To the right of al-Ghazali

 

In the West, al-Ghazali is often, or perhaps always, depicted as the man who single-handedly (no less) killed off Muslim science and brought the Islamic (or was it Islamicate) Golden Age to an end (thank you, btw). The latest offender is Neil deGrasse Tyson. 

In this clip, Swedish scholar Filip Holm argues to a large extent in al-Ghazali´s defense. The real culprits were (surprise!) the Mongols, who sacked Baghdad, the Golden Age capital par excellence. So no, al-Ghazali wasn´t to the right of Genghis Khan, it was more or less the other way around! While it´s true that al-Ghazali´s influence did make Greek-derived philosophy less popular in the Muslim world, neither it nor science simply disappeared. For instance, there were schools of science in both the Ottoman Empire and Persia long after the avatar of darkness had been translated to happier hunting grounds. Nor did al-Ghazali regard mathematics as an invention of the Devil, indeed, he explicitly said the exact opposite. 

Holm clearly has great respect for the man, a man who realized at a late point in his life that his worldly knowledge was just vanity and that real certainty could only be found in God. Of course, it still remains a fact that it was NASA rather than some whirling Dervishes who placed the first man on the Moon, but then, who knows, with the way modern civilization is going (the SJWs being our very own internal Mongols), perhaps we shouldn´t be too cock-sure of our ultimate success even in *that* un-godly realm..