Abu Hamid Al Ghazali’s Quote about Knowledge :

Abu Hamid Al Ghazali’s Quote about Knowledge

“Knowledge exists potentially in the human soul like the seed in the soil; by learning the potential becomes actual.”

— Abu Hamid Al Ghazali

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Know Source and Context of this Quote :

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali was born in 1058 in Tus, now Iran. He died in 1111.

He was a very influential figure in Islamic philosophy and theology. He was a professor at Nizamiyyah University in Baghdad, one of the best universities in the world at the time. It is worth noting that there were very few universities equivalent to this university in the Christian regions of Europe.

He left the university at one point to devote his time to reflection and writing. Al-Ghazali's writings are based on ancient Greek philosophical and scientific thought, while rejecting significant aspects of it. He sought to balance reason and science with faith in God. He tried to prove through logic that reason alone is not enough, because the deepest truths can only be attained through faith in God. Al-Ghazali explained why the most fundamental knowledge must come from God.

Al-Ghazali believed that education is a lifelong experience that should focus on personal development. He also believed that knowledge is the understanding of the meaning of things. He classified knowledge as theoretical and practical, and current and acquired.

He believed that the Islamic spiritual tradition was dying out and that the spiritual sciences taught by the first generation of Muslims had been forgotten. This belief led him to write his magnum opus, ‘Ihya Ulum ad-Din’ (The Revival of the Religious Sciences). Among his other works, ‘Tahafut al-Falasifa’ (The Incoherence of the Philosophers) is a landmark in the history of philosophy, as it advances the critique of Aristotelian science that developed later in 14th-century Europe, from which the practice of modern logic or ‘logical fallacy’ begins.

Thus, he made this statement while explaining the relationship between education and knowledge.

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