Re-reading al-Ghazālī : orthodoxy, reason and authority in the Kitāb al-Mustaẓhirī

This thesis sets out to examine the significance of al-Ghazali's text entitled Fada' ih al-Batiniyya wa fada' il al-Mustazhiriyya, by placing it against the environment--political and social--in which it was written, and by focussing on the varying styles of argumentation contained in it.This examination shows that, in addition to being a polemical tract against the Isma$ sp{ rm c}$ilis of his time, al-Ghazali also wrote this work in order to confront the intellectual challenges posed by the so-called Isma$ sp{ rm c}$ili doctrine of ta$ sp{ rm c}$lim. Challenges which impinged on the status of the Sunni Caliph per se and, by extension, on the Caliph's relationship with the Saljuq Sultan. More importantly, for al-Ghazali these intellectual challenges also impinged on the authority of Sunni fiqh and kalam, and hence carried implications for the role and status of the $ sp{ rm c}$ulama'. In responding to these challenges, al-Ghazali draws upon styles of argumentation shaped by the textual traditions of: adab al-firaq, kalam, fiqh, siyasa shar$ sp{ rm c}$iyya and nasihat al-muluk.The intellectual diversity of the ideas and arguments in this text is emblematic of the complex set of concerns with which al-Ghazali was engaged, embracing the broad themes of orthodoxy, reason and authority in medieval Islamic thought and society. Above all, in writing this text al-Ghazali brought to bear a degree of sophistication and originality which has hitherto been inadequately studied by other researchers