Ghazali's Politics in Context

Yazeed Said is a Cambridge-educated Israeli born in Palestine, an Anglican priest, a faculty member at Canadian and Irish universities, and a scholar of Islamic history and theology. The approach that he takes to his subject in Ghazali's Politics in Context reflects this background and biography, resulting in a book that is complex and adventurous. The author notes at the outset that ‘What follows is not an intellectual history of Ghazali's thought’ (p 1). This is certainly true, though the qualification fails fully to disclose Said's unconventional approach to his subject.

Two governing propositions guide the book. First, Ghazali must be opened ‘beyond the frontiers of Islam’ and, secondly, there is ‘theological unity’ to Ghazali's political thought (p 25). By so proposing, Said aims to free Ghazali from the interpretive limitations and blind spots that have dominated scholarship in Oriental studies (p 1). Interpreting Ghazali in this more capacious manner proves to be both a strength and weakness of the book. On the one hand, Said's approach allows him to appropriate Ghazali for novel purposes. Ghazali is freed from a time-bound setting and made a living resource for contemporary debates within ‘theology, ethics, law, and political philosophy’ (p 1). Among the most creative moves that Said makes is to place his subject in conversation with the legal theorist John Finnis and the Christian theologian Rowan Williams.