Politics and social thought of al-Ghazali

As a philosopher, al-Ghazali has created works in different fields of science. Though his works have been written in the 11th century, their impact continues up to now. The main purpose of this thesis is, to explain al-Ghazali's thoughts on politics and society. That is why researchs about his life have been investigated. Main and auxiliary resources have been researched. To understand the time he lived, researches about Seljuk State have been examined. To show the value of the scholars, it is important to understand al-Ghazali's thoughts. According to his thinking, the scholar does not heed this world, he always takes heed of eternity and practices it in his life and with the help of it, he does not pursue the world. The mission of those people who do not care about high positions is to show the right way to the people. During the showing of the right way, scholars do not stay away from the people. They stay away just from the worldly things. In al-Ghazali's thoughts, there is a structure that has been named as a "Chain of disruption". According to this structure, if scholars fail, as a next step, the sultan will fail. If the sultan fails, then people will fail. Scholars have been placed on the first chain link of this structure. al-Ghazali has loaded such responsibility on scholars. Scholars should not pursue worldly things. They must think about the afterlife and should be careful not to be a cause of corruption. There is also a state of recovery in response to the deterioration in the thought of al-Ghazali. This recovery starts in a person's inner world. As a first, man must take control of his instincts, and then he must try to fix others. Like a sequence, this recovery situation will spread out society. In al-Ghazali's thoughts, scholars stay in an independent position away from the leader of the state. Scholars should not enter the leader's yoke and make concessions to look good. To control people's inner and outer world, scholars and state leaders should work together. When this will happen, people can be together and there will not be any threat to their life or for their assets.