This section of the paper is taken from M.A. Choudhury's, "The epistemologies of Ghazzali, Kant and the Alternative: Formalism in Unification of Knowledge Applied to the Concepts of Markets and Sustainability" (paper presented at the Meetings of the Association of Unity and Integration of Knowledge, the Learned Societies Conference, Brock University, May 1996). The paper is appearing in the Festschrift in Honour of Clem Tisdell, International Journal of Social Economics.

Abu Hamid Muhammad Ghazzali, better known as Imam Ghazzali (1058 A.D.-- 1111 A.D) was born in a humble family in the village of Ghazzal in the Province of Taus, Khorasan, Persia. Imam Ghazzali attained fame first under the tutorship of the famous Islamic teacher, Imam Abu Nasr Ismail. After he graduated with distinction in Islamic sciences from Nizamia Madrasah in Nishapur, Baghdad, Iraq, he soon rose to be appointed as the principal of the same madrasah (religious school) by the Sultan, Nizamul Mulk. Here he lectured on a diverse number of metaphysical and theological subjects and entered in argumentation freely with people of all shades of opinions. Such free inquiry led him to become a mystic (Sufi), a persuasion that he predominantly adopted throughout his life. This preoccupation increased when he left Baghdad for Damascus, relinguishing his lucrative professorial (Hujjatul Islam) position and gave himself over to the retired life of a Sufi.

Imam Ghazzali wrote about 400 books in areas of general theology, principles of theology, scholastic theology, jurisprudence, logic, philosophy, spiritual and moral subjects and commentary of the Qur'an. His masterpiece was entitled, Ihya Ulumuddin (Revival of Religious Sciences). This is so immortal a work, that Islamic authorities have made the following types of comments on it: Imam Ghazzali's contemporary, Abul Gafer Fersi said, that a book like Ihya was never written before. Imam Nodi said, Ihya was close to the Qur'anic essence of knowledge. Shaikh Abu Muhammad said, that if ever all the lights of knowledge were extinguished in the world, knowledge could once again be revived from Ihya.

Imam Ghazzali's works received serious readership in scholastic Europe of the time, particularly in metaphysics, theology and mysticism. Among the later Muslim scholars, Imam Shafei, Ibn Rushd and Shah Waliullah were influenced in their writings by the contents of Ihya. Ihya is an original book of all times. Its essence is based on the personal conduct of life that opens up the mind and human relationships with the Divine Essence. It is a book that delves deeply into Qur'an and Sunnah to derive the roots of Islamic knowledge in the personal context of individuals and its relationship with scientific thinking. The science of Ihya encompasses the idea of a meaningful linkage between the temporal world and the hereafter.

The contents of Ihya are taken up in four volumes. The first volume called The Book of Worship, comprises the topics of Epistemology, Islamic Belief Formation, Personal Conducts and Islamic Obligations. The second volume called The Book of Worldly Usages, comprises the topics of personal conducts in relation to external matters, such as, commerce, trade, earnings, society and public duties. Volume three, called The Book of Destructive Evils, comprises an extensive coverage of personal psychology in relation to self-restraints and worldly conducts. Volume four, called The Book of Constructive Virtues, deals with the topic of cleansing the soul by observance of attributes given by the Qur'an and Sunnah (Prophetic traditions).

At the place of his theorizing on Islamic political economy where Ibn Taimiyyah began, namely the Economic Transaction and Individual Behaviour in an Islamic State, there Imam Ghazzali left off. Imam Ghazzali was the visionary in personal psychology. His was the mission of interpreting the Qur'an, Sunnah and the social functions of Ijma and Qiyas for transforming the individual within the social complex. This is particularly to be found in Al- Ghazzali's immortal work, Ihya Ulum-Id-Din (see Vol. II: On Worldly Usages). Even when Ghazzali wrote in regards to money, this was to show the great importance of productive activity, wealth, well- being and justice that are ordained by the Qur'an and the Sunnah for the pursuit of worldy activities to gain the blessings of Hereafter. The concept of Hereafter as a functional reality in worldly pursuits was embedded in Ghazzali's personal psychology of the individual within society. Money therefore had to be properly construed, preserved and used to realize its impact on the creation of Islamic society. Ghazzali like Ibn Taimiyyah also thought of money as currency, whose use it was to monetize actual exchange in transactions. Profits were important to Ghazzali as wealth was considered to succour good life in an Islamic society. Yet inordinate wealth was not promoted by Ghazzali's social economy. Yet when one examines this case corresponding to the kind of economic relations that were set up by Ghazzali respecting the usage of economic functions in an Islamic society, the following conclusions are obvious:

Moderation, appropriateness, moral consciousness (self- actualization) and sharing in Ghazzali's psychological transformation of the individual, meant at once a basic needs orientation to socioeconomic development. In this milieu, while goods and ownership were distributive through the process of cooperation and moderation, so also must be the resources underlying such property rights and ownership. Thus, physical resources, money, wealth and goods were all to be distributive by cause and effect in such a cooperative economy under moral restraints. Prices of goods and factors too must be stable; output would then be increased. This would carry along increasing real incomes (not necessarily increasing nominal incomes). Hence economic efficiency and social well-being would be realized.

A brief introduction to the relationship between Ghazzali's personal and social psychology centering the individual and his relationship with society in the context of Allah's Worship (Ibadah) and under the guidance of Hereafter (Akhira), is given below. The greatest accomplishment of Ghazzali in the politico- economic front may be said to be his theory of knowledge made to embody the relationship of worldly functions to Hereafter as a substantive reality.

Since our focus in this paper is on discovering perspectives of unification of knowledge, we will therefore not undertake the other aspects of Ghazzali's works. For example, there is Ghazzali's famous refutation of the philosophers, particularly of Al-Farabi and Ibn Rushd. The arguments in these other cases surrounded Ghazzali's rejection of the Hellenistic approaches of the other philosophers respecting their delineation of the universe being grounded in the pervasiveness of matter, in the description of the Prophet Muhammad as philosopher-king and in the lineage of the philosophers to pagan beliefs, such as naturalism and materialism. The discourse in these areas are of metaphysical nature, not pertaining to the question we have in focus in this paper.