesitation orapology, makes full use of the conceptual resources mapped out in the earlierIntentions of the Philosophers and Criterion of Knowledge. The finding confirms for thedomain of semantics what, e.g., Griffel, Janssens, al-Akiti, myself, and above allRichard Frank have on previous occasions suggested when it comes to al-Ghazalı’scosmology and psychology. These are all Avicennian at heart in the way that they aregrounded, argued for, and represented, with certain important revisions put in placeso as to emphasize some theological point or another, but nothing so drastic as to setinto question their ultimate theoretical provenance.5

5 See, e.g., Richard M. Frank, Creation and the Cosmic System (Heidelberg: CarlWinters-Universitätsverlag, 1992); Frank Griffel, “Ms. London, British Library Or. 3126: An UnknownWork by al-Ghazalı on Metaphysics and Philosophical Theology”, Journal of Islamic Studies 17/1(2006): 1–42; Frank Griffel, “Al-Gazalı’s ¯ ¯ Concept of Prophecy: The Introduction of AvicennanPsychology into As‘arite Theology”, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 14 (2004): 101–144; Jules Janssens,Ibn Sına and His Influence on the Arabic and Latin World (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), chs. VIII-XI;M. Afifi al-Akiti, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Falsafa: Al-Ghazalı’s Madnun

�¯ , Tahafut, and

¯Maqasid�

, with Particular Attention to Their falsafi, Treatments of God’s Knowledge of TemporalEvents”, in Y. Tzvi Langermann (ed.), Avicenna and His Legacy: A Golden Age of Science andPhilosophy (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009), 51–100; M. Afifi al-Akiti, “The Three Properties of Prophethoodin Certain Works of Avicenna and al-Gazalı”, in Jon McGinnis (ed.), Interpreting Avicenna: Science andPhilosophy in Medieval Islam (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 189–212;Taneli Kukkonen, “Possible Worlds in the

The Muslim World • Volume 101 • October 2011

660 © 2011 Hartford Seminary.

In my earlier article I have laid out the most salient features of al-Ghazalı’s theory ofsignification as it comes across in the Beautiful Names, with a special emphasis on thedegree to which al-Ghazalı relies on the commentary tradition building on Aristotle’sOrganon (the Categories, the Posterior Analytics, but above all On Interpretation).6 Theresults may be summarized as follows:

1. Consistent with both the theological and philosophical traditions, al-Ghazalısubscribes to a basic conceptual framework of conception and assent (tas·awwurwa-tas·dıq). Only once a proposition has been understood can it be accepted or rejected,and this in turn presupposes an understanding of the constituent terms. What merits notehere is how high the bar is set for conception in the proper sense of the term: nothingless than a knowledge of the definition and the true nature (h· add, h· aqıqa) of both thesubject and predicate terms will secure an adequate understanding for an informedgranting, or for that matter withholding, of assent to take place. This is what knowing aname amounts to, properly speaking. (Maqs·ad, 17.17–18.2)

2. Al-Ghazalı holds to a metaphysical doctrine according to which extramentalentities, concepts or mental impressions, and linguistic items all can be said to enjoy akind of existence (wujud). Extramental existents are primary, while conceptual andlinguistic entities ordinarily derive their existence from our encounter with the world:our senses and our minds naturally come to extract formal features of the sensible world,which we then learn to signify by means of conventional linguistic signs. (Maqs·ad,18.8–19.20)

3. Al-Ghazalı reproduces many features of Aristotle’s On Interpretation having todo with nouns, verbs, and particles, simple vs. compound expressions, natural vs.conventional language, and the like. At the same time he appropriates elements from thecommentary tradition going back to Porphyry, such as the doctrine of primary andsecondary imposition (al-wad· ‘ al-awwal, al-wad· ‘ al-thanı). Some of these find use inal-Ghazalı’s own project of explicating how the divine names work, while others donot–al-Ghazalı sticks close to the Peripatetic playbook. The most crucial feature from thecommentary tradition, one that assuredly does find application in al-Ghazalı’s owndoctrine of signification, derives from the school of Alexandria. Like the philosophersfrom Ammonius’s school, and indeed al-Farabı and Ibn Sına in the Arabic tradition,al-Ghazalı says that words refer to things by means of concepts. Another way to put thematter is that words refer to concepts directly and primarily and to extramental existents

Tahafut al-falasifa. Al-Ghazalı on Creation and Contingency”, Journal of the History of Philosophy 38/4(2000): 479–502; Taneli Kukkonen, “The Self as Enemy, the Self as Divine: A Crossroads in theDevelopment of Islamic Anthropology”, in Ancient Philosophy of the Self, eds. P. Remes and J. Sihvola(Dordrecht: Springer Verlag, 2008), 205–224. I was unable to consult al-Akiti’s larger doctoral thesis,“The Mad· nun of al-Ghazalı: A Critical Edition of the Unpublished Major Mad· nun with Discussion ofHis Restricted Philosophical Corpus,” DPhil diss., 3 vols. (University of Oxford, 2008), which claims tosituate al-Ghazalı’s Mishkat al-anwar in a broader corpus of Mad· nun works clearly and indisputablyreliant on Ibn Sına.6 Kukkonen, “Signification of Names”, 59–68.



in a secondary manner (even if language should have developed as a tool tocommunicate about extramental reality). These concepts are what al-Ghazalı refers to asthe meanings (ma‘anı) of names, and the overwhelming impression is that what aremeant thereby are universals.

4. Finally, consistent with an Aristotelian as well as an Ash‘arite outlook, an analysisof propositions reveals the underlying metaphysical reality as being one of beings(substances) and their properties. The basic assertoric sentence consists of a subjectterm, a predicate term, and a relation of either affirming or rejecting the latter of theformer. (Maqs·ad, 18.2–7) In line with Aristotelian metaphysics, and in contrast to theAsh‘arite picture of reality, all qualifying features of substances are described as forms orcommon natures. Crucial to al-Ghazalı’s purposes is this notion of a true nature or innerreality (h· aqıqa) that each being has, whether this be the whiteness of white or theequinity of a horse. There is an obvious affinity here with Ibn Sına’s quiddity (mahiyya)and indeed, al-Ghazalı on occasion slips into talk of quiddities.

2. Identity and DifferenceWith the basics of the Peripatetic semantic scheme accounted for and out of the way,

al-Ghazalı can move on to the next order of business, which is to explain the meaningsof identity and difference. In point of fact, difference (ghayriyya) does not get so muchas a look-see, whereas the notion of identity is explored in quite some detail. This isunderstandable, given how it is the putative identity relations holding between thename, the thing named, and the act of naming which had provided the grounds for thecentral controversy between the Mu‘tazilites and the Ash‘arites.

Al-Ghazalı distinguishes between three senses in which two things may be said tobe one and the same (huwa huwa), i.e. identical. The first of these is strict synonymity.When two conventional linguistic signs carry the exact same meaning, the mentalreferent is the same for both, and what one does when positing an identity relation ispoint out this very fact.7 Al-Ghazalı considers this to be the only case of true identity,with all other forms of sameness derivative and dependent upon it. (Maqs·ad, 21.17–20,24.17–25.3)

Nevertheless, people do speak of identity in other ways as well. In a second,looser sense one may say that the sabre is the same as the sword, for everything thatis a sabre is thereby of necessity also a sword. Notice how at this point, theperspective has shifted from an account of mental referents to one involving extra-mental existents, at least if the notion of identity is to be taken literally: for clearly, wewould not say that what is meant by a sabre is the same as what is meant by a sword.What is more, even the scope of the extensional identification remains limited, for

7 This corresponds to Alexander of Aphrodisias’s description of numerical sameness, in which thenames are many but the thing named one: see In Top. (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca 2.2) ed. M.Wallies (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1891), 58.10–14.



while we would say that anything corresponding to the notion of a “sabre” may alsobe referred to as a “sword”, plainly the converse does not hold. In Aristotelian terms,the relationship is one between species and genus. If the former is predicated of athing, then so is the latter, but the opposite need not be the case. There is asupplement (al-ziyada) that goes into being a sabre that sets it apart from merelybeing a sword, and this constitutes its differentia. (22.1–7)

And what of the third type of identity relation? This seems purely incidental:

The third way is to say: “Snow is white and cold.” [In this case] the white and thecold are one, so that that which is the white is the same as that which is the cold(al-abyad· huwa al-barid ). [As a means of denoting identity] this is the mostfar-fetched of all: it comes down to the unity of the subject described by the twoattributes, meaning that one specific [thing] is characterized by whiteness andcoldness. (Maqs·ad, 22.8–11)

What this puts us in mind of is Aristotle’s notion of accidental identity: “white” and“musical” may be accidents of the same thing, just as what is sitting and musical may beone and the same thing as what is referred to by the proper name “Socrates”.8 Thedistinction is reproduced in Ibn Sına under the rubric of something being one byaccident (wah· id bi-l-‘ard· ), and al-Ghazalı makes note of it in his Intentions of thePhilosophers.9 Yet the notion seems to bring us no closer to establishing an identityrelation between the name, the named, and the act of naming: indeed, none of the threekinds of identity does.

Al-Ghazalı’s protest, raised again and again in one form or another, is that theproponents of an identity relation–whether of type (a) or type (b) — routinely commitone sort of category mistake or another. For instance, even if one were to substitute “thequiddity of the thing named” where one customarily reads “the named” in Ash‘aritetextbooks, still one could not claim that the former is the same as the name itself. For aname is a linguistic entity, whereas a quiddity is a feature of an outward existent.10

8 See Aristotle, De int. 11; Top. 1.7; Met. 5.6, 5.7, 5.9. Aristotelian scholarship for the most part hasconcentrated on the question of identity over time: see N. White, “Aristotle on Sameness and Oneness”,Philosophical Review 80 (1971): 177–197; F. D. Miller, Jr., “Did Aristotle Have the Concept of Identity?”Philosophical Review 82 (1973): 483–490; F. A. Lewis, “Accidental Sameness in Aristotle”, PhilosophicalStudies 42 (1982): 1–36; G. B. Matthews, “Accidental Unities”, in Language and Logos. Studies in ancientGreek philosophy presented to G. E. L. Owen, eds. M. Schofield & M. C. Nussbaum (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1982), 223–240.9 Ibn Sına, al-Shifa’: al-Ilahiyyat, bk. 3, ch. 2, 74.7ff. Marmura (also bk. 7, ch. 1 passim); al-Ghazalı,Maqas·id al-falasifa, ed. S. al-Kurdı (Cairo: al-Mah·mudiyya al-tijariyya bi-l-Azhar, 1936), 37–39. I owethe latter reference to Frank Griffel.10 It is to be noticed that al-Ghazalı pays no heed here to Ibn Sına’s famous ruminations regarding thequiddity not qua extramental essence or qua universal, but simply qua quiddity: on the topic seeMichael E. Marmura, “Quiddity and Universality in Avicenna”, in Neoplatonism and Islamic Thought,ed. P. Morewedge (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 77–87.



Neither will the equation of the name and the act of naming get us anywhere; nor againwill any of the more convoluted formulations posited by previous Muslim theologians.

The details of al-Ghazalı’s refutations, clever as they are, need not concern us here.What is important for our purposes is the concession he is willing to make to theAsh‘arite party. If and only if two crucial conditions are met, then it becomes possible tosay that the name is one and the same as the (essence of the) thing named. This is when(1) “the name” is taken to denote the meaning of the name and when (2) by the thingnamed one understands its essence in the special sense of its quiddity (mahiyya), i.e.that which makes a thing what it is. With this shift from linguistic to conceptual existence,on the left-hand side of the equation, and from any chance universal characteristic to adesignation of a thing’s one and only true essence on the right, a formal unity of therequired strength is attained to allow one to posit a true identity relation between thename and the thing named. (See Maqs·ad, 27.1–4.) Now, clearly this is a very special sortof identity; equally as clearly, if this is to be our principal tool in accounting for how therevealed names of God name Him, then we have a rocky road ahead of us. Nevertheless,for the present moment this brief affirmative statement is all we have to go on. Let ustherefore forge ahead.

The emphasis which al-Ghazalı puts on the commonality and indeed formal identitybetween quiddity and conceptual content is starkly reminiscent of the celebrated Scotistconcept of common nature, whose reliance on the Avicennian notion of the quiddityconsidered in itself has been noted in the recent literature.11 His emphasis on howknowledge of the quiddity is key to any successful act of naming likewise echoes theway in which Ibn Sına distinguishes between different uses of the term essence.According to Ibn Sına, “the question of the person who asks ‘What is it?’ corresponds to‘What is its essence?’ or ‘What is the comprehension of its name?’ ” For such acomprehension to take place one must know not only what a thing has in common withother things, but also what is proper to it.12 Or again, to point out the properlyAristotelian roots of Ibn Sına’s mahiyya (the Latin quidditas): a definition is an account(logos) that discloses what it is to be some specific kind of thing (to ti ên einai: Top. 1.5,101b38 as well as Met. Zêta and Êta passim.) For Aristotle, the name is a sign (semeion)and can be replaced by a truthful account (logos) of it, which is to say its definition(horismos).13

11 See D. Perler, “Duns Scotus’s Philosophy of Language”, in The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus,ed. T. Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 161–192, at 168; G. Pini, “Significationof Names in Duns Scotus and Some of His Contemporaries”, Vivarium 39/1 (2001): 20–51.12 See Ibn Sına, al-Isharat wa-l-tanbıhat, ed. S. Dunya (Beirut, 4 vols. 1993), 1:174–177 (= al-Mant·iq,nahj 1, fas·l 15); al-Shifa’: al-Madkhal, 37–41; al-Ghazalı, Maqas·id, 50–51, where talk is of the “realityof the essence” (h· aqıqa al-dhat).13 Aristotle, Met. 4.7, 1012a22–24 and Top. 8.13, 163b37. The case with homonyms or equivocal namesis more complicated (Top. 5.2, 129b30–35): see T. H. Irwin, “Aristotle’s Concept of Signification”, inLanguage and Logos (n. 7 above), 241–266.



On this normative account of naming, denoting the substance of a thing by callingit by some name indicates that the true essence of the thing is just what its definitionstates and nothing else.14 But this presents us with a challenge as concerns the revealednames of God. Can any one of these be said to name God to the exclusion of others, thatis to say, to point to the quiddity of that which is named? Based on Aristotle’s contentionthat the Prime Mover’s life consists in a kind of “thinking thinking thinking” (noêsisnoêseôs noêsis: Met. 12.9) some Aristotelian philosophers had claimed that it is God’sknowledge that is His distinguishing characteristic. In keeping with this tradition, andcounteracting Platonic trends which had threatened to push the One beyond allintellection and even being, the Muslim falasifa had re-established (self-)knowledge andbeing itself as essential components in any true conception of divinity.15 In the treatiseon the Beautiful Names al-Ghazalı identifies this equation of God’s essence with Hisintellection as a Mu‘tazilite as well as philosophical position;16 and while he indicates thata more forceful rejection will have to await another occasion, he cannot resist taking asubtle dig at it here.

The truth requires precision: one should say that by the expression “man”something other is understood than by the expression “knower”, since “man”denotes “rational animal”, whereas by “knower” [one may] understand anythingthat has knowledge. Moreover, one expression differs from the other, and by theone something different is understood than by the other. (Maqs·ad, 29.11–14)

Although the point is supposed to have general applicability — picking out a quidditydiffers from correctly signifying a universal feature, or even the differentia whenconsidered in isolation — the example is far from being arbitrary. For al-Ghazalı, it isunacceptable that God’s knowledge should define His being, lest the possibility beadmitted of a real likeness coming to obtain between God, the angels, and possibly evenhuman beings. The difference between creature and Creator in that case would merelybe one of degree, not one of kind: in coming to know, man would in essence becomedivine.17 This will not do: consequently, not even God’s knowledge can be identified

14 See Aristotle, Met. 4.4, 1007a26–27, and cf. section 1.1 above.15 See, e.g., al-Farabı, On the Perfect State, ch. 1, paras. 6–8, ed. and tr. R. Walzer (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1985), 70–75; Ibn Sına, al-Shifa’: al-Ilahiyyat, bk. 8, chs. 6–7; in an explicitlyPeripatetic vein, Ibn Sına’s comments on Aristotle’s On the Soul, printed in ‘A. Badawı, ed., Aris·tu ‘indaal-‘arab (Cairo: Maktaba al-nah· da al-mis·riyya, 1947), 108; Isharat, 2:419–420 (= al-T·abı ‘iyyat, namat·3, fas·l 19) and 3:53 (= al-Ilahiyyat, namat· 4, fas·l 28); on this aspect of the transition from ancient toIslamic Neoplatonism, P. Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus (London: Duckworth, 2002), 115–117 and124–137; C. D’Ancona, “L’influence du vocabulaire arabe: ‘Causa Prima est esse tantum’ ”, inL’élaboration do vocabulaire philosophique au Moyen Age, eds. J. Hamesse and C. Steel (Turnhout:Brepols, 2000), 51–97.16 Maqs·ad, 176.16–177.12. A fuller refutation is given in Discussions 11–13 of the Tahafut al-falasifa:text and translation in The Incoherence of the Philosophers. A parallel English-Arabic text, ed. after.Bouyges, tr. M. E. Marmura (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1997).17 For the principle of “like knowing like” see n. 37 below; for a case in post-Avicennian philosophywhere the same principle is used to argue for a positive likeness between intellect and the divine, Hayy



with His innermost reality. (Maqs·ad, 30.3–4) Nor can the fact that God exists be used asa basis for a positive account of divinity.18

3. Accidental Unity in the Divine MindAccording to al-Ghazalı, there is but one way in which an identity relation can be

said to obtain between varying descriptions in general, and between the divine namesin particular. This is

when one considers a single essence which is described by [saying both] that it isa man and that it knows. What is named by “man” is the same as what is describedas being a knower, just as the thing named by “snow” was the same thing that wasdescribed as being cold and white. According to this kind of consideration andinterpretation one is the same as the other, while on the first interpretation it issomething else. (Maqs·ad, 29.16–19)

What this passage confirms once and for all is something hinted at earlier, namely,that names name, while attributes merely describe. One names a man in the full senseof the word by identifying him as precisely what he is, a man: this kind of naming isimpossible in the case of God, except perhaps by simply calling Him “God”. (More onthis later.) But even while admitting that each thing has one and only one proper name,it may still be perfectly legitimate to characterize a single subject in multiple ways — toindicate that a thing falls under one or more class of existent according to the propertiesthat it has.19 Such descriptions can succeed in signifying their subject in this broadersense even when the subject’s quiddity (or, as al-Ghazalı would have it, its own inwardreality or h· aqıqa) remains unknown. We find al-Ghazalı unexpectedly evoking the thirdkind of identity outlined at the beginning of his treatise on the Beautiful Names: thedivine names are identical in the accidental sense that they are used to refer to the samesubject (Maqs·ad, 34.12–18), not because they would enjoy any semantic overlap(Maqs·ad, 36–38).

This calls to mind a formulation encountered earlier in the Beautiful Names: what agiven expression denotes is “the thing signified in so far as it is thereby signified” (minh· aythu anna-hu madlul ‘alay-hi: Maqs·ad, 21.2, emphasis mine). We are now in a

Ben Yaqdhan. Roman philosophique d ’Ibn Thofaïl, ed. L. Gauthier (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 2nd.rev. ed. 1936), 105–106 and 118–119. I have treated the similarites and differences between Ibn Sına’s,al-Ghazalı’s, and Ibn T· ufayl’s views on this point elsewhere: see Taneli Kukkonen, “Ibn Tufayl and theWisdom of the East: On Apprehending the Divine”, in Late Antique Epistemology, eds. S. R. L. Clark andP. Vassilopoulou (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009), 87–102.18 For further comments on this aspect of negative theology in al-Ghazalı see Kukkonen, “Al-Ghazalıon the Signification of Names”, 68–74.19 This principle is later used to resolve the question of whether God might have more than the 99names established by tradition. The short answer is no — only the names announced by God can safelybe regarded as names, that is, as signs referring to autonomous quiddities in the Godhead — but thatis not the whole story: many additional designations may accurately describe God, so long as they referto positive aspects and are regarded as perfections. See Maqs·ad, 181ff.



position to make sense of this claim. If a builder happens to heal, then surely he can bealluded to as a healer (cf. Maqs·ad, 28.1–11). Nevertheless, the predication will only havelimited utility, since it only spotlights an incidental feature of its subject, which mayprove more or less helpful when one is charged with pinpointing that framework inwhich the agent’s attributes and actions find their proper (one might say substantial)context and meaning. The observation, broadly Aristotelian in character, ties in with thePeripatetic predilection that allows for the study of a single subject under multipledifferent aspects. On an aspect theory of predication, a single thing may have multipleessences or “selves” (dhawat) in the broad sense of simultaneously falling within severalclassificatory schemes.20 A human being may be examined under the guises of animal,two-footed, and political, for instance, and there can be no principled objection todescribing a man both qua biped and qua knower. Each characterisation may hit uponone or several features of a person’s existence, more or less pertinent as these may be:as animals we have to hunt and gather, as bipeds we share certain peculiarities of poiseand movement with ostriches and hens, while as rational creatures we belong to anothercommunity still.21 In an analogous manner, one may very well describe God by saying,e.g., that “God is Merciful” or that “He is Mild” even while maintaining that neithercharacterisation fences off the kind of life that sets God apart from created reality. Thistype of knowledge

touches upon God, great and glorious. What is known thereby are names derivedfrom attributes. These, however, do not enter into the reality of the essence and itsquiddity. We have demonstrated that when someone points to a thing and asks“What is it?” to mention derived names is no answer at all. [. . .] A trueunderstanding (ma‘rifa) of a thing equals an understanding of its reality and itsquiddity, not an understanding of the derived names that may pertain to it. Thus,when we say “the hot” we mean one thing or another that is characterised byhotness, and similarly with “the powerful” and “the knowing”: these mean onething or another that is characterised by knowledge and power. (49.14–50.4)

In al-Ghazalı’s somewhat tortured phrasing, even if the divine names do not touch uponthe divine quiddity (what it is for God to be divine), they do succeed in denoting thedivine essence in their own fashion: “What is understood by ‘the Creator’ ”, for instance,“is not the reality of the essence (h· aqıqa al-dhat), but that essence in so far as (minh· aythu) it has a certain relational attribute” (Maqs·ad, 27.10–11). In what looks to be an

20 Cf. Aristotle, Met. 7.4 for the telling remark that calling a thing white, though it captures no thing’ssubstantial nature, does nonetheless denote an essence of sorts, viz. the essence of whiteness; andcompare (in admittedly a rather different context) al-Ghazalı’s Fays·al al-tafriqa, where it is said thatone may allow (yajuz) that one thing has multiple names according to different perspectives (i‘tibarat,following Sherman Jackson’s translation). Fays·al al-tafriqa bayna al-islam wa-l-zandaqa, ed. M. Bejou(Damascus, 1993), 38.1–2.21 On the aspect theory of predication see A. Bäck, On Reduplication (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996).



intriguingly Aristotelian analysis of the matter, al-Ghazalı says that the various attributesare said to reside in the divine essence, even as none are predicated of it.22

How are we to conceive of such an inherence relation? An obvious possibility wouldbe to suggest that the various divine names designate divine perfections, i.e. the variousways in which God relates either to Himself or to the world.23 These will have to beperfect — God’s mercy will capture the essence of what it is to be Merciful, etc. —because we will not allow for any imperfection to taint the divine reality. They will bereally distinct from one another and from the divine essence, since none of them willhave been revealed in vain and none of them can be allowed to comprehensively namethe divine.

Now, if the expression “name” denotes by second imposition and the namesthemselves by first imposition, then minimally we would expect the referents of thedivine names to enjoy stronger than mere verbal existence. If all should proceedaccording to the standard theory of reference outlined at the beginning of al-Ghazalı’streatise, the names would have as their primary referent some kind of conceptualexistence. So the divine names will refer to meanings first and foremost, which is to say,to formal objects of knowledge — something many will have suspected all along.However, this conceptual content for the divine names cannot have arisen out of ourcognition of individuals in the world, since all we encounter in the world are more or lessimperfect created beings. As we have seen, ordinary human cognition depends on priorconcrete existents (Maqs·ad, 18.12–14): these existents, however, are mere shadows, orelse mirrors or signs of the transcendent spiritual reality.24 Human cognition on its owntherefore remains unable to secure the true meaning of the names.

22 Tahafut, 100–102; cf. what Abu l-Walıd Muh· ammad Ibn Rushd (the Latin Averroës, 1126–1198) hasto say about the Ash‘arite view in his chapter on the attributes in Kitab al-kashf ‘an manahij al-adillafı ‘aqa’id al-milla, in Philosophie und Theologie von Averroes, ed. M. J. Müller (Munich: Die königlichebayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1859), 51–57.23 In a rather lengthy footnote I must register my disagreement with Shehadi, who in his introductionto the Arabic edition of the Beautiful Names (Maqsad, xlvii–xlviii) makes out that al-Ghazalı stillsubscribes to the traditional distinction between attributes of essence and those of action. On Shehadi’spicture the attributes of the essence (s·ifat al-dhat) describe the divine essence in a strong sense: onthe picture that I am drawing, by contrast, to call God “the Hearing” is simply to make reference to theexistence of perfect knowledge of all that can be heard in the Godhead, just as reference to God as “theFashioner” (al-Mus·awwir ) is to refer to the fact that God knows everything, whether actual or potential,according to its form. When al-Ghazalı insists that none of the divine names — not even the supposedlyessential seven — capture anything of the meaning of the divine quiddity, he either establishes thesemi-autonomous reality of all the attributes or none of them: my interpretation is that he wishes tosecure them all, with an emphasis on divine knowledge as the locus for the rest (see below). Al-Ghazalıhimself indicates that his theory effectively erases the distinction between essential and relationalattributes: “the attributes are divided into relational and non-relational, and all of them describe essences[of some sort]” (al-maws·uf bi-jamı ‘i-ha al-dhawat: Maqs·ad, 27.14–15, my emphasis).24 See, e.g., Mishkat al-anwar, ch. 2: text and translation in The Niche of Lights, ed. based on Afıfı,tr. D. Buchman (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1998), 25.9–27.11.



Lucky for us, then, that divine cognition operates along different lines. God’sknowledge of a thing can and indeed must precede its coming into existence on thephysical plane (see Maqs·ad, 93; cf. 79.18–80.10). It forms the blueprint for the way inwhich a thing will eventually take shape.25 The true concepts for the divine names willaccordingly refer to God “as God knows Himself”, or as He has chosen to name andthereby reveal Himself. (See Maqs·ad, 54.13–20 and ff., 47.16–48.2.)

This brings us to the way in which God’s knowledge is afforded pride of placeamong the divine attributes after all. In the Revivification of the Religious Sciencesal-Ghazalı states that knowledge is an essential and absolute, not a relative perfection;divine knowledge is likewise said to describe divine perfection without any qualifica-tion.26 Compare this to what is posited regarding the eternality of the divine attributes inthe Beautiful Names:

By things known we mean things [whose existence is] affirmed by minds(adhhan): and in relation to God these are eternal, since God has existed andknown from all eternity,27 and known that He exists and knows. His existence isaffirmed in Himself and in His knowledge as well, and similarly known by Him arethe names which He will inspire in His servants and create in their minds and intheir speech. This interpretation allows [us] to say that there are names in eternity.(Maqs·ad, 31.8–13)

I propose that this passage be read quite literally: the names are eternal because Godknows them from eternity.28 God knows their significance and that their true meaningsare attributable to Him, whether in actuality or in potentiality (cf. Maqs·ad, 31.14–32.10;138.3–6). The ontological basis for the names’ (ideal inward) reality, then, lies in theirmeaning being known to God. The relational attributes, specifically, can be forever realonly if one construes them as intelligibles, just as they can only be intelligible if they aretaken to enjoy a measure of reality (h· aqıqa) all their own, independent of any outwardinstantiation. Al-Ghazalı’s theory skilfully balances the Ash‘arite and Mu‘tazilite/philosophical viewpoints; and while its inspiration may be essentially Plotinian,29 its

25 Accordingly, in the Revivification, bk. 21, ch. 9 existence is expanded into four categories: existencein the Preserved Tablet (al-lawh· al-mah· fuz· ) precedes concrete embodied existence, which is followedby sensory and imaginary existence, which again is followed by intelligible (‘aqlı) existence in thehuman heart (qalb). See Ihya’ ‘ulum al-dın (Beirut: Dar al-kutub al-‘ilmiyya, 5 vols. 2002), 3:20.5–7.26 Knowledge is a fad· ıla fı dhati-hi wa-‘ala l-it·laq min ghayr id· afa: Ih· ya’, 1:20.16. One detects here aweak parallel to Ibn Sına’s theory according to which God’s perfection (kamal ) is best understood interms of His acting as a final cause to be cognized and imitated: for this see R. Wisnovsky, Avicenna’sMetaphysics in Context (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), 181–195.27 Fı l-azal: on the distinctions relating to eternity (which for al-Ghazalı appears to equal sempiternity)see Maqs·ad, 159–160.28 On the eternality of the attributes in post-Avicennian Muslim thought see R. Wisnovsky, “One Aspectof the Avicennian Turn in Sunnı Theology”, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 14/1 (2004): 65–100.29 According to the Theology of Aristotle Intellect contains all the attributes, and these in turn areassociated with names: see Aflutın ‘ind al-‘arab, ed. ‘A. Badawı (Cairo: Maktaba al-nahd· a al-mis·riyya,1955), 71.



justification in the context of Peripatetic semantics is provided by the Aristotelian notionof accidental identity. Ibn al-‘Arabı (1165–1240) deftly captures the essence of this theorywhen he writes, evidently drawing on al-Ghazalı: “Every [divine] name denotes both theessence and its own reality with respect to itself. The [thing] named is one, so the Exalteris the Abaser with respect to what is named (al-Rafi‘ huwa al-Khafid· ): still, the Exalteris not the Abaser with respect to itself and its own reality.”30

A further suggestive parallel may be pointed out here between al-Ghazalı’s solutionto the problem of the attributes and Peter Abelard’s roughly contemporary remarks onthe divine persons. Responding to certain Trinitarian controversies, Abelard recom-mends that all statements along the lines of “The Father is the same as the Son” be readas follows: “That which is the Father is the same as that which is the Son”. Instead of anintensional identification (an idem qui relation), that is to say, what we have here is acase of purely extensional identity (idem quod). Abelard’s remarks have led L. M. De Rijkto detect the germs of an identity theory of predication in his Trinitarian logic:31 thatparticular promise was borne out later, in the fourteenth century, when the extension-alist interpretation became one of the accepted ways to construe all instances ofsuccessful predication.32 An intriguing thread for further study would be to see whethera similar systematic treatment arose anywhere in the later Islamic literature in responseto the hints al-Ghazalı sows here. Al-Ghazalı’s own remarks, as is often the case withhim, remain rather undercooked and underdeveloped. The most that we find al-Ghazalısaying is that what is meant by accidental identity is a distinction in postulated qualitiestogether with a common logical subject (mawd· u‘, corresponding to the Latin positum).On the metaphysical level, this is equivalent to postulating a single metaphysical subject(mah· all ) with numerous distinct attributes.33 This is all consistent with an idem quodapproach, but does not yet take us very far.

Still, at a minimum the interpretation of al-Ghazalı that I have put forward promptsa reassessment of his purpose in writing the Beautiful Names, that of outlining a practicalprogramme as well as a theoretical justification for the goal of imitating the divine names.Al-Ghazalı envisions the ultimate resting place for the felicitous soul as being similar tothat occupied by the angels, who get to reside undisturbed in the proximity of God (qurbAllah) and in His presence. Since the angels are described by al-Ghazalı as being

30 Ibn al-‘Arabı, Fus·us· al-h· ikam, ed. A. ‘Afıfı (Cairo: Dar al-kutub al-‘arabiyya, 1946), 93; cf. al-Ghazalı,Maqs·ad, 165.3–5.31 Introduction to Abelard, Dialectica, ed. L. M. De Rijk (Assen: Van Gorcum Corp., 1956).32 See Abelard, Logica “Ingredientibus”, ed. L. Geyer (Munich: Aschendorff, 1919), 60–61; TheologiaChristiana, ed. E. M. Buytaert (Turnhout: Brepols, 1969), 281–283 and 288; for comments, S. Knuuttila,“Philosophy and Theology in Twelfth Centure Trinitarian Discussions”, in Medieval Analyses inLanguage and Cognition, eds. S. Ebbesen & R. Friedman (Copenhagen: The Royal Academy ofSciences and Letters, 1999), 237–249.33 yakuna ma‘na ‘huwa huwa’ ittih· ad al-mawd· u‘ma‘a al-qat·‘ bi-tabayun al-s·ifatayn (Maqs·ad, 24.14);this is an ittih· ad al-mah· all ma‘a ta‘addud al-s·ifat (Maqs·ad, 24.8). The Greek commentator JohnPhiloponus explains unity by subject in his commentary on the Physics used by Ibn Sına: In Physicorumlibros tres priores (CAG 16), ed. H. Vitelli (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1897) 50.7–11.



intellectual immaterial substances, the natural inference is that the afterlife of thoseblessed with the divine countenance will similarly be spent in blissful and uninterruptedcontemplation. The Book of Knowledge, which opens the Revivification of the ReligiousSciences, puts the matter in unambiguous terms. The highest share belongs to those whoget to reside in the nearness of God, and the associated bliss is of the contemplativesort.34 What is said of the eye of the intellect in the Niche of Lights proceeds in similarfashion: although al-Ghazalı purposely avoids entering into an exegesis of the prophetictradition, “Verily God created Adam according to His form”, what is advanced in thiscontext is at least compatible with the understanding that what is designated by theappellation “God’s form” is the intelligible domain itself. It is to this realm, the humanheart’s true home, that the spirit desires to ascend through contemplation and throughpractice.35

4. The name of God and the Names of GodThis sketch of the nature of the divine names and their imitation leaves important

questions unanswered. First and foremost, can a real likeness to the divine be achievedthereby? To be sure, al-Ghazalı talks about becoming Godlike already when passingcounsel on the imitation of the very first divine name, that is, “God” (Maqs·ad, 65.2). Whatis equally as certain is that al-Ghazalı rarely passes on an opportunity to remind hisreader of the fact that the servant’s knowledge of, as well as share in, any of theestablished names will remain sorely lacking even in the best of cases. There is arhetorical thicket here through which it has proven remarkably difficult for commenta-tors to cut — a contradiction and a paradox, indeed, that one suspects has been put inplace deliberately. What, after all is said and done, are the limits to imitation?

We may start from the divinity of God. We have seen al-Ghazalı claim that each ofthe divine attributes attaches to some placeholder (x) and that the names thereby sharean accidental connexion. What is this mysterious (x)? The alternative that most readilysuggests itself is that it would be the divine quiddity, perhaps signified by the very name“God”. This hypothesis finds confirmation in what al-Ghazalı has to say about the nounAllah in the second part of the work. According to al-Ghazalı, this singular term refersto the divine essence itself. As a consequence, it functions in a way more akin to a propername than a descriptive noun.36 To provide one illustration of the fact, all the othernames are said to be names of God, yet God is not said to be a name, e.g., for “theMerciful”.

34 Ih· ya’, bk. 1, 1:56; cp. Maqs·ad, 44.18–46.13.35 See Mishkat, 6.10–11; the same h· adıth is also referenced in al-Ghazalı’s account of love (h· ubb) anddesire (shawq) for the divine in the Ih· ya’, bk. 36, 4:268.36 Maqs·ad, 64; al-Ghazalı uses the term khas·s·, which evokes Abu Hashim’s contention that God’sdivinity is the mode most proper (al-akhas·s·) to him: see Harry Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Kalam(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976), 174. However, this would make of God’s divinitya property in the Aristotelian sense of Top. 1.5, 102a17–30 rather than a quiddity.



Such an understanding points towards a view according to which the sole divineperfection strictly off limits would be God’s very divinity. Here is the crucial passage fromthe Beautiful Names, quoted at length:

Once you properly understand the meaning of that likeness (mumathala) whichis denied in regards to God, you will understand that He has no likeness. Norshould one presume that a share in every attribute necessitates a likeness. Wouldyou take two opposites (d· idd ) to be like one another if between them there wasa distance so extreme that none greater could be conceived, [provided only that]the two shared many attributes (as blackness shares with whiteness being anaccident, being a colour, being something perceived by sight, and other [similar]things)? And would you consider it an anthropomorphizing statement and anaffirmation of likeness if someone were to say that God exists but not in a subjectand that He is hearing, seeing, knowing, willing, speaking, living, powerful, and anagent, and that a human being is like this as well? Surely not! That is not how thingsare: if such were the case, then every created being would [enjoy] a likeness [toGod]. For at a minimum there is an affirmation of [that thing’s] share in existence,which would lead to an imagining of a likeness. Likeness should rather beinterpreted as a sharing in a kind and a quiddity. For even if a horse should be mostgraceful, this would still not make it like a human being, since it differs from [ahuman] in species. [The horse] only resembles [the human] by virtue of its grace,which is an accident falling outside the quiddity constitutive of the essence ofhumanity. (Maqs·ad, 46.16–47.11)

The main point, surely familiar by now, is that as long as the attributes are considered tobe something distinct from the divine quiddity, we can avoid the unwanted implicationof an actual divinization occurring when one imitates the names. A monkey does notbecome a man merely by being clever, indeed, even learning to laugh will not suffice tobring about the desired assimilation: shared accidents, whether separable or insepa-rable, do not suffice to bring about a resemblance in this distinctive understanding of theword. The only thing that would make a created being really like God would be a sharein divinity — but such a thing none in their right mind would suggest. In the samemanner that God’s quiddity protects Him from getting crowded out by the numerousattributes, so it also shields Him from the acquisitive pursuit of erotically charged creatednature. Should one wish to analyze the situation in terms of attributes and theirdescriptions, one might perhaps say that taken adjectivally, “God” signifies a propertythat attaches to God alone, namely, divinity. If one were in turn pressed to characterisethis property, one might make a start by saying that God is a being absolutely necessaryof Himself, not through another. This is an Avicennian doctrine to which al-Ghazalıalludes on occasion (see, e.g., Maqs·ad, 47–50, 137–138).

Yet one must exercise caution here, for al-Ghazalı foresees a number of objections.Out of these, the most pressing concerns the semantic content of the name “God” itself.If God is what is “necessary of existence” (wajib al-wujud), may we then say that thisdescription conveys what it means to be God in an unproblematic and immediatemanner? Does the formulation, so to speak, capture the essence of God in a bottle? In



some respects this would seem a desirable conclusion, yet on balance al-Ghazalı findsit untoward. The reason is that in al-Ghazalı’s view, a true cognition of somethingimplies a degree of familiarity between the knower and the thing known.37 According tothese precepts, any true conception of divinity would lead to the divinisation of theconceiver, something al-Ghazalı deems unacceptable.

The simplest way around the difficulty would be to deny that any created thing canachieve the kind of substantial autonomy required of anything necessary of existence;and indeed al-Ghazalı takes it. Even if necessity of existence should be considered agenuine description of God’s quiddity, still this ascription will not succeed in commu-nicating any positive information to the created being, for, after all, self-sufficiency andnecessity of existence constitute the one thing the servant of God can never aspire to,already by definition. (See Maqs·ad, 70–73, 124–125, 137–139, 143.) Yet curiously,al-Ghazalı does more: he goes on to insist that the only content we can legitimatelyassign to the designation “necessary of existence” is a denial of a cause or an agent to thatthing, which only amounts to a kind of denial (Maqs·ad, 50). The notion that necessity ofexistence can be defined only as causelessness derives from an earlier work, theIncoherence of the Philosophers, and as such it represents another instance of al-Ghazalımaking creative use of a key Avicennian resource.38 In al-Ghazalı the concept is pressedto serve the purposes of apophatic theology. The chosen definition serves to secure theconviction that even when we purport to talk about God as He is (not only about Hisattributes), still we do not comprehend God in his essence. God is too Eminent for us togain access to His presence, and too Tremendous for us to comprehend Him truly.(Maqs·ad, 77–78, 113)

This contention flies in the face of the warnings of at least one contemporary scholar.According to Macierowski, if we are to take a God such as Ibn Sına’s to have a quiddity,a “possible inference” would be “that we could have a sort of mystical union with God,perhaps even in this life; or again, one might draw pantheistic conclusions.”39 Al-Ghazalıseems unperturbed by either possibility. Even if God should have a quiddity and adefining characteristic that distinguishes divinity from all other types of existence, thenby definition this will be the one thing in which created existence can have no share(h· az·z· ).

Note that this is not true of existence as such: as we have seen, al-Ghazalı is willingto allow for created being to have a share in existence.40 There is some reason to suspect

37 See, e.g., Maqs·ad, 52.7–8; the contention goes back to the Platonic Seventh Letter (344a) and isattributed by Aristotle to Empedocles.38 See Tahafut, 82.14–15, 86.3–4, 95.3–4, 120.12–17; for the Avicennian background, Wisnovsky,Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context, ch. 13.39 E. M. Macierowski, “Does God Have a Quiddity According to Avicenna”, The Thomist 52 (1988):79–87. Ibn Sına denies that the Necessary Existent possesses a quiddity in Isharat, 3:49–52 (= Ilahiyyat,namat· 4, fus·ul 24–25).40 See Maqs·ad, 70, 119–122, 137, 143, 148–149, and 157–158 for reminders that only God is truly existentand for the all-important qualification that “everything perishes except His face” (Q. 28:88).



that what al-Ghazalı has in mind is not the univocal existence of the Ash‘arite school,since in the Criterion of Knowledge he sees fit to illustrate the notion of amphibolous oranalogous predication with the aid of the term “existent” (mawjud ). According toal-Ghazalı, existence is predicated of the necessary and the contingent according to theprior and the posterior; moreover, what we have here is not a mere conceptual divide,but an accurate representation of outward reality.41 But even if this be so — that is, evenif existence is an ambiguous and not a univocal concept — not even analogouspredication will accomplish enough in separating divine nature from the created nature.As far as the divine essence is concerned, orthodox Islamic belief will not countenanceany hint of a thoroughgoing “analogy of being”.

The conclusion that no real likeness can exist between created and Creator has theadded corollary of making the notion of gaining access to a direct line of vision into theGodhead not only impossible, but futile and meaningless as well: for after all, if there isno way of making sense of that which is entirely unlike one’s self, then “no created thingcan enjoy a truthful perception of His essence except in confusion and perplexity. As for[what] understanding does encompass, this [consists] in an understanding of His namesand attributes.” (Maqs·ad, 54.18–20; cf. Ih· ya’, 4:377.18–21.) So Abu Bakr the Faithful’s(al-s·iddıq) plea of ignorance should really be construed in positive terms: therecognition that one’s cognitive capacities simply are not suitably calibrated for thereception of the divine reality as it really is can serve as a first step towards the receptionof those facets of the divine as are fit for disclosure.42

5. Coming to Terms with the AttributesSo what of the other divine names? May we conceive of these as being analogously

predicated across all reality, whether among divine, angelic, or worldly existents? And ifso, will this suffice to secure for us a path of ascent to the angelic nature by way ofadorning ourselves with the divine perfections? The latter is an avowed goal foral-Ghazalı (cf. Maqs·ad, 45.16–46.19) and yet it seems to be undermined by his ownepistemological principles. Earlier, we stipulated that human apprehension as a rulestarts from sensible particulars. Given these constraints, can the divine attributes ever begrasped for what they are? And if not, can our purported proximity to God ever be morethan illusionary?

The issue may once again be framed in terms of philosophical semantics. Thedifference this time lies between predicating something of God and of His servantambiguously or equivocally. According to the first interpretation, God would possess allthe perfections in an unqualified manner (Gr. haplôs, Ar. mut·laq), whereas createdbeings could come to share in them in a secondary, derivative sense. According to thesecond interpretation, by contrast, there would be no real comparison between the

41 Mi ‘yar al-‘ilm, ed. S. Dunya (Cairo: Dar al-ma‘arif bi-mis·r, 1961), 375.3ff.42 See Maqs·ad, 54.13–14; in this context, compare also the opening words of the Beautiful Names(Maqs·ad, 11.2–6) with Philo, De mut., ch. 2.



divine and human modes of perfection at all: the two would share only the name, notthe reality. Perplexingly, the evidence in the Beautiful Names seems to point in bothdirections at once. The conundrum of how God can be called, e.g., knowing orpowerful, insofar as it is resolved at all, is resolved either (a) cryptically, by retorting thatthis is done in exactly the same way that one refers to one’s own attributes; or else (b)in apophatic fashion, by exclaiming that God’s attributes are too exalted to be likenedto ours.43

In the Criterion of Knowledge, the work that contains al-Ghazalı’s lengthiesttreatment of predication, al-Ghazalı says of equivocal terms that their meanings differboth in their definition and in their essential reality (bi al-h· udd wa-al-h· aqıqa). And hisexample of choice is to point out that God, the human being, and the plant are all saidto be alive. Does this not speak clearly in favour of a strictly equivocal interpretation ofthe divine names, of which “the Living” (al-H· ayy) assuredly is one?44 Such an inferencecan hardly be avoided: and yet I think Fadlou Shehadi goes too far when he so forcefullypursues an unremittingly apophatic interpretation of al-Ghazalı.45 Shehadi’s contentionthat the divine names — more especially, the positive attributes — have no informativevalue at all seems to me excessive, given the many positive attributive statementsal-Ghazalı makes in the Beautiful Names and elsewhere. For one thing, such aninterpretation would seem to fly in the face of the important Muslim principle that Godand His Prophet are reliable and trustworthy (s·adiq) witnesses to the truth that theyannounce. Also, al-Ghazalı’s rule of thumb is that in the absence of an explicitcontradiction in Revelation its proclamations should be taken to be true in the literalsense.46 An exaggerated scepticism concerning the literal veracity of the Qur’anicstatements and prophetic traditions (about the divine attributes, among other things)would erode the foundations of al-Ghazalı’s project, which I take it rest on foundation-alist grounds.47

What is clear from al-Ghazalı’s statements is that one can never come to adorn theattributes of Lordship (al-s·ifat al-rububiyya) to the extent of becoming a lord oneself, letalone the Lord (Maqs·ad, 52.16–53.3). Yet I believe that al-Ghazalı’s epistemology leavesthe door open for a weaker but no less real imitation — that is, an analogical predicationof the divine perfections — and correspondingly a deepening knowledge of the divine.Even if it is not possible for us to recognise or exemplify the divine perfections as GodHimself knows them, still this does not preclude us from knowing them at all, or fromdrawing closer to their reality. Here is a passage from the Niche of Lights which is putforward as a summary of the findings of the Beautiful Names:

43 Cp. Maqs·ad, 52.3–11 with 52.11–15 and 72.10–14.44 Maqs·ad, 142; on equivocity, Maqs·ad, 39.9–11 on the different meanings of the term “eye”; alsoMaqas·id al-falasifa, 10.12ff.45 F. A. Shehadi, Ghazalı’s Unique Unknowable God (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1964).46 On trustworthiness (s·idq) and veracity in al-Ghazalı and Ash‘arite thought see Griffel, “Al-Gazalı’s ¯ ¯Concept of Prophecy”, 122–126.47 For al-Ghazalı’s adherence to a correspondence theory of truth see Maqs·ad, 138.1–3.



The meaning of “God is most great” is to say that God is too great for any relationor comparison. He is too great for anyone other than He — whether it be a prophetor an angel — to perceive the innermost meaning of his magnificence. Rather,none knows God with true understanding (ma‘rifa) save God. Or rather, everyobject of knowledge enters the power and mastery of the one who comprehendsit (‘arif ) after a fashion. Otherwise, that would contradict God’s majesty andmagnificence. (Mishkat, 17.9–12; tr. Buchman, modified.)

Key here is the expression “after a fashion”. What is being denied in the first instance ishuman comprehension of God’s essence and the true meaning of divinity whenconsidered in isolation from the attributes — by now a familiar and (one hopes)uncontroversial reminder.48 But when it comes to denying that the servant of God couldever genuinely come to know anything, in the normative sense that God knowseverything, this is meant in a very specific sense. It results from the relative orders inwhich human and divine cognition proceed, as well as from weighing the finitude ofhuman existence against God’s infinity. Al-Ghazalı’s argument in the Beautiful Names,reproduced and expanded from a passage in the Revivification detailing the possibilitiesand limits of our love for God, runs as follows. If (1) God’s knowledge knows no limit; if(2) His perfection comes to be mirrored in full in created reality; and if (3) our knowledgehas to take its start from this world; then (4) without special divine intervention the “bookof nature” is inexhaustible, and human meditation on the divine names never attains itsdesired end.49 Thus, it is true that starting from signs and proceeding to what is signifiedwe will never reach an adequate conception of what the archetypal reality is really like.

But this does not mean that the effort will have been for nothing. Though there maybe an infinite amount of steps to take, each of them represents an authentic forwardmovement. As concerns the sensible universe, this in its entirety is God’s creation;consequently, it reflects His attributes and can be used to acquire indirect knowledgeregarding them where direct vision is impossible. This is the meaning which al-Ghazalıattaches to the prophetic saying, “Meditate upon God’s creation, not on God” (see Ih· ya’,4:378.11–13). A heightened understanding of the various forms that perfection can takewill have the effect of a human coming to exemplify these archetypal perfections betterand better, even as the converse also holds: the one who strives to instantiate the divineperfections in life will come to understand their meaning in a deeper and purer manner.As al-Ghazalı’s comments on love for the divine (h· ubb aw shawq Allah) in the Ih· ya’make clear, even an endless progression is nothing to be scoffed at. It will eventually leadto the qualities of God becoming the qualities of the servant (again, to the extent that thisis conceivable) and to the latter attaining a real proximity to, if not quite an actualinherence in, His attributes.50

48 Cf. Maqs·ad, 56.9–10 (reading with Shehadi: see his n. 4 to the text).49 Maqs·ad, 55–59; Ih· ya’, 4:265.34–266.8; for contemporary theologians on the theme, T. A. Carlson,Indiscretion: Finitude and the Naming of God (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999).50 See Ih· ya’, 4:267.26–268.4; Maqs·ad, 162–171. The sentiment is close to that expressed by Gregory ofNyssa, who writes in the following manner when talk is of approximating a certain “archetype” and thus



It is in this way that the inseparability of theory from practice, a programmatic aspectof al-Ghazalı’s Revivification of the Religious Sciences and his mature thought as a whole(see, e.g., Ih· ya’, 1:60, 1:64–65) comes to be reflected in the very structure of the BeautifulNames. In the second part, as we recall, each description of some particular divineperfection is conjoined to a “counsel” (tanbıh) offering guidance in how to bring thisperfection to bear in the wayfarer’s soul. (See also Maqs·ad, 42–44.) The notion again isof Platonic provenance: the sensible comes to resemble the intelligible through a doublemovement, with the former being modelled on the latter but also desiring to imitate itsperfection to the extent that it can.51

6. ConclusionTo sum up: the emerging picture is one of the divine attributes occupying a kind of

Platonic heaven. Each name refers to an intelligible meaning, one that in the context ofthe divine mind (God’s pre-eternal knowledge) exists in its purest and most perfect form;each of these perfections acts as an exemplar in which created beings may come toshare; and this unity which underlies the many can finally be grasped by the humanmind, thereby effecting a conversion in the contemplating soul and its drawing closer toits source.52

Inspiration for such a doctrine can be found in Ibn Sına’s remarks concerning thethreefold existence of the universals (first as pure intelligibles “antecedent to the many”,then in the many, then finally in the synthesising mind) in the latter’s Introduction to thestudy of philosophy. About this theory, whose first application is in logic, Ibn Sına saysthat it will find its proper context and explanation in first philosophy or metaphysicsunder its guise of theology (ilahiyyat).53 But Ibn Sına’s presentation itself findsprecedent in al-Farabı and Yah· ya Ibn ‘Adı;54 and all of these build on a tradition that ismuch older, one that goes back to the late ancient commentaries on Porphyry. Asixth-century Alexandrian commentator of the likes of David can thus recount the threephases as a routine part of an introduction to the philosophical curriculum: universals aresomething “prior to the many in God’s knowledge”, and as such act as templates for His

becoming Godlike: “Although on the whole my argument has shown that what is sought for isunattainable, one should not disregard the commandment of the Lord which says, Therefore be perfect,just as your heavenly father is perfect (Matthew 5:48). For in the case of those things which are goodby nature, even if men of understanding were not able to attain to everything, by attaining even a partthey could yet gain a great deal.” Vita Moysis, 1, para. 9; English translation by A. J. Malherbe and E.Ferguson in The Life of Moses (New York: The Paulist Press, 1978), 31.51 This is correctly ascertained already in S. Van Den Bergh’s otherwise often misleading “The Love ofGod in Ghazalı’s Vivification of Theology”, Journal of Semitic Studies 1 (1956): 305–321, at 318.52 Two passages crucial for sketching out this view are Maqs·ad, 79–82 and Ih· ya’, bk. 21, 3:19.31–20.30;the topic as a whole merits a separate study.53 See al-Shifa’: al-Madkhal, 65–72.54 See K. Gyekye, Arabic Logic. Ibn al-T·ayyib’s Commentary on Porphyry’s Eisagoge (Albany: StateUniversity of New York Press, 1979), 180; on Ibn at·-T· ayyib, who was Ibn Sına’s contemporary,op. cit., 38.



demiurgic activity; they then exist “in the many” as embodied forms; finally, they cometo be “posterior to the many” in our knowledge as a result of our discursive thought(dianoia).55 This intellectual perfectibility of humankind represents the pre-eminentinstance of conversion (epistrophê), which is a systematically recurrent feature through-out created reality.

Even without postulating the existence of a discernible line of influence, it is enoughto recognize how al-Ghazalı reproduces a familiar Platonist trope. As an ensouledcreature inhabiting both the physical and the intellectual domains, the human beingrepresents the nexus of all realities. And it is in human activity–in virtuous acts as wellas mindful contemplation–that the timeless supernal verities can come to be reflectedand applied through and through.56 At its heart, the regimen prescribed by al-Ghazalıechoes the creative activities described as well as prescribed in the Timaeus. Asintermediary principles, the Demiurge and the soul at once cast their eyes on theintelligible model while at the same time attempting to mould the sensible world in itsimage, and theirs.57

What is unique about al-Ghazalı’s Beautiful Names of God is the precise way inwhich Aristotelian semantics is pressed to serve this Platonically inspired vision. Inthis tightly argued work, conceptual concerns and practical precepts coincide in away that is scarcely found in either the philosophical or the theological literature,whether subsequent or preceding. But then, as we noted in the opening words to thisessay, that is one of the treatise’s most striking features from the very start. The mainpurpose of this article has been to show that there is nothing accidental about thischaracteristic — to the contrary, the structure of the work both stems from and reflectssome of its author’s most deeply seated philosophical convictions. The one piecemissing from al-Ghazalı’s Beautiful Names, meanwhile, is an explanation (whetheremanative or otherwise) of how exactly God’s original act of creation proceeds from

55 David, In Porphyrii Isagogen (CAG, 18.2 & 18.3), ed. A. Busse (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1904), 113.15–18,120; cf. e.g., Ammonius, In Porphyrii Isagogen (CAG, 4.3, 4.4, & 4.6), ed. A. Busse (Berlin: G. Reimer,1891), 68f.; Philoponus, In Categoriarum (CAG, 13.1), ed. A. Busse (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1898), 58f.; Elias,In Porphyrii Isagogen (CAG, 18.1), ed. A. Busse (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1900), 48; similarly on “thecommon” (ta koina), Simplicius, In Categoriarum (CAG, 8), ed. K. Kalbfleisch (Berlin: G. Reimer,1907), 82f.; for discussion, E. Tempelis, The School of Ammonius, Son of Hermias, on Knowledge of theDivine (Athens: Ekdoseis filologikou syllogou Parnassos, 1998).56 See, e.g., Mishkat, 31.13–18. For al-Ghazalı, it is only in human activity that conversion through lovecan take place, since of the inhabitants of the sensible world it is only humans that can come to perceivethe divine: see Ih· ya’, 4:259–260. In this respect, al-Ghazalı stands opposed to later Platonists such asPlotinus, for whom even nature contemplates: see Enneads 3.8 and J. Deck, Nature, Contemplation,and the One (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967); also Ibn Sına, Risala al-‘ishq, ch. 7, in A. F.Mehren, ed., Traités mystiques d’Abu ‘Alı al-Hosain b. ‘Abdallah b. Sına ou d’Avicenne, fasc. 3 (Leiden:E. J. Brill, 1894), 22.8–9.57 The ethical reading of Plato’s cosmology has gained currency in recent years: for one example out ofmany see T.-A. Druart, “The Timaeus Revisited”, in Plato and Platonism, ed. J. M. Van Ophuisjen(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1999), 163–178.



perfect exemplar to imperfect sensible image.58 Ibn al-‘Arabı (1165–1240) will later fillthis lacuna by supplying a creation myth that recounts the way in which God’screation occurs through the divine names. Its terminology recalls Ibn Sına andal-Ghazalı in equal measure.59

It is with Ibn al-‘Arabı that a sustained meditation of the divine names begins tooccupy centre stage in a certain strand of mystically tinged philosophical theology.60 Mysuggestion is that we should return to the source of this tradition in al-Ghazalı for aproperly philosophical — specifically, Peripatetic — understanding of the theoreticalunderpinnings of some of its central precepts.

58 Emanation ( fayd· ) is mentioned in the Beautiful Names at the very end of the first part (see Maqs·ad,58.14–19), but the term need not be taken in the technical sense, since an everyday comparison isdrawn here with the sun’s radiance (the simile of course is an old Platonic standby). On the contestedquestion of al-Ghazalı’s emanationism see the measured response in Frank, Creation and the CosmicSystem.59 Al-Futuh· at al-Makkiyya (Cairo, 4 vols. 1911), 322ff.: for materials on Ibn al-‘Arabı and the divinenames, W. C. Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989),33–46.60 Compare Ibn Barrajan’s (d. 1141) rather perfunctory and theoretically barren introduction to his workof the same name, written no more than a few decades after al-Ghazalı’s and ostensibly independentlyof it: Sharh· asma’ Allah al-h· usna (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificás AgenciaEspañola de Cooperación Internacional, 2000), 1–14.



al-ghazali on attributes

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