Al Ghazali and Ibn Taymiyyah

In our last episode of the season we wrap up the intellectual history of Islam by examining how the orthodoxies that we discussed in the previous episode were popularized. We talk about the emerging class of legal scholars called the ulema, the madhabs of Hanafi, Maliki, Shaif, and Hanbali and their main differences, and how Sufism helped to spread the scholarly brand of Islam throughout the Islamic heartlands. We talk about the contributions of the Seljuks, namely under the patronage of Nizam al Mulk and his network of schools that shifted the heart of Islam from the Caliph to scholarship and was a main force in preserving Islam post-Mongol invasion. We talk about the efforts of Fatima al Samarqandi in spreading Hanafi Islam and the writings of Al Ghazali as they consolidate and reconcile the debates of the ahl al Hadith and the Mutazila. Finally we discuss Ibn Taymiyyah as a product of the anxiety over conservation post-Mongol invasion and set the state for the other Islams and contemporary debates for next season.