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APPLYING THE LESSONS: IDEALS VERSUS REALITIES OF HAPPINESS FROM MEDIEVAL ISLAM TO THE “FOUNDING FATHERS”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2014

Vincent J. Cornell
Vincent J. Cornell*
Affiliation:
Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Middle East and Islamic Studies and Chair of the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, Emory University
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Abstract

The idea of happiness and its pursuit have been taken up by thinkers in many times and places. This article examines the role of happiness as a concept and goal in medieval Islamic thought and, especially, in the work of Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad al-Ghazālī and Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī. In examining Ghazālī's and Fārābī's perspectives on happiness, the article looks at the influence of Plato and Aristotle on these medieval Islamic thinkers and puts Islamic thought on happiness in conversation with the views of the American founders.

Keywords

IslamhappinessGhazālīFārābīFounding Fathers
Type
SYMPOSIUM: PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS IN INTERRELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVE
Information
Journal of Law and Religion , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , February 2014 , pp. 92 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 2014 

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References

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10 Thottam/Thimphu, “The Pursuit of Happiness,” 1–4.

11 White, A Brief History of Happiness, 41.

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13 Q. 2:201.

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15 Q. 11:105.

16 Q. 11:108.

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32 White, A Brief History of Happiness, 19–24; see also Plato, Republic 443d–e.

33 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, p. 11, 1.6.1096a25. When one reads this passage, one cannot help but be reminded of Bill Clinton's famous deposition statement of September 13, 1998: “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

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37 Ibid., 1:4.

38 Ibid., 1:3.

39 Quasem, Muhammad Abul, The Ethics of al-Ghazali: A Composite Ethics in Islam (1975; repr., Delmar, New York: Caravan Books, 1978), 57–58Google Scholar. Part of Ghazālī's spiritual elitism comes from his Ash'arī theology, which (much like early Calvinism) strongly privileges divine voluntarism and views salvation as an act of grace; thus, those who are saved—and even those who are pious—are predestined to be such. Ghazālī's hierarchy of salvation is discussed most fully in IḥyāI ‘ulūm al-dīn (Revival of the Religious Sciences) but is also implicit in The Alchemy of Happiness, which was written as an epitome of the former work.

40 Ghazzālī, The Alchemy of Happiness, 1:9.

41 Ibid., 1:11. The epistemology that lies behind this statement is strongly influenced by Stoic philosophy.

42 Plotinus said: “As pure souls we were Spirit . . . we were a part of the spiritual world, neither circumscribed nor cut off from it . . . now we are no longer only the one we were, and at times, when the spiritual person is idle and in a certain sense stops being present, we are only the person we have added on to ourselves.” See Hadot, Pierre, Plotinus or the Simplicity of Vision, trans. Chase, Michael (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993)Google Scholar, 28 (emphasis added). Ghazālī's soul-body dualism is so pronounced that it continues even after death. At the resurrection, the disembodied soul will remain as the real essence of the resurrected person, and the body will be resurrected only so that it can take on the punishments that it may deserve after judgment. See Quasem, The Ethics of al-Ghazali, 73n35.

43 “[T]he metaphor of the body is a state and its limbs and organs are its workers.” Ghazzālī, The Alchemy of Happiness, 1:12.

44 Ibid., 1:12–13. On the Platonic origins of this model, see the section, “Platonic Structures of Harmony and Nature,” in White, A Brief History of Happiness, 81–88.

45 Quasem, The Ethics of al-Ghazali, 58.

46 Ibid. The Arabic term faḍīla (pl. faḍā'il) literally means “thing of worth” or “benefit,” and thus is a close approximation of the concept of a “good” in English.

47 Ibid., 60–61.

48 Ibid., 63, 77n117. In Ash'arī theology, the only action that the human being can undertake for herself with respect to the goods of divine providence is to petition God through prayer. However, the granting of providential goods is entirely at God's discretion and is not dependent on either the supplications or the virtues of believers.

49 Ghazzālī, The Alchemy of Happiness, 2:551. Ghazālī uses khabar (pl. akhbār) for “tradition” in this section because the traditions of prophets and religious figures other than the Prophet Muḥammad are also cited; he also uses this term because it allows him to cite weakly substantiated or unsubstantiated Prophetic traditions, which are termed khabar instead of ḥadīth.

50 See, for example, Q. 15:26–44, especially verse 42, where God says to Satan, “You will have no authority over my servants except for those who are lost (al-ghāwīn) and who [willingly] follow you.”

51 Ghazzālī, The Alchemy of Happiness, 2:551. I have modified this passage somewhat from the cited translation to more accurately reflect the original Persian text.

52 The full title of this work is The Ethics of al-Ghazali: A Composite Ethics in Islam.

53 Ghazzālī, The Alchemy of Happiness, 2:558. In the Revival, Ghazālī calls this perspective “the denial of the permissible” (al-zuhd fī-l-ḥalāl).

54 Ibid., 2:550. I have modified this passage somewhat from the cited translation to more accurately reflect the original Persian text.

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57 Quasem, The Ethics of al-Ghazali, 85. This quotation is from The Revival of the Religious Sciences.

58 Ghazzālī, The Alchemy of Happiness, 1:8.

59 The term that Ghazālī uses for these virtues is mus’īdāt, from the Arabic root sa'ida (to be happy).

60 Quasem, The Ethics of al-Ghazali, 68.

61 Ibid., 69. This statement comes from Book 3 of The Revival of the Religious Sciences.

62 Quasem, The Ethics of al-Ghazali, 56–57.

63 Joyce, James, Ulysses (Seedbox Press, 2012)Google Scholar, Kindle Edition.

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65 Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, “The Pursuit of Happiness: What the Founders Meant—and Didn't,” The Atlantic, June 20, 2011, http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/06/the-pursuit-of-happiness-what-the-founders-meant-and-didnt/240708/. Townsend also claims that the phrase “the pursuit of happiness” was Benjamin Franklin's suggestion.

66 “Rick Santorum Says Happiness ‘at the Time of Our Founders’ Was ‘Doing What You Ought to Do,’” PolitiFact.com, March 7, 2012, http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/mar/07/rick-santorum/rick-santorum-says-happiness-time-our-founders-was/.

67 Hutson, James H., ed., The Founders on Religion: A Book of Quotations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005)Google Scholar, 198.

68 However, George Washington was more inclined to appreciate the Epicurean praise of simple pleasures, which is evidenced by his references to the writings of Cicero (d. 43 BCE). See White, A Brief History of Happiness, 52–53; Hutson, The Founders on Religion, 12.

69 John Jay to Lindley Murray, 22 August 1794, quoted in Hutson, The Founders on Religion, 202–03.

70 John Jay to William Wilberforce, 8 November 1809, quoted in ibid., 203.

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72 Alfarabi, , “Taḥṣīl al-sa'āda” (The Attainment of Happiness) in Alfarabi: Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, trans. Mahdi, Muhsin, rev. ed. (1962; repr., Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001)Google Scholar, 13.

73 For an accessible introduction to Fārābī’s life and works see, Fakhry, Majid, Al-Farabi, Founder of Islamic Neoplatonism: His Life, Works, and Influence (Oxford: Oneworld, 2002)Google Scholar.

74 Alfarabi, “The Attainment of Happiness,” 42.

75 Alfred North Whitehead famously observed, “Western philosophy is nothing but a series of footnotes to Plato's dialogues.” On the influence of the exegeses of Plato's works in the history of philosophy, see the chapter, “Philosophy, Exegesis, and Creative Mistakes,” in Hadot, Pierre, Philosophy as a Way of Life, ed. Davidson, Arnold I. and trans. Chase, Michael (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1995), 71–77Google Scholar.

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77 Cumberland, Richard, A Treatise of the Laws of Nature (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2005), 523–24Google Scholar.

78 Alfarabi, “The Attainment of Happiness,” 43.

79 Mahdi, Alfarabi and the Foundation of Islamic Political Philosophy, 186–87.

80 Ibid., 189.

81 Alfarabi, “The Attainment of Happiness,” 44.

82 Ibid., 134n6.

83 Ibid., 24. The “science of man” (‘ilm al-insān, literally, “the science of the person”) is the final stage of inquiry that Fārābī advocates in “The Attainment of Happiness”; it investigates the “what” and the “how” of the purpose for which the human being is made and the means to ensure human perfection.

84 For a full discussion of these questions and how to interpret them, see ibid., 15–25.