The rationality of faith in abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī

The arguments asserting that there is no connection between faith and reason or that these two concepts are mutually exclusive are open to criticism in many respects. Because it does not seem possible to understand and accept an matter that cannot be grasped rationally. There are thinkers and school of thought who argue that something that cannot be understood can be believed, and there are also people who criticize and reject such an mentality because it is contradictory. Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī should be reckoned among the Islamic thinkers who think that a religious belief devoid of reason is impossible and that religious judgment can only be valid after they comply with the laws of reason and thought. However, in understanding religion, Imam Ghazālī neither accepts mere rationalism nor mere faith as the right position. According to him, the most correct understanding of religion can be built through the partnership and agreement of reason and faith. This is a difficult construction process in which reason and faith take on tasks of their own. This thesis consists of two main parts. In the first part, after mentioning the ideas of some distinguished philosophers and scholars adopted the idea that faith is rational belief, the laws of thought determined by Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī were examined. The last part of the first main title is about the application of the aforementioned rules of reasoning to knowledge and belief. The second chapter focuses on the reasoning laws that are related to religious belief which were determined in the first section. In the last part of the study, firstly, the relevance of reason and then the revelation with religious belief has been emphasized, and in the end of the study the criterion about the beliefs that people who do not have the competence in theoretical subjects has been discussed.