Journal of European Baptist Studies, 2017

standing in the use of reason. Al-Ghazali devotes considerable discussion to the role of various groups in education, particularly concerning moral education of children. Because children's nature is tabula rasa, parents play a primary role in imparting knowledge and right morals. 66 Parents create an environment, either good or bad, that influences their children's moral development. 67 Quite often, al-Ghazali warns of the corrupting influence of peers, 68 and parents are advised to only allow their children contact with moral friends. This of course does not negate the significant place of teachers for al- Ghazali. Teachers transfer to students that which they do not have, cultivating in them the appropriation and practice of good morals. 69 Teachers serve as moral exemplars and guides, 70 placing a significant emphasis on teachers' lives being consistent with the moral values they teach. 71 Failing to be a moral exemplar would betray the teacher's vocation as much as failing to instruct in good morals. The Anthropology of Education Summarising al-Ghazali’s anthropology is complicated, partly because of the arguments within which his view is embedded, but also because of the nuanced position he took between Mu‘atazali and Ash‘ari methodology and conclusions. Shihadeh thoroughly demonstrates that al-Ghazali held an anthropology of substance dualism, though framed in classical Ash‘ari views on the nature of substance. 72 To grossly simplify a complex and nuanced 63 Illy a bk. 3, 61-62; for further discussion of this point see Nofal, p. 524. 64 Mohammad Attaran, ‘Moral Education, Habituation, and Divine Assistance in View of Ghazali’, Journal of Research on Christian Education, 24 (2015), 43-51; Nofal, p. 524. 65 Alavi, ‘Al-Ghazali on Moral Education’, p. 315; Hilgendorf, p. 69. 66 Ihyd \ bk. 1, 46. 67 Ibid.; also in Alavi, ‘Al-Ghazali on Moral Education’, p. 315. 68 For example, Ihyd bk. 3, 52. 69 Nakosteen, p. 57; Nofal, p. 526. 70 This is al-Ghazali’s authorial framework for Ayyuha ’L-Walad [Letter to a Disciple]', on this idea, see Alavi, ‘Al-Ghazali on Moral Education’, p. 316. 71 Alavi, ‘Al-Ghazali on Moral Education’, p. 316. 72 Ihyd \ bk. 3, 3. Most recently, both Griffel and Shihadeh argue that al-Ghazali holds to (though obscures) a substance dualism view of man. See Griffel, Al-GhazalT’s Philosophical Theology, p. 285; Ayman Shihadeh, ‘Al-Ghazali and Kalam’, in Islam and Rationality (Brill, 2016), pp. 113-41. 68 Journal of European Baptist Studies 17:1 (2017) view, al-Ghazali held that human nature is essentially a rational, material soul and body. According to al-Ghazali, humans are incomplete and animal-like when bom. They have the potential to develop, but need cultivation. 73 In order to grow into being fully human a transition must take place from incompleteness to completeness; a process that takes place through living in and interacting with the world. 74 Knowledg