SOURCE: Hourani, George F. “The Dialogue between al-Ghazālī and the Philosophers on the Origin of the World.” Muslim World 48, nos. 3/4 (July/October 1958): 183-91, 308-14.

In the following essay, Hourani examines al-Ghazālī's arguments against the proofs of the eternity of the world as advanced by Islamic philosophers.

Part I

Few writings in the history of philosophy reflect such an impression of exciting intellectual combat as the celebrated debate of the two Tahāfuts on whether the world is eternal in the past or originated.¹ It is also one of the central texts of Islamic philosophy. But the argument follows a somewhat devious course. It seems worth while to present within a short compass its main lines with some general comments.

The debate in its final form is contained in Ibn Rushd's Tahāfut al-Tahāfut, in the first and longest of the twenty discussions of the...