Al-Ghazali

Hmm. 

"If a woman offered one of her breasts to be cooked and the other to be roasted, she still will fall short of fulfilling her obligations to her husband. And besides that if she disobeys her husband even for a twinkling of an eye, she would be thrown in the lowest part of Hell, except she repents and turns back."

By Mohammad Tuffaha, Ahmad Zaky, Al-Mar'ah wal- Islam, Dar al-Kitab al- Lubnani, Beirut, first edition, 1985, p. 176. It is also quoted in Al- Musanaf by Abu Bakr Ahmad Ibn 'Abd Allah Ibn Mousa Al-Kanadi who lived 557H., vol. 1 part 2, p. 255.

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"How many people find fault in what they're reading and the fault is in their own understanding" Al Mutanabbi

Sounds harsh and nothing like anything else I have read about Islam.

Is that by Al Ghazali or by someone else?

(googles...)

Looking online, some suggest that it may be a hadith. but when searching that, I hit , which states:

Shayk G.F. Haddad comments [ in response to christian missionaries who cite this hadith ]: "A laughable fabrication. Ahmad Zaky is not a source, al-Kindi's Musannaf is a Kharijite curiosity, and this kind of evidence betrays a bankrupt argument. It is a despicable forgery from non-sources, and is in no way consistent with anything in Islam other than the perverse imagination of Christian missionaries.

So it is considered to be a false narration.

"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.

Found it online after someone mentioned something about al-Ghazali being sexist. I didn't think it was a hadith, I thought it was something A-G himself said. 

#Before you look at the thorns of the rose , look at it's beauty. Before you complain about the heat of the sun , enjoy it's light. Before you complain about the blackness of the night, think of it's peace and quiet... #

I posted this partially on tribune, but this is a better location:

basically if you google the saying, there are other suggestions in relation to who said it. one of them associates it as a saying of the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wa Sallam (Peace and Blessings be upon him) ... and another refutes that association.

Either way, the books mentioned above are not works of Imam Ghazzali and we do not know what type of books they are - you will get books that are "works of refutation" which eg will refute quotes attributed to individuals. If people want to, they can quote these books without context and state that the quote is in the books... without the explanation that the context is that it is being refuted.

However that is getting ahead of the game as the book from 1985 and also the one from 800 years earlier is not something I am aware of. However it is clear that neither is written by Imam Ghazali.

So whatever his views on women might have been, i doubt the quote in the original post can accurately be attributed to him.

Saying that, there will be other views of his that will not be accepted today, but that does not detract from the fact that he was a brilliant philosopher and illuminary of the time, to such an effect that he helped shape the Muslim and non Muslim world.

"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.

Despite what has been said about Al-Ghazali above this post, he was known as someone who was able to win all debates and have strong Islamic grounds regarding his arguments etc etc. I dont know where this reputation falls regarding his views on women and again I dont really know how true some of the quotes above are. But anyway, my question is, do you think someone like Al-Ghazali would in this day and age be able to answer/have debates and win arguments the same way he did back in the day?

 

Yes.

Many of the philosopical questions asked these days are regurgitated arguments made around 4,000 years ago by a set of greek philosophers. They were then defeated by another set, but eventually this knowledge was lost in the west.

When Islam rose, the ancient greek books were translated, and those same arguments arose, and were once again defeated.

Now the same arguments are being brought forward as new arguments, with new clothes. The question is not if they will be defeated, but whether enough people will listen and be convinced.

That will most likely happen.

"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.

Yes I guess so. Iv not really read about the debates he got involved in so when I asked that question I was already lacking any knowledge on what he used to argue against. 

 

 

A major work of his was "incoherence of the philosophers" in which he defeated the athiestic thoughts of the time. It distilled 10 major arguments proposed by athiests and then debunked them.

I tried to read the book, but I didn't really understanding it and then gave up early on.

"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.

Yep, heard of it. Reading the 'alchemy of happiness' and loving the analogies!

 

You wrote:
A major work of his was "incoherence of the philosophers" in which he defeated the athiestic thoughts of the time. It distilled 10 major arguments proposed by athiests and then debunked them.

I tried to read the book, but I didn't really understanding it and then gave up early on.

Yeah I did an essay on that book. It wasn't too difficult 

#Before you look at the thorns of the rose , look at it's beauty. Before you complain about the heat of the sun , enjoy it's light. Before you complain about the blackness of the night, think of it's peace and quiet... #