A book burner or not ? History and myth : Revisiting al-Qāḍī ʿ Iyāḍ and the controversies over al-Ghazālī in the Islamic West

A number of scholars in the medieval Islamic West engaged with the work of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), and he was both celebrated and criticised. Among the scholars who are allotted with a prominent role in the controversies around his work, is the Ceutan judge and scholar al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ (d. 544/1149). To some extent, his role in the controversies which allegedly resulted in the burning of some of al-Ghazālī’s books, has become a significant element in ʿIyāḍ’s intellectual and historical biography and in construing him as a somewhat fanatic defender of a particular scholarly tradition, the Mālikī tradition, and a particular political order, the Almoravid dynasty. Although ʿIyāḍ’s own writings clearly position him within the Mālikī scholarly tradition and although historical evidence clearly suggests that he sided with the Almoravids in the Almoravid–Almohad conflict of the early twelfth century, the image of a fierce fanatic and a book burner seems to stem from a later date. The earliest traceable source for this image is an anecdote in al-Shaʿrānī’s (d. 973/1565) Lawāqiḥ al-anwār. In other, later sources additional and partly different images of ʿIyāḍ are construed, motivated by the controversies over al-Ghazālī. However the basis for these images is likewise neither to be found in ʿIyāḍ’s own work nor in available historical sources earlier than al-Shaʿrānī.


Introduction
Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī's (d.505/1111) work, and in particular his magnum opus Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, met a variety of responses in the early twelfth-century Almoravid Islamic West.Several Andalusian and North-African scholars were involved in the discussions about this work, taking different positions. 1The official attitude towards al-Ghazālī changed from a more favourable view during Yūsuf Ibn Tāshfīn's reign (r.453-500/1061-1106) to a mixed and even negative view during ʿAlī Ibn Yūsuf's reign (r.500-537/1106-1143). 2 According to some sources, the controversies eventually led to official condemnation of the Iḥyāʾ, and two rounds of banning and burning, or issuing of orders to burn the book, first under ʿAlī Ibn Yūsuf in 503/1109 (alternative dates given are 500/1106, or 509/1116), and then under Tāshfīn Ibn ʿAlī (r.537-539/1143-1145) in 538/1143. 3he historical, scholarly and political circumstances of the controversies are far from clear. 4 Neither is the position nor the possible role the celebrated scholar and judge of Ceuta, Abū 'l-Faḍl ʿIyāḍ Ibn Mūsà, known as al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ (d.544/1149), may have had in it.However, ʿIyāḍ is often mentioned as one supporting the condemnation and burning or even as issuing a fatwà on the issue.While scholars have expressed doubts about this being a historical fact, 5 the alleged incidents continue to form a part of the interpretative frame for ʿIyāḍ's life and work. 6Thus it has become a significant element of the historiography of this particular scholar as well as this particular period of the intellectual history of the Islamic west. 7In this paper I revisit this historiography to discuss two questions: What do historical sources tell us about the factuality of ʿIyāḍ's alleged involvement in these controversies?And how, when and why was this involvement first construed and established?
The allegations put forward in recent years typically refer directly or indirectly to two secondary sources from the late 1990s. 8In the following I take these two references as a starting point to revisit the historical and biographical sources on these controversies and incidents, in search for references to ʿIyāḍ.In addition I examine the possible impact of individuals in ʿIyāḍ's own network who voiced opinions on or had relationships with al-Ghazālī. 9I argue that the details of the matter provide material for a necessary questioning of a simplistic historiography of the intertwined intellectual and political situation in the early twelfth-century Almoravid Islamic West.The material also sheds some light on how this relatively modest scholar from the Islamic West later has been made to play a role in very different geographical, temporal, and cultural contexts.

Al-Zabīdī's reference to the burning of the Iḥyāʾ
The first secondary source on ʿIyāḍ's role in the burning of the Iḥyāʾ is Maribel Fierro's reference to Murtaḍà al-Zabīdī's (d.1205/1790) commentary Itḥāf al-sāda al-muttaqīn bisharḥ Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn. 10Author of the acclaimed dictionary Tāj al-ʿarūs min jawāhir alqāmūs, this Indian philologist, who studied in Yemen and ended his life in Egypt, wrote a voluminous commentary on al-Ghazālī's Iḥyāʾ in which he gathered different kinds of available material. 11After praising the Iḥyāʾ for its extraordinary way of combining transmitted knowledge with reasoning, and thinking with tradition (naql and naẓar, fikr and Edinburgh University Press, 2016. 8 In her articles from 1997 and 1999, Maribel Fierro held that ʿIyāḍ, as well as Ibn Ḥirzihim (d.559/  1165), issued fatwàs in favour of burning the Iḥyāʾ (FIERRO, "Opposition to Sufism," 18 and footnote 53; Maribel FIERRO, "La religión", in El retroceso territorial de al-Andalus.Almorávides y almohades: Siglos XI al XIII, 483-495, ed.María Jesús VIGERUA MOLÍNS, Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1997: 483-95,  485, footnote 19).Delfina Serrano Ruano held in a 1999 article, and confirmed in 2006, that ʿIyāḍ was involved in the burning of al-Ghazāli's work (SERRANO, "Why Did the Scholars of al-Andalus Distrust al-Ghazālī?," 138, footnote 10; Delfina SERRANO, "Los Banū ʿIyāḍ (de la caída del imperio almorávid a la instauración de la dinastía nazarí)," in Biografías almohades I, 351-406, eds.María Luisa ÁVILA NAVARRO and María Isabel FIERRO BELLO, Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1999.Muḥammad Ibn Sharīfa mentioned in his 1982 edition of Muḥammad Ibn ʿIyāḍ's biography of his father, the names al-Zabīdī, Ibn ʿImād and al-Shaʿrānī as the sources for the allegations that ʿIyāḍ had banned or burned the Iḥyāʾ, and questions their historicity (Muḥammad IBN ʿIYĀḌ, al-Taʿrīf bi'l-qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, ed.Muḥammad IBN SHARĪFA, Rabat: Wizārat al-Awqāf wa'l-Shuʾūn al-Islāmiyya, 1982: 107, footnote 274).ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʿrānī was an Egyptian Shāfiʿī jurisprudent and ṣūfī. 12His Lawāqiḥ al-anwār al-qudsiyya fī manāqib al-ʿulamāʾ wa'l-ṣūfiyya, also known as al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrà, is a biographical dictionary.In his introduction to this work, al-Shaʿrānī asserts that al-taṣawwuf is a discipline of knowledge in its own right (ʿilm mustaqill, p. 12), and that he collected these biographies of the great men of this discipline to counter the condemnation they met (inkār, p. 9).Referring to a saying from al-Shāfiʿī, he holds that such condemnation is a sign of hypocrisy (nifāq, p. 30); then he goes on to tell a number of stories of different kinds of attacks on scholars of the discipline of taṣawwuf, which exemplify such condemnation.One of these stories reports that al-Ghazālī was accused of stepping out of the boundaries of religion (aftaw bi-takfīr al-imām al-Ghazālī, p. 34), and that the Iḥyāʾ was burned.Al-Shaʿrānī does not specify the year of these events, so we do not know whether he is referring to the first, second or both incidents mentioned above.Al-Shaʿrānī states: Among the group that condemned (ankara) al-Ghazālī and issued a fatwà about burning his book were al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ and Ibn Rushd.When this reached al-Ghazālī, he cursed the judge [ʿIyāḍ], who died suddenly in his bath the same day.It has been said that al-Mahdī [see below] was the one who ordered that he [ʿIyāḍ] should be killed after people in his town accused him of being a Jew on account of him not coming out on Saturdays because he was busy working on the Shifāʾ.However, it was because of al-Ghazālī's curse that al-Mahdī killed him. 13e Mahdī referred to must be Ibn Tūmart (d.525/1130), the founder of the Almohad movement in the first half of the twelfth century in the Maghrib, who declared himself or was declared by his followers to be al-mahdī al-maʿlūm and al-imām al-maʿṣūm. 14The historical circumstances of the relationship between Ibn Tūmart and al-Ghazālī are not clear, but Ibn Tūmart seems to have had a favourable view of al-Ghazālī and had allegedly studied with him in the East.15 Madeleine Fletcher has reviewed the sources for the possible interviews between Ibn Tūmart and al-Ghazālī, but remarks that most importantly "Ibn Tūmart's written legacy reveals that the major elements: rational theology, religious reform and sufism, were principles he shared with al-Ghazālī," and, as events testify, "In the mind of the Almoravid ruling group, the Almohads were doctrinally When considered as an historical account, there are obvious discrepancies with regard to al-Shaʿrānī's chronology of the events, as al-Ghazālī died in 505/1111, Ibn Tūmart in 525/1130 and ʿIyāḍ in 544/1149.Al-Ghazālī may have heard about the first burning in 503/ 1109, but it is hardly likely that the then twenty years young ʿIyāḍ in Ceuta had any role in that.The second incident took place in 538/1143, and although it is not possible to date ʿIyāḍ's prophetological work al-Shifāʾ bi-taʿrīf ḥuqūq al-muṣṭafà decisively, it may very well have been composed between 1137 and 1145, when ʿIyāḍ did not have any public duties.16However, this second incident took place long after both al-Ghazālī and Ibn Tūmart had died.On the other hand, the account may be understood to refer to the extraordinary visionary powers attributed to Ibn Tūmart, which could suggest an early Almohad source for the story.Although the available Almohad sources do mention the burning, as we will see, they do not present us with these miraculous stories.These are, on the contrary, found in later sources seeking to distinguish al-Ghazālī.
Al-Shaʿrānī was a theologian and a jurist, and above all a mystic highly influenced by the in his time already classical ṣūfī work Iḥyāʾ. 17He apparently did not consider himself a historian, and his biographical dictionary has been described as inaccurate.Michael Winter holds that to al-Shaʿrānī "people and events per se had little meaning.For him they became significant only when they could teach a religious or moral lesson." 18It is thus quite possible that the anecdote he told about ʿIyāḍ has little or no historical value.Moreover, it is not included in one of the bibliographical entries, but in the general introduction.That does, however, not explain how or why ʿIyāḍ's name came to be attached to it.ʿIyāḍ was a wellknown scholar in the East: as a historian of the Mālikī intellectual tradition with his biographical dictionary Tartīb al-madārik, 19 as a scholar of ḥadīth with his commentaries and theoretical works,20 and not least as the author of the Shifāʾ which reached a variety of associated with al-Ghazālī," (Madeleine FLETCHER, "Ibn Tūmart's teachers: the relationship with al-Ghazālī," al-Qanṭara, 18.2 (1997): 305-330, 326).The only remark Fletcher has on ʿIyāḍ in this connection is an unsubstantiated claim (p.316) that "Cadi ʿIyāḍ of Ceuta, who rebelled against the Almohads, claims that the weirdly harsh judgements Ibn al-ʿArabī handed down were the cause of his removal from office.Cadi ʿIyāḍ distills all possible negative aspects of that situation and others, making an implication of homosexuality in quoting his poetry and saying that his ḥadīths were not accepted by someone."significant scholars and was commented upon by dozens of later scholars from a range of schools and affiliations. 21he Mālikī madhhab was second in influence in al-Shaʿrānī's Mamluk Egypt, and there were clearly tensions between Mālikīs, often traditionalistic Maghribis, and scholars affiliated with other madhāhib. 22Al-Shaʿrānī himself had many Mālikī friends, and he respected them on account of Mālik having been al-Shāfiʿī's teacher. 23According to Michael Winter, the Mālikī faqīh was, however, perceived by many Egyptian ṣūfīs as the personified adversary, and al-Shaʿrānī bears testimony to the intensity of these memories through retelling incidents where Mālikīs attacked the ṣūfīs.Al-Ghazālī's book having been attacked, or even burnt, by Mālikī fuqahāʾ of Spain was a case in point.
Among al-Shaʿrānī's most influential masters was al-Suyūṭī (d.911/1505), whose works and opinions continued to influence him greatly although he only met him for a short period when he was very young (12 years, a month before al-Suyūṭī died). 24Al-Suyūṭī had written a commentary on the Shifāʾ, concentrating on textual critisicm of the aḥādīth cited in it.Ḥusayn al-Ṣadafī (d.514/1120), also known as Ibn Sukkara, held the view that al-Ghazālī both exaggerated his mystical leanings (ghalā fī ṭarīqat al-taṣawwuf) and strived to spread his madhhab. 28Al-Ṣadafī was an important traditionist as well as a pious scholar who insisted on keeping his seclusion (ikhtifāʾ), especially in the later parts of his life.ʿIyāḍ describes in his fahrasa how he prevailed on him to be able to sit with him and read intensively with him during a period in Murcia (beginning of 508/mid-1114).spreading al-Ghazālī's teachings an unwanted uncertainty was incited, al-Dhahabī's citation continues, and "here in the Far West (ʿindanā fī 'l-Maghrib) the ruler implemented an order and the scholars a fatwà to burn it and to take distance from it." 30There is some confusion as to who the original source of the wording is, but as neither al-Ṣadafī nor al-Dhahabī lived in the Maghrib, it may be reasonable to attribute the statement to ʿIyāḍ.However, in the statement ʿIyāḍ did not identify the ruler or scholars in question.Moreover, he neither endorsed nor opposed the action.It appears simply as a descriptive statement, which confirms that the order to burn the book was issued but which does not clarify ʿIyāḍ's potential role in the incident.Nevertheless, it does present us with a possible source for his name being included in the later sources' retelling of the story.fatwàs which in one way or another may have appeared incriminating to his father's legacy.However, such speculations cannot compensate for the lack of historical evidence.ʿIyāḍ was no opponent to the pious practices of the mystics, and in his biographical dictionaries he often commended pious relinquishment of worldly life (al-zuhd fī 'l-dunyā).However, zuhd was not considered a formal, bookish discipline,36 and the conflict was not one of pious practices but one of epistemological tools and interpretational privilege.The conflict is apparent in a fatwà on the awliyāʾ from Ibn Rushd (al-jadd), analysed by Delfina Serrano, who holds that the issue pertained to the pertinent questions of the relationship between knowledge and authority.37But this fatwà also testifies to the fact that Ibn Rushd was among the scholars who engaged vigorously with al-Ghazālī's work.The problem which was laid before Ibn Rushd was the implications for the traditional scholars in al-Ghazālī's epistemological hierarchy, where the "friends of God" (al-awliyāʾ) and people of mystic insights (al-ʿārifūn) ranked above scholars of theology and law (al-ʿulamāʾ bi'laḥkām).Ibn Rushd explained the problem in terms of two categories: people who know God (al-ʿārifūn bi-'llāh) and people who know God's norms (al-ʿārifūn bi-aḥkām Allāh).Serrano concludes that Ibn Rushd in this question took a conciliatory position, holding that although on a general basis the mystics are ranked higher when it comes to closeness to God, in their absence, the scholars of theology and law, i.e., scholars like himself, and by extension, one could hold, like ʿIyāḍ, are the best available interpreters of God's commands. 38he concept of awliyāʾ occurs several times in ʿIyāḍ's biographical dictionary Tartīb almadārik as a descriptive term, probably used in a generic sense of saintly mystics.However, in his introduction to the Tartīb al-madārik, ʿIyāḍ establishes an epistemological genealogy: God sent prophets to guide human beings towards knowledge, truth and justice (ʿilm, ṣidq and ʿadl), and Muḥammad ranks as the last of these prophets, while people of knowledge (ʿulamāʾ), with the aʾimmat al-muslimīn at the forefront, are continuing this work down the centuries. 39Thus, in the same way as his teacher and colleague Ibn Rushd, ʿIyāḍ allots interpretational priority to the scholars of theology and law (al-ʿulamāʾ bi'laḥkām) rather than to the people of mystic insights (al-ʿārifūn).

Al-Zabīdī's story of Ibn Ḥirzihim
In the eighteenth-century al-Zabīdī's retelling of al-Shaʿrānī's anecdote, he modifies al-Shaʿrānī's account slightly, first by removing Ibn Rushd's name, then by ascertaining, without further comment, the historically known date of ʿIyāḍ's death.However, al-Zabīdī also refers to the story of Ibn Ḥirzihim (d.559/1164) from Fez, a near-contemporary to ʿIyāḍ. 40ʿAlī Ibn Ḥirzihim had taken Ghazālian knowledge from his uncle Abū Muḥammad Ibn Ṣāliḥ Ibn Ḥirzihim (d.505/1112), who had taken it from al-Ghazālī himself when he had travelled to the East, and also from Abū 'l-Faḍl Ibn al-Naḥwī (d.513/1119 or 20).ʿAlī Ibn Ḥirzihim is reported to have dreamt that he had kept a copy of the Iḥyāʾ, in spite of an explicit ban.He showed the book to some of his friends, who said that "the previously mentioned shaykh" attacked al-Ghazālī and forbade the reading of his books, and then he, Ibn Ḥirzihim, had to take a beating.In a dream Ibn Ḥirzihim saw al-Ghazālī, who complained about him to the Prophet.Ibn Ḥirzihim told the Prophet that al-Ghazālī had suggested that he, Ibn Ḥirzihim, had falsely attributed some statements to the Prophet, whereupon the Prophet ordered Ibn Ḥirzihim to be beaten. 41After this incident, Ibn Ḥirzihim is supposed to have repented and continued to defend and promote the ṣūfī path. 42he words "the previously mentioned shaykh" probably refer to al-Zabīdī's previous mention of ʿIyāḍ, and consequently it is al-Zabīdī who here suggests a link to ʿIyāḍ for condemning the Iḥyāʾ.However, in the much earlier source for Ibn Ḥirzihim's story, Yūsuf Ibn Yaḥyà Ibn al-Zayyāt al-Tādilī's (d.617/1231) al-Tashawwuf ilà rijāl al-taṣawwuf, such a link is neither stated nor suggested.Here, ʿIyāḍ is not mentioned at all. 43Al-Tādilī also tells the story somewhat differently: I secluded myself in a house to read al-Ghazālī's Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn for a portion of a year.When I reached the issues he was criticized for, I pledged to burn the book.But when I slept I saw someone order me to be beaten as a punishment for lying.So I was beaten eighty stripes, and when I woke up I found myself in great pain from the beating. 44cording to al-Tādilī, Ibn Ḥirzihim then repented, pondered over the issues again, and this time he found them not to contradict the Qurʾān and the Sunna.

Ibn al-ʿImād's reference to the burning of the Iḥyāʾ
The second oft-cited secondary reference to ʿIyāḍ's alleged role in the condemning and burning of al-Ghazālī's Iḥyāʾ, provided by Delfina Serrano Ruano, is Ibn al-ʿImād (d.1089/ 1679). 45This Syrian Ḥanbalī scholar wrote a comprehensive, annalistically arranged biographical history. 46Most scholarly entries are organized according to year of death, and 40 Al-ZABĪDĪ, Itḥāf, I: 27-28.
41 A similar story is told elsewhere about "a man from Egypt."See MACDONALD, "The Life of al-Ghazzālī," 109. in the entry on 544 (=1149), we find ʿIyāḍ presented in a few paragraphs.Ibn al-ʿImād praises ʿIyāḍ highly, describing him as among the best men of his age and a staunch defender of the Sunna, to a degree that "he ordered al-Ghazālī's books to be burnt because of the delusions he gained from them (li-amri tawahhumihi minhā)". 47The statement does suggest that ʿIyāḍ had been reading al-Ghazālī's work and had found them alluring but eventually had come to realize that their appeal was delusional more than instructive, but Ibn al-ʿImād does not refer to any sources for his allegation. 48n the entry Ibn al-ʿImād also alludes to the tense personal situation ʿIyāḍ found himself in, possibly a reference to the turmoil he experienced in the transitional phase between the Almoravid and the Almohad governments.Ibn al-ʿImād quotes a poem also found in Ibn Khallikān's (d.681/1282) biographical dictionary, where he writes that a certain (unidentified) legal scholar Abū 'l-Ḥasan Ibn Hārūn from Malaga wrote a poem acknowledging the unfair treatment ʿIyāḍ had received: "They wronged ʿIyāḍ, while he showed forbearance to them, but wrongdoing in this world is ancient [...]". 49The fourteenth-century historian Ibn al-Khaṭīb (d.776/1374) is even more outspoken when describing ʿIyāḍ's final journey to Marrākash as one of overpowering (taghallub), uprooting (istiʾṣāl) and expelling (musharradan bihi). 50However, neither of these last two, or any of the other available early biographical sources-Ibn Khāqān (d.discords of the period, mentions al-Ghazālī only a few times, all of which are in connection to him having been the teacher of ʿAbū Bakr Ibn al-ʿArabī (d.543/1148). 52 The burning incidents in Almohad historiology Some early sources from the Islamic West mention the burning incidents and the involvement of various people in different ways.Yūsuf Ibn Ṭumlūs (d.620/1223) in his book on logic considered, among other topics, the teachings of al-Ghazālī.He said that when al-Ghazālī's work reached al-Andalus, scholars found them to contain things they had never heard about before, about al-ṣūfiyya and other issues. 53Their reaction was, according to Ibn Ṭumlūs, that: "if there is such a thing as kufr and zandaqa in this world, it surely is to be found in al-Ghazālī's books."Therefore they urged the amīr to burn the books which in their view could lead to misguidance (ḍalāl).And the books were burnt before anyone really knew what was in them, and everyone throughout the empire (mamlaka) was ordered to burn them and punish the people who kept them.What pushed the amīr to this was the point of view of the scholars, Ibn Ṭumlūs wrote.According to him the decrees were read from the minbar, and the most famous scholar to suffer from this trial was Abū Bakr Ibn al-ʿArabī.But then came al-imām al-mahdī, Ibn Ṭumlūs continued, and the confusions (taḥayyur) of the people were corrected and he set them free to read al-Ghazālī's books. 54ccording to the Almohad chronicler ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Marrākushī (d.647/1250) it was ʿAlī Ibn Yūsuf (r.500-537/1106-1143) who ordered the Iḥyāʾ to be burnt in 509/1115. 55However, al-Marrākushī remarks that the Almoravids under ʿAlī Ibn Yūsuf's reign gave the scholars a large role, too large for his own liking.The ruler would not make any political decision without asking the fuqahāʾ, and so would people in general, whether it was on small or big issues.This gave the fuqahāʾ too much authority and it enabled them to amass wealth, al-Marrākushī complains.He cites some satirical verses accusing the scholars in general, and Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Ḥamdīn (d.508/1114) in particular, for abusing Mālik's tradition for worldly gain.Al-Marrākushī criticized them for keeping exclusively to their own Mālikī canon to a point where they "forgot to consider God's book and the Ḥadīth of the Prophet."A final point of criticism was that they would excommunicate (takfīr) anyone who in any way engaged in scholastic theology (ʿilm al-kalām).As a consequence of this, when al-Ghazālī's books were introduced to the West (al-Maghrib), the amīr al-muslimīn, ʿAlī Ibn Yūsuf, banned them and ordered them to be burned.It is here suggested that it was Ibn Ḥamdīn, chief judge in Cordoba at the time (505-508/1111-1114), 56 who was the main instigator of the first controversy.Another Almohad chronicler, Ibn al-Qaṭṭān (mid-seventh/mid-thirteenth century), was more decisive in his confirmation that ʿAlī Ibn Yūsuf ordered the burning of the Iḥyāʾ in 503/1109 on the authority of (ʿan) a consensus among chief judge Ibn Ḥamdīn and Cordoba's jurists. 57Ibn al-Qaṭṭān also confirmed that the burning actually took place at the Western gate of the grand mosque with many notables present.Books were torn from the hands of people, among them Ibn al-ʿArabī.Ibn Ḥamdīn had been ʿIyāḍ's mentor during his seven-month stay in Cordoba in 507/1113-1114, and ʿIyāḍ reports that he had read Ibn Ḥamdīn's polemic essay refuting al-Ghazālī (Risālat al-radd ʿalà 'l-Ghazālī, non-extant) while he was there. 58The Ḥamdīns came from an influential family, and Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Ḥamdīn had a powerful position and, contrary to some perceptions of his weak scholarship, ʿIyāḍ praised his knowledge and scholarly standing. 59bn al-Qaṭṭān interprets the burning in a political context, calls it an act of people of ignorance (jahala) that was meant to secure their government (mulk), and says that it was only reversed when the amīr al-ʿazīz al-qāʾim bi'l-ḥaqq (Ibn Tūmart) made it available again.In this connection Ibn al-Qaṭṭān tells the reader about Ibn Tūmart's travels East and his meeting with al-Ghazālī.At this meeting in 508/1114, according to Ibn al-Qaṭṭān, al-Ghazālī heard about the reception of his work and prayed for their empire to be torn as his work had been torn.Ibn Tūmart asked him to pray that he should be the instrument for this, al-Ghazālī so did and the prayer was answered, says Ibn al-Qaṭṭān.60 Obviously, as far as the historicity of the narrative goes, this is a misreading on Ibn al-Qaṭṭān's part, as al-Ghazālī was already dead in 505/1111.According to the sources, scholars were of different opinions in the matter and the ban was countered by several judicial statements.Janina M. Safran suggests that scholarly disagreement as well as his own professional rivalry was a main impetus for Ibn Ḥamdīn's reactions towards al-Ghazālī's work.61 Ibn al-ʿArabī (d.543/1148) had returned from the East in 495/1102, when Yūsuf Ibn Tāshfīn was still ruling (r.453-500/1061-1106), with the official investiture of the Almoravid government from the ʿAbbāsid caliph.He had been appointed chief judge in Seville (528/1134-538/1143), 62 a city which was competing with Cordoba for the supreme status in al-Andalus.There was also professional rivalry between Ibn Ḥamdīn and the younger and quite dynamic Ibn Rushd (al-jadd).Ibn Ḥamdīn may have seen the controversies as a way to demonstrate his own position and his unique ties to the ruler.On the other hand, ʿAlī Ibn Yūsuf, ruler from 500/1106, may have seized the opportunity to bolster his political legitimacy by the same ties.Thus, as Safran suggests, the first controversy may be understood as "a symbolic enactment of the negotiation of authority between ruler and jurists."63 However, as Serrano holds, "any direct relationship between the criticisms formulated by the jurists and the royal decree is not to be taken for granted."64 The second burning incident was instigated by the new ruler, Tāshfīn Ibn ʿAlī (r.537-539/1143-1145), when he had just risen to power following his father's long reign.The order is documented in a letter dated the first third of Jumādà I 538 (= mid-November 1143) and addresses the scholars, officials, and the people of Valencia.65 In the letter, Tāshfīn appeals to the religious convictions and feelings of his addressees, although the formula is quite standard for an official letter of admonition, inducing fear of God.The closest to God is the one who loves his servants, and the best in our eyes are clerks and judges who consult the best sources and speak well, Tāshfīn writes.66 He reminds his addressees of the obligations of prayer, righteousness and jihād, then impresses upon "every judge and muftī" to follow the Mālikī madhhab, and if you ever come across a book of innovation (bidʿa) or someone preaching innovations, and especially-may God help you-the books of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, then follow their trails and stop their influence by burning them as their concealed [message] (kitmān) constitutes a threat to the faith (īmān).67 In contrast to what was reported about his father's order being supported by the scholars of Cordoba, Tāshfīn neither explicitly nor implicitly evokes scholarly authority in the 61 SAFRAN, "The politics of book burning," 157-158.62 LAGARDÈRE, "La haute judicature," 190.
63 SAFRAN, "The politics of book burning," 159.friends al-Qushayrī and al-Ṭūsī [al-Ghazālī] in Nishapur. 74Unfortunately, no dates are given for any of these encounters, and there is no trace of any transmissions from al-Ghazālī through any of these two contacts.
In the long list of ʿIyāḍ's accomplishments and personal characteristics, Ibn ʿIyāḍ writes that he, being a scholar of fiqh and all the different disciplines of ḥadīth, had been a legal theoretician (uṣūliyyan) as well as a theologian (mutakalliman), and that he had taken an interest in ṣūfī men and their thoughts as well. 75As Ibn ʿIyāḍ was writing during the early Almohad days, Delfina Serrano Ruano interprets these statements as apologetic, in view of Almoravid scholars having been accused of prioritizing furūʿ over uṣūl and neglecting kalām. 76It is within this framework that Serrano seeks to understand the first anecdote on the Iḥyāʾ as well, arguing that with this anecdote, Ibn ʿIyāḍ is trying to counterbalance his father's unfavourable role in the condemnation and burning.However, Ibn ʿIyāḍ does not mention the burning, and the only other source Serrano presents for ʿIyāḍ's having a role in the incident is al-Shaʿrānī. 77ne of the complaints among the Mālikīs about al-Ghazālī was that he allegedly had slandered both Mālik and the great Mālikī-Ashʿarī scholar Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī (d.403/1013).In the Tartīb al-madārik, ʿIyāḍ counts al-Ghazālī among the scholars who had conveyed misconceptions about Mālik's view of ijmāʿ ahl al-Madīna, 78 saying that some of them went as far as almost defaming Medina itself because they distorted what the Mālikīs actually said regarding their distinction between a Medinan ijmāʿ which was transmitted kāffa ʿan kāffa, amounting to decisive legal argument (ḥujja), and a Medinan ijmāʿ based on al-ijtihād wa'l-istidlāl, which was not considered ḥujja.According to ʿIyāḍ, al-Ghazālī wrongly assumed that these forms of Medinan ijmāʿ were the only valid ijmāʿ for the Mālikīs, which, he states, was a complete misconception.What Iyāḍ does is simply to criticize non-Mālikī scholars, and al-Ghazālī among them, for not having taken matters into proper consideration before passing judgement. 79However, ʿIyāḍ does not refer to any sources for these allegations, and we do not know whether they stem from ʿIyāḍ's own reading of al-Ghazālī's work or from some of his contemporaries who discussed al-Ghazālī's teachings.
In Jerusalem in 489 or 490/1096 or 1097, al-Ghazālī composed his al-Risāla al-Qudsiyya, which was included in the Iḥyāʾ (Book 2, Kitāb qawāʿid al-ʿaqāʾid). 80A.J. Wensinck suggested that ʿIyāḍ in his theological treatise al-Iʿlām bi-ḥudūd qawāʿid alislām 81 was very influenced by this risāla, particularly in the fourty propositions on the 74 Ibid., 209.75 IBN ʿIYĀḌ, al-Taʿrīf, 4-5.76 SERRANO, "Los Banū ʿIyāḍ," 362-364.Ibn al-ʿArabī later wrote at length about his meetings with al-Ghazālī and his teachings in several of his own books.In the Qānūn al-taʾwīl he describes their meeting and his own quest for knowledge, while in al-ʿAwāṣim min al-qawāṣim he takes a more critical approach to al-Ghazālī's teachings, especially in epistemological issues. 89The ʿAwāṣim testify to the fact that Ibn al-ʿArabī's criticism was founded on a thorough engagement with al-Ghazālī's work.In a discussion on the relationship between knowledge (ʿilm) and activity (ʿamal), Ibn al-ʿArabī holds that al-Ghazālī bases his statement on ṣūfī thought when he holds that knowledge is the fruit of activity (anna 'l-ʿilm min thamarāt al-ʿamal).However, Ibn al-ʿArabī holds, knowledge is from activity before activity (inna 'l-ʿilm huwa min al-ʿamal qabl al-ʿamal).Although none of the jurists or the theologians reject that the purification and cleansing of the heart is the aim of the sharīʿa, Ibn al-ʿArabī holds, the refuted idea is that this purification in itself will impress the disciplines of knowledge upon the heart.The refutation, he says, is a sound opinion as it is well founded both intellectually (dalīl ʿaqlī) and in the sharīʿa, as well as corroborated by experience (tajriba). 90Ibn al-ʿArabī also criticized al-Ghazālī on account of his philosophical methodology, warned against uncritical reading of his work and specifically the points where he does not refer back to both intellectually acceptable and transmitted knowledge (naql). 91ʿIyāḍ does not mention in the Ghunya that he had read any of these works, but it may be reasonable to assume that he was exposed to these discussions in one way or another and that he perhaps even took part in them.
Al-Ṭurṭūshī later wrote a critique of Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn in the form of a letter to an unidentified Ibn Muẓaffar. 92Al-Ṭurṭūshī held that al-Ghazālī's reference to philosophy and the secret of destiny (sirr al-qadr) shows how he was influenced by the ikhwān al-ṣafāʾ and the bāṭiniyya (in spite of his later explicit refutation of their methodology in al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl), and that his teaching on spiritual states (ʿilm al-aḥwāl) was too closely associated with the ṣūfīs.Even more gravely, al-Ṭurṭūshī accused al-Ghazālī of lying about the Prophet, saying that he "knows of no other book of any knowledgeable standing on the face of the earth which lies about the Prophet more than this." 93Al-Ṭurṭūshī then suggests that the Iḥyāʾ could be burned, comparing it to the burning of non-conforming leaves (ṣuḥuf) of the Qurʾān, as a preventive measure against it landing in hands not able to identify its poison (sumūmihi al-qātila).He remarks that most of the people who love the Iḥyāʾ are actually good people (ṣāliḥūn), but lacking in knowledge. 94The statement is worded like an answer to a comment: "With regard to what you have mentioned about burning the book…" (wa-ammā mā dhakarta min iḥrāq al-kitāb…).We do not know if the statement is an answer to an actual comment, or if it is here a conventional formula.In the 94 Ibid., 162-163.first case, it is possible that al-Ṭurṭūshī had been asked to comment upon something that had already occurred just as much at it could be seeking his advice, or even a formal fatwà.
Al-Ṭurṭūshī figures prominently in ʿIyāḍ's Ghunya.ʿIyāḍ conducted written communication with him and received written authorization from him for all his transmissions and works (kataba ilayya yujīzunī jamīʿa riwāyātihi wa-taṣānīfih), but there is no mention of a reading or refutation of al-Ghazālī. 95However, al-Ṭurṭūshī's letter to Ibn Muẓaffar sums up the main accusations presented against al-Ghazālī in the West, and these are points that may have come up in his communication with ʿIyāḍ as well.According to al-Subkī, this criticism predates the criticism of another of ʿIyāḍ's contacts, al-Māzirī. 96But al-Subkī held that whereas al-Ṭurṭūshī's criticism was ridden by absurdities and wiswās, 97 al-Māzirī raised a scholarly criticism to which al-Subkī replied in detail.
This Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Māzirī (d.536/1141) is the last among ʿIyāḍ's contacts whom he reports in the Ghunya to have been in contact with al-Ghazālī.Kenneth Garden has argued that both al-Māzirī al-Dhakī (d.510/1116) and Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Māzirī were among al-Ghazālī's critics, the first as an anonymous critic and the second as the writer of the critique al-Kashf wa'l-anbāʾ ʿan mutarjim al-Iḥyāʾ. 98According to Garden, ʿIyāḍ's entry on al-Māzirī al-Dhakī in Tartīb al-madārik is the earliest and most detailed account of this Qayrawānī scholar's experiences in the East, where he found Mālikī teaching in decline. 99ʿIyāḍ mentions al-Māzirī al-Dhakī's confrontation with al-Ghazālī, and this may put him among the group that was involved in a failed campaign against al-Ghazālī in Nīshāpūr around the year 500/1106-1107.
The other al-Māzirī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh from Ifrīqiyya, was ʿIyāḍ's senior by some thirty years, and ʿIyāḍ describes him as the most insightful of the Mālikī madhhab in his time, as well as a scholar of ḥadīth, medicine, mathematics and philology.ʿIyāḍ says he wrote to him from Mahdiyya with an ijāza for his book al-Muʿlim fī sharḥ Muslim, 100

Conclusion
Al-Ghazālī was well known to ʿIyāḍ, as were the controversies surrounding his work.However, except for the few remarks on al-Ghazālī's misunderstanding concerning the Medianan ijmāʿ, ʿIyāḍ does not disclose much detail on his own involvement either with al-Ghazālī's work or in the controversies around his work. 101The allegations of ʿIyāḍ's direct intervention in the matter appear only in later sources.Al-Shaʿrānī's (d.973/1565) al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrà and Ibn al-ʿImād's (d.1089/1679) Shadharāt al-dhahab fī akhbār man dhahab appear to be the earliest accounts to suggest that ʿIyāḍ may have had a role in or even an opinion on the condemnation and burning of al-Ghazālī's Iḥyāʾ or other of his works.Neither of the two authors provides any sources for their statements about ʿIyāḍ.Moreover, they are separated not only by almost a century, but also by style, tone and the direct wording of their accounts.However, as we have seen, al-Dhahabī (d.748/1348) had introduced ʿIyāḍ's name into the topic, if only as a reporter of the events.Gómez-Rivas suggests that these allegations should be interpreted as "a gloss on ʿIyāḍ's perceived close ties to the pro-Mālikī Almoravid dynasty and his subsequent fate at the hands of the anti-Mālikī Almohads." 102As Safran holds, "The memory of the burning of al-Ghazālī's book proved a powerful way for the Almohads to define their regime in opposition to the Almoravids." 103Saʿd Ghrāb also suggests that both the ban and the burning could be politically motivated allegations on part of the Almohads, with no historical basis, although he admits the possibility that the incident did take place. 104owever, the available Almohad sources do not mention that ʿIyāḍ had any role in the incidents, and it is questionable whether the North African ideological and historical context of the twelfth century was of primary concern to either al-Shaʿrānī or Ibn al-ʿImād, let alone to the even later al-Zabīdī (d.1205/1790).Al-Zabīdī had many contacts from North Africa: official contacts, scholars, and people of learning and culture, some of whom were linked to the Sufi zāwiyas, 105 and by al-Zabīdī's day, ʿIyāḍ had already been fully restored as one of the seven saints of Marrakesh by the second Alaouite ruler, Maulay Ismāʿīl Ibn Sharīf (r.1082-1139/1672-1727). 106 Although the early historical sources do not present much detail on the subject, the strong objections in the West to al-Ghazālī's work were presumably common knowledge.ʿIyāḍ did refer to al-Ghazālī's misgivings regarding the Mālikī view of Medinan ijmāʿ, but he does not seem to have been among his fiercest critics nor does he mention having read his work in his autobiographical catagolue, the Ghunya, ʿIyāḍ's last work to be completed less than a year before he died.Even if ʿIyāḍ had withheld a criticism of al-Ghazālī's work in order to strengthen his case with the new rulers, there was certainly no reason why he should have refrained from reading and engaging with his work.The concrete incidents of condemnation and burning or the order to burn his work in the early twelfth century were fairly known to the later scholarly community, but not necessarily in detail.Thus, until further historical sources potentially may shed some more light on the issue, ʿIyāḍ's alleged role in condemning, outlawing or burning al-Ghazālī's work Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn must be understood as a mix-up of historical facts, anecdotes and overly interpretative assumptions, chiefly motivated by concerns not related to ʿIyāḍ's work, biography or legacy.
25ʿIyāḍ's work is also likely to have been known to al-Shaʿrānī as a source for such great Shāfiʿī works as al-Nawawī's (d.676/1278)al-Minhāj bi-sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, as well as for Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī's (d.756/1355) book al-Sayf al-maslūl ʿalà man sabba al-rasūl with its many references to ʿIyāḍ's Shifāʾ, and his son Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī's (d.771/1370) Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿiyya al-kubrà.In the ṭabaqāt works on the Shāfiʿī scholars the controversies surrounding al-Ghazālī's work are a recurrent topic.In his bibliographical entry on al-Ghazālī, al-Subkī includes a chapter where he details the criticisms raised by some of the Mālikīs and the responses to those criticisms.ʿIyāḍ, however, is not mentioned. 26On the other hand, the Syrian Shāfiʿī al-Dhahabī (d.748/1348) reports in his Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ from ʿIyāḍ's non-extant Kitāb muʿjam fī shuyūkh Ibn Sukkara 27 that Abū ʿAlī al- A number of refutations of al-Ghazālī's teachings are reported to have appeared in al-Maghrib and al-Andalus, and ʿIyāḍ reports in his fahrasa that he had read one of them, written by Ibn Ḥamdīn (d.508/1114).
shahādatayn.82Ihavenotfound any textual evidence that ʿIyāḍ read the risāla as a separate text, but he may have read it as part of the Iḥyāʾ.One of ʿIyāḍ's contemporaries and close contacts who met al-Ghazālī was the Sevillan Mālikī scholarIbn al-ʿArabī (d.543/1148).During his journey east along with his father, Ibn al-ʿArabī met many of the great scholars.The then less than twenty-year old Ibn al-ʿArabī became for a period of time one of al-Ghazālī's closest students, and he read the newly composed, or possibly not yet completed, Iḥyāʾ in Baghdad in 490/1097. 83Subsequently, he introduced the Iḥyāʾ into the West when he returned to Sevilla in 495/1102, and he may have conveyed some of its content or given the young student ʿIyāḍ the chance to copy some notes in Ceuta when possibly stopping there on his way from Fez to Seville. 84Born in 468/1076, Ibn al-ʿArabī was ʿIyāḍ's (b.476/1083) senior by only a few years.Later ʿIyāḍ met him in Sevilla (during ʿIyāḍ's first trip to al-Andalus in 498/1104-5), and again in Cordoba (during ʿIyāḍ's seven-months sojourn there in 507/1113-1114), and they continued to have written contact. 85ʿIyāḍ mentions that both al-Ghazālī and Abū Bakr al-Ṭurṭūshī (d.520/1126) were among Ibn al-ʿArabī's teachers in the East, but he does not mention explicitly that Ibn al-ʿArabī conveyed any of either's teachings to him. 86According to Maribel Fierro, both Ibn al-ʿArabī and al-Ṭurṭūshī were initially attracted to al-Ghazālī's doctrine, and she suggests that there was some influence in their writings, although al-Ṭurṭūshī had been unsuccessful in his attempt to meet al-Ghazālī. 87ʿIyāḍ also had personal, written contact with al-Ṭurṭūshī, who was from Tortosa in al-Andalus, but who travelled extensively in the East before settling in Alexandria where he lived most of his life. 88Ibn al-ʿArabī first met al-Ṭurṭūshī in Jerusalem going East.Then, coming back from Baghdād, Ibn al-ʿArabī met al-Ṭurṭūshī again in Alexandria, and by then al-Ṭurṭūshī had become more critical to al-Ghazālī's teachings.The Muslim Creed, 272-275.The sources do not specify how he travelled from Fez to Seville, but Ceuta was the narrowest and consequently the most common point of transfer between the two coasts (al-MARRĀKUSHĪ, al-Muʿjam, 253).