Journal of European Baptist Studies, 2017

zali's influence. With reference to al-Ghazali’s influence on Islamic philosophy, Griffel advances Solomon Pines' argument that al-Ghazali's ‘refutation’ primarily rejected elements of Aristotelian ontology. 90 Islamic philosophy, however, draws on a much wider variety of sources, as Pines demonstrates, including not only Greek influences, but Persian, Oriental, and Indian sources of thought. Pines states that ‘in its further development, it [Islamic philosophy] did not, as a rule, eliminate one of them; it led them to subsist side by side—or on different planes.’ 91 Hoover offers an example of this through his explanation of two lesser known studies that demonstrate that Ibn Taymiyya's (d. 1328) thought draws significantly more on the philosophy of Ibn Rushd (d. 1198) and the logic of kalam than on al-Ghazali. 92 This pattern of including and integrating different or even conflicting views has been associated with more ‘eastern’ approaches to critical thinking, 93 and warrants further study of the diverse sources contributing to Islamic philosophy. Certainly al-Ghazali’s contribution does not have the monopoly once thought. The legacy of common interpretations of al-Ghazali continues, particularly with regard to Islamic educational thinking. In Nofal's exposition of al-Ghazali's educational theories, he lists a number of widely cited Islamic educational theorists and practitioners spanning five centuries who explicitly draw on al-Ghazali's educational thinking. 94 Tibawi demonstrates this influence in his claim that ‘classical Arabic literature contains no theory of education more authoritative, systematic and comprehensive than that bequeathed by al-Ghazali’. 95 Tibawi argues that ‘with one notable exception, practically all educational literature down to the beginning of modernization in the nineteenth century is either inspired 89 Alkanderi, p. 104. 90 Griffel, Al-Ghazali’s Philosophical Theology, p. 6. 91 Solomon Pines, ‘Some Problems of Islamic Philosophy’, in Greek Philosophy and the Arabs: Texts and Studies., ed. by Fuat Sezgin (Frankfurt a.M.: Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, 2000), 2, 80 (pp. 80ff). 92 Jon Hoover, ‘Perpetual Creativity in the Perfection of God: Ibn Taymiyya’s Hadith Commentary on God’s Creation of This World’, Journal of Islamic Studies, 15.3 (2004), 287-329 (p. 291). 93 See Richard Nisbett, The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why (New York: Free Press, 2003); Nicola Knight and Richard Nisbett, ‘Culture, Class and Cognition: Evidence from Italy’, Journal of Cognition and Culture, 7.3 (2007), 283-91. 94 Nofal,p. 533. 95 Tibawi, Islamic Education, p. 39. Hutcherson, The Relationship between Faith and Reason 71 by his [al-Ghazali's] writings or directly derived from them’. 96 Tibawi's affinity for seeing al-Ghazali's influence on Islamic education is not unique. Shah