Al-Gazzâlî's critique of Muslim philosophers - an analysis in the context of Mahmut Kaya

The great Islamic scholar and thinker Imam al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111), who came up as a truth seeker, reacted strongly against the philosophers. Gazzali was neither a replicant of the past, nor a thinker who completely abolished the existing accumulation of knowledge. The influence of his critics against the philosophers; as a scholar who had a very big impact on Islamic life of thought and was named as "Hüccetü'l-İslam" as a result of the works he wrote on every branch of Islamic Discipline, has been unquestionably great. In this study, we tried to evaluate the reasons of our scholar's targetting the philosophers and the consistency of the criticism he made in his own system within the context of our philosophy teacher Mahmut KAYA. The comparison of religion and philosophy, which still maintains its existence, shows us that the subject has been continueing to attract people's attention for centuries. We think that the heritage of this intellectual and very old debate in our intellectual life, will contribue to our need of negotiation of the opposing ideas in today's İslamic World. Keywords: Ghazali, Tahafut, Takfeer, Batiniyya, Islamic Philosophy