1. have encountered two versions of how Ghazzali’s works found their way to Europe. Both sources indicate that Ghazzali’s works were available between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Harry A. Wolfson in “Nicolaus of Autrecourt and Ghazzali’s Argument Against Causality”, Speculum, 44: 2 (April 1969), pp. 234–38, maintains that Ghazzali’s works, especially the Incoherence of Philosophers, were available to Nicolaus of Autrecourt and Bernard of Arezzo. Wolfson argues this etymologically and philosophically by referring to a particular argument in the Incoherence of Philosophers. This argument concerns the causal factors that are involved when a piece of cotton is brought next to the fire. The official version of Ghazzali’s Incoherence of Philosophers was translated into Latin by Jewish scholars, Kalonymous ben Kalonymous (1328), and Kalonymous ben David (1527). These versions included Averroes’ commentaries. Wolfson also indicates that some of Ghazzali’s arguments were available to Albert the Great through the works of Maimonides (1135–1204) and Averroes.
2. R. E. A. Shanab, in “Ghazzali and Aquinas on Causality,” The Monist, 58: 1 (January 1974), pp. 14150, refers to another source for the availability of Ghazzali’s works to European Scholars. Shanab maintains that the Dominican Raymund Martin had exposure to many of Ghazzali’s works, which were available in Toledo in the thirteenth century. Shanab wants to argue that Thomas Aquinas, through the study of the works of Raymund Martin and correspondence with him, was at least indirectly exposed to the thought of Ghazzali. In particular, Shanab’s argument concerns Aquinas’ attacks on Muslim Peripatetic philosophers. Shanab argues that the Peripatetic doctrines under attack were the ones that Ghazzali attacked in the Incoherence of Philosophers. It is important to note that Shanab maintains that Deliverance from Error, Al-Munqidh min ad-Dalal, was one of the texts available in the thirteenth century.
3. It is interesting to note that Lenn E. Goodman argues that Descartes’ argument for the existence of the ego cogito has its source in Avicenna’s argument for the immortality of the soul (“Ibn Sina’s Argument for the Existence of the Soul”, Philosophical Forum I: 4 (Summer 69), pp. 547–62). This point may go some distance in explaining the similarities between Ghazzali’s Deliverance and Descartes’ Meditations, since Ghazzali was a careful reader and critic of Avicenna. Goodman’s argument is persuasive, but it is based on philosophical evidence; it is much harder to make the case historically. In this essay, I will not develop Goodman’s account.
4. Henry Corbin, The Concept of Comparative Philosophy, Peter Russell (trans.), Ipswich: Golgonooza Press, 1981, p. 5.
5. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “Henry Corbin: The Life and Works of the Occidental Exile in Quest of the Orient of Light,” in Traditional Islam in the Modern World, New York: KPI, 1987, p. 276.