al-Ghazālī's Concept of Causality: Natural Law or God?
Author: Hamid Fahmy Zarkasyi Translators: Burhan Ali, Yulianingsih Riswan Publisher: UNIDA Gontor Press (2018) Pages: 370
Why Read This
Zarkasyi demonstrates that al-Ghazālī built his own concept of causality from within the Islamic worldview. The debate against Ibn Rushd and the anti-science charge are unpacked all the way to their roots.
For centuries, a single short passage from Tahāfut al-Falāsifah served as the foundation for a sweeping accusation: al-Ghazālī had destroyed the foundations of Islamic science. Zarkasyi reads that argument from inside al-Ghazālī's own worldview and finds something far removed from the popular portrait. Al-Ghazālī accepted cause and effect as an observable reality. What he questioned was the claim that causal necessity stands independently of God, with no ontological grounding whatsoever.
This translation of a doctoral dissertation from ISTAC-IIUM (the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation, Kuala Lumpur) brings that argument to Indonesian readers with strong terminological precision. Technical terms such as wajh al-iqtirān, nafs al-iqtirān, sunnat Allāh, and sabab are unpacked with full conceptual care, their meanings preserved all the way down to the ontological level. The result is a text suited to serious readers, with the reward of insight into how worldview shapes our understanding of natural law.
From the first page, Zarkasyi positions himself clearly: al-Ghazālī must be read from within his own worldview, because Aristotelian and modern scientific frameworks both distort the reading. This methodological principle holds consistent across all 370 pages, and that consistency is the book's chief strength. Readers will find verifiable arguments, terms traced back to their sources, and corrections anchored in the text. No assumption is left floating without a basis.
A further distinction: Zarkasyi does not isolate al-Ghazālī. He places his thought in conversation with Ibn Rushd, Ibn Sīnā, Hume, Popper, and contemporary Islamic epistemology. The parallel with Hume is particularly striking: two thinkers from different traditions arrived at similar conclusions about the nature of causal knowledge, though they diverged sharply at the end of the argument.
This book matters for anyone wrestling with questions about the relationship between science and religion, the Islamization of knowledge project, or the desire to understand al-Ghazālī through a source with strong textual grounding. For readers interested in philosophy of science, it offers a third framework: al-Ghazālī places God as the ontological foundation that makes all scientific explanation both possible and meaningful.
Core Idea 1: A Misreading Centuries in the Making
Every scholar who accused al-Ghazālī of being anti-science started from the same single passage: that the connection between cause and effect is "not necessary." They read it through an Aristotelian or modern scientific framework, then concluded that rejecting causal necessity means rejecting the foundations of knowledge.
The problem lies in the word "necessary" (ḍarūrī). For the falāsifah (the Muslim Aristotelian philosophers), such as Ibn Sīnā, causal necessity is an ontological compulsion: once a cause exists, the effect must follow from the intrinsic nature of both. Al-Ghazālī rejected necessity in that sense, while fully accepting the consistency of cause and effect as an observable reality. These two very different positions were conflated across centuries.
The source of this misconception can be traced. Ibn Rushd was the first to channel the accusation into the Islamic intellectual tradition. The Western tradition then imported it through the label "Islamic occasionalism," a term carrying the assumption that God is an external entity who occasionally intervenes from outside nature. Within the Islamic worldview that al-Ghazālī held, that picture conflicts fundamentally with the concept of God: God's creative action is direct and continuous, without ceasing, sustaining every existence at every moment.
"Al-Ghazālī's theory of causality appears to have been distorted so that it is understood as if God occasionally intervenes in natural events... As if God were located somewhere outside the world and occasionally intervenes in the process of natural events. This is truly contrary to the Qur'anic concept of God, whose creative action is direct and continuous."
Zarkasyi's correction is methodological before it is substantive. He shows that every accusation against al-Ghazālī, from Ibn Rushd to modern Western scholars, begins from the same error: reading al-Ghazālī's texts from outside his worldview. Labels applied from the outside arise from incompatible frameworks, like using a scale to measure color.
Core Idea 2: Worldview as Framework, the Concept of God as Axis
The entire conceptual structure of al-Ghazālī rests on a single governing question: who is God and how does He will? Every discussion of causality, reality, or knowledge is an extension of the answer to that question.
Zarkasyi uses the metaphor of a bicycle wheel to illustrate how a worldview operates. There is a central belief at the hub, and from that hub extend all the spokes of other beliefs in a single interconnected system. In a theistic worldview, that hub is the concept of God. Two people who both believe in God but differ in how they define His attributes will arrive at entirely different concepts of causality.
Two Concepts of God, Two Concepts of Causality
The falāsifah such as Ibn Sīnā defined God as Wājib al-Wujūd, the Necessarily Existent, whose essence necessitates the emanation of the universe. God in this scheme creates from the compulsion of His own essence, as the sun radiates light. The consequence: the universe must exist as long as God exists, the cosmos is eternal, and every causal relation within it is necessary.
Al-Ghazālī rejected this starting point. God in his thinking is murīd (willing) and 'ālim (knowing). A God who wills is a God who chooses, who can establish His sunna and in certain circumstances suspend it. From here, the entire concept of causality flows in a different direction.
"Al-Ghazālī seems to want to say that we cannot speak of natural causality before we have a strong and adequate foundation regarding Divine causality."
This difference extends all the way to the terminological roots. The falāsifah chose the word 'illah for cause: a cause that necessarily produces its effect by essence. Al-Ghazālī consistently chose the word sabab: a means, a condition, an intermediate channel that allows something to happen without compelling the effect. That choice reflects a thoroughgoing ontological difference.
Core Idea 3: Two Traditions in Need of Synthesis
Al-Ghazālī inherited two traditions, each carrying serious deficiencies. The mutakallimūn (Islamic theologians of the kalām tradition) went too far in negating secondary causality; the falāsifah went too far in making natural causality autonomous from God. Al-Ghazālī arrived at a position distinct from both, drawing on what each tradition could yield while rejecting what conflicted with the Islamic worldview.
The Problem in the Kalām Tradition
The mutakallimūn built an atomic theory of substance (jawhar) and accidents (ʿaraḍ) to defend divine omnipotence. In this theory, accidents cannot persist longer than a single unit of time; God must continuously recreate them for anything to remain in existence. The consequence: no genuine causal relation exists between two natural events. Combustion occurs because God creates it each time fire touches cotton; the nature of fire alone has no creative power.
Three distinct positions emerged from within this kalām tradition. The majority Ash'arīyah affirmed God as the sole direct cause of every event. Al-Naẓẓām acknowledged causal laws implanted by God at creation, running under His supervision. Mu'ammar went so far as to claim that the natural world runs independently after creation.
The Problem in the Falsafah Tradition
Al-Kindī placed God as the supreme Cause, but his Aristotelian inheritance left tension between God as Creator ex nihilo and as the Unmoved Mover. Al-Fārābī extended the scheme with Neo-Platonic emanation, in which the cosmos flows necessarily from God. Ibn Sīnā brought it to its endpoint: the effect must exist once the cause exists, and because God is eternal, the cosmos is eternal.
"Ibn Sīnā's model of causality cannot easily be imported into Islamic thought, particularly thought that holds the conviction that God freely created the universe through His irāda."
Both camps faced the same dilemma: how does an omnipotent God coexist with a nature governed by observable laws? The extreme kalām answer shrank natural law toward zero; the emanationist falsafah answer shrank the divine will. Al-Ghazālī sought the ground where both could stand together.
Core Idea 4: Ontological Foundation, the Reality of God and the Status of Creatures
In al-Ghazālī's metaphysics, God is al-Mawjūd al-ḥaqīqī, the truly and absolutely Real. Everything other than Him receives its existence from Him and depends on Him at every moment, without exception.
Al-Ghazālī distinguishes al-ḥaqq (truth, unchanging reality) from al-ḥaqīqah (the essence or inner nature of a thing). God is al-ḥaqq al-muṭlaq, Absolute Reality, existing through Himself. Creatures, by contrast, are contingent: they may or may not exist, depending on the divine will that continuously creates and sustains them. In Mishkāt al-Anwār, al-Ghazālī renders this through light symbolism: creatures borrow (musta'īr) their existence from God, for considered in themselves they are sheer non-being ('adam maḥḍ).
"God is the True Light, while all other lights are metaphorical only. That is to say, God is the True Existent (al-Mawjūd al-ḥaqq), while others base (musta'īr) their existence upon Him, for they are sheer non-being ('adam maḥḍ) and exist only through their relation to Him."
Zarkasyi is clear that this statement about 'adam maḥḍ does not carry al-Ghazālī into pantheism. Al-Ghazālī distinguishes waḥdat al-shuhūd from waḥdat al-wujūd. The first is a unity of perception at the height of mystical experience; the second is the metaphysical claim that God and the cosmos are one substance. Al-Ghazālī rejected the second. Divine transcendence remains intact.
Implications for Causality
If creatures possess no independent existence, their attributes are equally non-independent. Fire has the property of burning as a creation (khalqah), a term al-Ghazālī chose deliberately over ṭabīʿah. The word khalqah binds the property of a thing to the will that created it; the word ṭabīʿah in the Aristotelian tradition implies autonomy from the Creator. By choosing khalqah, al-Ghazālī affirms that even the intrinsic properties of fire depend on God, who continuously maintains them.
Core Idea 5: The Third Way, an Original Concept of Causality
Al-Ghazālī built an original position: accepting causality as observable reality, placing the guarantee of its consistency in the active will of God, and separating the question of whether a connection exists from the question of what guarantees that connection.
The Key Distinction: Nafs al-Iqtirān and Wajh al-Iqtirān
This is the heart of the entire argument. Al-Ghazālī distinguishes two domains of inquiry that had been conflated for centuries.
First, the question of the connection itself (nafs al-iqtirān): does fire cause burning? Does severing the neck cause death? Al-Ghazālī answers yes, fully and without hesitation.
Second, the question of the mode of connection (wajh al-iqtirān): does this relation hold through intrinsic necessity rooted in the nature of fire itself, or through the consistent sunnat Allāh? Here al-Ghazālī parts ways with the falāsifah. His answer: God guarantees the consistency of that relation through His unchanging will.
"Certainty applies only to the consistency of the connection (wajh al-iqtirān) between two events, and to the way they are connected (nafs al-iqtirān). The consistency of that connection is not subject to alteration and change (lā taḥtamilu al-tabdīl wa al-taghyīr) because it follows the normal course of God's sunna through the expression of His eternal will."
Three Stages of Divine Determination
Al-Ghazālī explains this mechanism in three stages. As Khāliq, God establishes the decree (ḥukm), the master design that determines the direction of causality throughout the cosmos. God then establishes fundamental, stable, unchanging causes that hold until the end of time. Through qadar, God directs those causes moment by moment (laḥẓah ba'da laḥẓah) according to a precise measure.
The analogy of the water clock that al-Ghazālī employs makes this concrete. The water clock moves through a chain of mutually conditioning elements: a hole at the base of the cylinder, flowing water, a descending vessel, a pulling rope, and a falling ball. Each part conditions the next, yet the whole system operates according to the intention of the maker who designed it from the outset.
Sunnat Allāh and Miracles
The consistency of nature that we observe, al-Ghazālī calls sunnat Allāh or 'ādah: God's steady custom in exercising His will. Because it is will, it can be suspended. A miracle is that suspension. Abraham entered fire without burning: God, in His willing, chose not to run His sunna over that event. This position is internally coherent within al-Ghazālī's worldview, precisely because causality rests on sunnat Allāh. The intrinsic necessity of things is the assumption he released from the outset.
"God is the sole efficient cause (the agent cause). The chain of causes or conditions constitutes the rule called sunna or 'ādah. This rule or law (including the relation of effects to the conditions that produce them) can be suspended in the case of miracles."
Core Idea 6: Epistemology, Certainty, and the Debate with Ibn Rushd
Human knowledge of causality is knowledge of a pattern ('ādah), a subjective certainty formed through habitual observation. True certainty, in al-Ghazālī's hierarchy, comes from God alone.
The Structure of Knowledge
Al-Ghazālī defines knowledge as the presence of the form (ṣūrah) of a thing in the mirror of the rational soul. Knowledge divides into ḍarūrī (immediate, without inference) and naẓarī (discursive, through reasoning and proof). The highest certainty belongs to logical and mathematical knowledge that rests on self-evident premises. Empirical certainty about natural causality is only as strong as the accumulated observations of the past.
At the apex of the knowledge hierarchy stands yaqīn, certainty. Al-Ghazālī defines it in al-Munqidh as knowledge whose object is revealed in such a way that no doubt remains, no possibility of error, and no effort to show its falsity can produce any wavering. He also distinguishes three levels: 'ayn al-yaqīn (empirical certainty), 'ilm al-yaqīn (cognitive certainty), and ḥaqq yaqīn (absolute certainty, attained only through Divine assistance).
Ibn Rushd's Objection
Ibn Rushd formulated his objection sharply: reason operates through causes. To know something is to know its cause. Anyone who removes causal necessity is removing the very foundation of reason.
"Reason is nothing other than the perception (idrāk) of things through their causes, and therefore whoever denies causes must deny reason."
Zarkasyi shows that al-Ghazālī rejected this premise. For Ibn Rushd, the certainty of knowledge lies in its correspondence to the natural world as it operates objectively. For al-Ghazālī, the certainty obtained from empirical observation is only relative certainty: a mind habituated to ordering regular sequences then feels assured. Psychological certainty is a different thing from ontological necessity.
Their fundamental disagreement converges on one question: what are the conditions for certain knowledge? For al-Ghazālī, the habitually formed knowledge that arises from experience is incomplete certainty. Only knowledge grounded in God is truly certain.
Al-Ghazālī Accepts Formal Logic
The point so often misunderstood: al-Ghazālī accepted Aristotelian formal logic in full, including syllogism and the conditions of demonstration. He wrote Mi'yār and Miḥakk as serious works of logic. What he corrected was the filling of the syllogism's substance with the assumption that the uniformity of nature derives from autonomous intrinsic properties. He replaced that assumption with sunnat Allāh.
On lunar eclipses, al-Ghazālī fully accepted geometric demonstration of the positions of the Earth, Moon, and Sun. Rejecting such demonstrations in the name of religion, he stated plainly, actually damages religion itself.
"Anyone who thinks it is a duty of religion to argue against a theory of this kind will damage religion and weaken it."
The comparison of al-Ghazālī with Hume is productive here. Hume, six centuries later, arrived at a similar conclusion from a different direction: we never observe causality itself, only the temporal sequence of two recurring events. Al-Ghazālī called this 'ādah, in a sense nearly identical. The fundamental difference comes at the end of the argument: Hume stopped at skepticism; al-Ghazālī continued to a theistic ground that guarantees the consistency of nature.
Core Idea 7: Humanity in the Causal Chain, the Doctrine of Kasb
God is the sole truly efficient cause; human beings remain morally responsible for their actions through the doctrine of kasb (acquisition or appropriation of acts). Two powers operate on a single action without cancelling each other.
Al-Ghazālī uses a clear illustration: the death of a person is caused by the executioner (the apparent cause), and at the same time by the order of the king (the cause behind the apparent one). Both statements are simultaneously true. The human being is the executioner in his act, the locus of manifest appearance; God is the king who holds the genuine power and creative efficacy.
"In one sense the servant acts, and in another sense God (Mighty and Glorious) acts. God as actor means He who creates and brings into being (mukhtari' al-wujūd). The servant acts means he is the locus (maḥall) in which (God) creates the power to act."
Al-Ghazālī rejected two extremes together: pure determinism, which erases human moral responsibility, and the claim that human beings independently create their own actions, which erases divine omnipotence. The most compact formulation is the phrase "compelled choice" (jabr 'alā al-ikhtiyār). Human beings choose and bear responsibility for their choices; those choices themselves operate within the scope of divine power, which is never absent.
The doctrine of kasb sits structurally at the same intersection as several contemporary debates in philosophy of action and neuroscience. The question of free will versus neurobiological determinism maps closely onto the question al-Ghazālī faced. His answer provides a framework that, within a theistic worldview, allows both to stand together.
Connections with Other Thought
The entire argument of Zarkasyi moves within a single strict hierarchy. The concept of God is the foundation; from there descends the concept of reality, then the concept of knowledge, and finally the concept of causality. Causality in this book is the meeting point of metaphysics, theology, and epistemology, three domains that al-Ghazālī keeps in unified relation throughout.
Fazlur Rahman's phrase captures al-Ghazālī's position with great economy: creatures are "autonomous but not autocratic." Nature is autonomous in the sense that it runs according to patterns that can be studied and predicted. It is not autocratic because it holds no guarantee of its own existence, no power to ensure that those patterns will continue without grounding in God.
There is strong resonance between al-Ghazālī's position and Karl Popper. Popper argued that scientific statements must be falsifiable; no induction yields absolute certainty. Al-Ghazālī, centuries earlier, said something similar: observation only establishes the co-occurrence of events (occurrence at); certainty about necessity (occurrence by) lies beyond the reach of empirical induction. Observing fire burning in a thousand cases does not prove that fire burns with absolute ontological necessity.
In the context of contemporary Islamic philosophy of science, al-Ghazālī's position reads as an argument that scientism, the view that science is the sole valid form of knowledge, is metaphysically self-insufficient. Nature cannot explain nature; scientific principles cannot prove themselves from within. There is a deeper layer that must be assumed, and al-Ghazālī named that layer.
Key Points
- The distinction between nafs al-iqtirān and wajh al-iqtirān is the heart of the entire argument
Al-Ghazālī separated two domains of inquiry that had been conflated for centuries. First: does fire genuinely cause burning? Does severing the neck genuinely cause death? Al-Ghazālī answers yes, fully and without hesitation. That is nafs al-iqtirān, the connection itself.
Second, a very different question: the mode of that connection. Is the causal relation guaranteed by intrinsic necessity rooted in the nature of fire (the assumption underlying Aristotelian philosophy), or is it guaranteed by sunnat Allāh, the consistent and unchanging will of God? Here al-Ghazālī parts ways with the falāsifah. His answer is the active divine will, sustaining every relation from moment to moment.
For centuries, these two fundamental questions were run together. Ibn Rushd read al-Ghazālī's rejection of Aristotelian necessity as a rejection of causality altogether. Western scholars imported that charge through the label "Islamic occasionalism," which carried assumptions from Christian theology about God as an external entity who occasionally intervenes. Layers of misconception accumulated. Each layer began from the same error: reading al-Ghazālī from outside his worldview with an incompatible framework.
Zarkasyi shows that the correction of al-Ghazālī is methodological before it is substantive. The two questions must be separated. Once separated, the anti-science label affixed across centuries falls away, and al-Ghazālī emerges as a consistent thinker.
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The choice of sabab over 'illah reflects an ontological difference. The falāsifah chose 'illah (a cause that produces its effect by essential necessity); al-Ghazālī chose sabab (an intermediate means without intrinsic necessity). This terminological choice governs his entire conceptual structure.
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Sunnat Allāh guarantees the consistency of nature. The observable order is God's steady will. That consistency is real and dependable by science. Its ontological ground is the divine will; miracles are logically coherent precisely because that ground is will.
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Al-Ghazālī accepted formal logic and scientific demonstration. He wrote serious works of logic (Mi'yār, Miḥakk) and accepted geometric demonstration of eclipses. What he corrected was the philosophical assumption riding alongside: that the uniformity of nature stands independent of God. That correction operates at the level of metaphysics, in the layer above scientific description, which al-Ghazālī accepted in full.
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The comparison with Hume is striking. Hume, six centuries later, reached a similar conclusion: "causality" is custom and habit, recurring sequence that the mind assembles. Al-Ghazālī called it 'ādah. The difference: Hume ended at skepticism; al-Ghazālī continued to the theistic ground that guarantees consistency.
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Jabr 'alā al-ikhtiyār: compelled choice. The doctrine of kasb holds that two powers operate on one action: human beings choose and bear responsibility, God creates and sustains each choice. Al-Ghazālī held determinism and human agency together in a single coherent formulation.
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Zarkasyi's methodological correction has wide application. Any reading of a thinker from one tradition using the framework of another carries the same risk. Reading al-Ghazālī through Aristotle produces the anti-science label; reading Marx through a liberal framework produces equivalent misconceptions. Zarkasyi's thesis reaches beyond its subject.
Critical Assessment
Strengths
1. The central argument is proven with terminological precision Zarkasyi does his corrective work word by word, concept by concept. The difference between 'illah and sabab, between nafs al-iqtirān and wajh al-iqtirān, between khalqah and ṭabīʿah, all are unpacked with strong textual grounding. Readers receive an argument that can be verified and traced back to its primary sources.
2. A clear methodological position from the outset Zarkasyi states from the first page that al-Ghazālī must be read from within his own worldview. He maintains that principle consistently across 370 pages. This methodological consistency is rare in studies spanning intellectual traditions.
3. Productive connections with Western thought The parallels with Hume and Popper are presented carefully, with specific conceptual grounding. These parallels give readers familiar with Western epistemology a point of entry into al-Ghazālī's argument, while Zarkasyi preserves the difference in underlying premises.
4. Clear contemporary relevance The book answers a living question: can the Islamic worldview contribute something original to philosophy of science? Zarkasyi's answer rests on philosophical demonstration that can be tested, with arguments built from within the tradition and then brought into engagement with contemporary epistemological questions.
Limitations
1. Limited accessibility for general readers This is a translated doctoral dissertation with high terminological density. Arabic transliterations such as ḍarūrī, ḥaqīqah, wajh al-iqtirān, and dozens of other technical terms are assumed to be familiar. Readers without a background in Islamic philosophy or kalām will need a companion text.
2. The Sufi dimension of al-Ghazālī is not fully developed The book concentrates on al-Ghazālī as philosopher and theologian. His Sufi dimension, which also shapes his epistemology particularly around yaqīn, is touched upon but not developed in depth. Readers who want to understand al-Ghazālī whole will need to supplement with studies of Ihyā' 'Ulūm al-Dīn or Mishkāt al-Anwār.
3. The practical implications for the Islamization of knowledge project require further development Zarkasyi closes the book with a reflection on al-Ghazālī's relevance for contemporary Islamic universities, but this section feels brief compared to the depth of analysis that precedes it. Readers hoping for operational guidance on the Islamization of knowledge project will need to consult further sources.
Conclusion
This book is an essential primary source for anyone who wants to understand the causality debate in Islamic philosophy at an academic level. It is most rewarding for readers with a background in theology, philosophy, or Islamic studies, and most valuable when read alongside al-Ghazālī's own primary texts such as Tahāfut al-Falāsifah and al-Munqidh min al-Ḍalāl.
For general readers interested in the question of science and religion, this book provides a conceptual framework rarely found elsewhere: the ontological question of what guarantees the order of nature is a philosophically legitimate question, and al-Ghazālī answered it with a consistency that has yet to be surpassed in the classical Islamic tradition.
Related Reading and Further Resources
Primary Texts (works of al-Ghazālī and Ibn Rushd):
- Al-Ghazālī, Tahāfut al-Falāsifah: the primary text at the center of this book's analysis. An English translation by Michael Marmura is available (Brigham Young University Press).
- Ibn Rushd, Tahāfut al-Tahāfut: Ibn Rushd's direct response to al-Ghazālī; reading both together brings the debate to life.
- Al-Ghazālī, al-Munqidh min al-Ḍalāl: al-Ghazālī's intellectual autobiography, providing context for his epistemological crisis and his search for yaqīn.
Secondary (philosophical and epistemological context):
- Seyyed Hossein Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines: broader context on Islamic cosmology and its relationship to natural philosophy.
- Alparslan Açikgenç, Being and Existence in Sadra and Heidegger: a comparison of the philosophy of being in the Islamic and Western traditions, complementing the ontological discussion in Zarkasyi's book.
Related Resources on Amhar.ma:
- Explore the Islamic Philosophy collection for companion texts on epistemology and metaphysics.
- See Mental Models for frameworks on causality in a broader context.
FAQ
What is the main thesis of this book? Al-Ghazālī built a concept of causality distinct from the falāsifah: he accepted the consistency of cause and effect as observable reality, and placed the ontological guarantee of that consistency in sunnat Allāh. Intrinsic necessity as a property of things autonomous from God is the assumption he released from the ground up.
Is this book difficult to read? What background is required? Quite challenging. This is a translated doctoral dissertation with high terminological density. Technical Arabic transliterations such as wajh al-iqtirān, ḥaqīqah, and sabab are assumed to be familiar to the reader. Those with a foundation in Islamic philosophy or theology will gain a great deal. General readers interested in the science-religion topic will need to move more slowly, with a reference glossary at hand.
Why was al-Ghazālī accused of being anti-science for so many centuries? The accusation originated with Ibn Rushd, who read al-Ghazālī's argument through an Aristotelian framework. When al-Ghazālī rejected causal necessity in the Aristotelian sense, Ibn Rushd interpreted that as a rejection of causality altogether. The Western label "Islamic occasionalism" compounded the misconception by importing assumptions from Christian theology that had no bearing on al-Ghazālī's actual position.
Is al-Ghazālī's position compatible with modern science? In the operational sense, yes. Al-Ghazālī accepted scientific demonstration in full, including geometric proofs of lunar eclipses. What he rejected was a particular metaphysical claim that often travels alongside science: that nature is sufficient to explain itself, with no ontological grounding beyond itself. The question of ontological grounding operates at the level of philosophy of science, above the scientific description that al-Ghazālī accepted entirely.
What distinguishes al-Ghazālī's concept of God from that of the falāsifah? The falāsifah such as Ibn Sīnā defined God as Wājib al-Wujūd, whose essence necessitates the emanation of the cosmos: God creates from the compulsion of His essence, as the sun radiates light. Al-Ghazālī emphasised God as murīd (willing) and 'ālim (knowing). A God who wills is a God who chooses freely, who can establish His sunna and in certain circumstances suspend it. From that difference in the concept of God flows the entire difference in their concepts of causality.
How is this book relevant to the science-religion debate today? It offers a third framework alongside the two models that commonly circulate. The conflict model sees science and religion competing over the same territory. The complementarity model divides them: science answers "how," religion answers "why." Al-Ghazālī places God as the ontological foundation that makes all scientific explanation both possible and meaningful. God is at the beginning, sustaining the entire order that science then describes.
Is there a more accessible edition or translation? The UNIDA Gontor Press edition (2018) is the Indonesian translation available. To build context before entering Zarkasyi's book, reading al-Ghazālī's primary texts in a more concise translation, such as al-Munqidh min al-Ḍalāl, can help considerably.
Are there weaknesses worth knowing before reading? Two. First, the Sufi dimension of al-Ghazālī is not fully developed here; the book concentrates on al-Ghazālī as philosopher and theologian. Second, the practical implications for the Islamization of knowledge project are raised at the end but are not developed into operational guidance. For both points, further sources outside this book will be needed.