The greatest power of man is the power of thought, and I present to your attention the passages that we consider important from the book titled “thinking, speaking and speaking” by the philosopher Ghazali, who examines this subject in detail.
It is seen that Ghazali’s philosophical examination goes very deep. When it comes to the power of thought, of course, its functions appear in the form of listening, speaking, speaking and writing, all of which have been examined by Ghazali.
Ghazali is one of our philosophers that Mustafa Kemal Atatürk also drew attention to.
I think that the debate on al-Ghazali will be approached more carefully after reading the passages we have quoted here.
The reflection of the power of thought in our language is reading, thinking, philosophizing, “think, think.. of the work” has been reflected in a negative way with stereotyped sentences.
Two questions arise here. Why did this negative perception emerge and the second question is, how can this perception be broken?
It is also an important question why the headline sentence “I think, therefore I am”, which is constantly quoted in our language from the Western philosopher Descartes, is not among our memorizations, although more effective ones are abundantly present in Ghazali’s texts.
THOUGHT
Now, when Almighty Allah created the spiritual world directly and created the corporeal world indirectly, He separated man from other creatures and gathered in him the finest thoughts and sensibles that were created to be an example of the great world and to be called the small world.
There is an explanation of this word that is long to explain, that is not hidden to those whose hearts are open, and that it is not lawful to give to those who lack talent.
It is only because of the value of thinking that this man is distinguished from the created beings and is specialized by the declaration of truth.
Whoever does not know the truth of thinking is only a name, and his share of the right path is a picture.
When mankind was mere thinking, when many people were unable to distinguish between speech, thinking and speech, and were puzzled as to the state and quality of thinking, they thought that these words had become a name for one meaning.
If the situation were as they suppose, it would be possible to call the supreme creator the one who tells the body of the thinking being. However, this is something that is not mentioned at all. Therefore, we wanted to clarify the truth of these names, to distinguish between these meanings, so that they would be an integral part of the mind. 44
Thinking is the work of universal reason. Thinking, then, is not the form of a phrase, the sign itself, the shape of letters, and the spelling of sounds. On the contrary, thinking is the ability of the human soul to express the formless and disembodied abstract form that has settled in its knowledge, entered its mind.
When the human soul conceives the truths of things with their individuals and essences in the mirror of the heart, the soul can express them; the mind can think of them; If the mind surrounds them inside and out, then the soul is called a thinker. A man is called a thinker, even if he does not explain and does not say with language. Page 52
Thus, the wise person will know that the thinking person is the one who imitates the Book of Allah and conceives the contents of the words of Allah. He who does not know the truth of what we are saying is dumb, even if he is a speaker; The listener who does not understand him is deaf, even if he is. As a matter of fact, Almighty Allah said, “They are deaf, dumb, blind. They don’t think.” Page 52
Thinking, then, is the most precious of states, the highest of qualities, the basis of speech and speech. Its nature is that the soul envisions the forms of things to be known, and that the soul can announce to others the things that pass through the mind, regardless of the language and expression. Page 53
The nature and dignity of thinking has been understood by what we have stated, and it has become clear that the person who thinks is a person whose soul is an example of the Book of God and whose heart is a copy of the words of God. Therefore, he who thinks can hear his Lord and hear someone else.
Thinking is the end of human dignity and the state of angels.
BECAUSE THEY ARE CHARACTERIZED BY THINKING. HOWEVER, MAN IS AN ANGEL.
When his essence becomes thinking and he is freed from the hangers of the body, he becomes an angel, and the angels of his Lord say to him, “Peace be upon you. Welcome. Go in there all the time.” Page 54
You should know that; He who knows the nature of thinking, who is aware of its truth, who does justice to its delicacy and degree, does not need to ask the question why. He knows for sure that good is in existence and evil is in non-existence.
Man begins his existence with thinking first and progresses with thinking towards his goal. Because it is the beginning of existence, its ability to grow and form. This faculty is one of the faculties of the vegetative soul.
The purpose of man is the ability to be an angel. This faculty is one of the soldiers of the Holy Spirit, which Almighty God has stated in His Book: “On that day, the spirit and the angels will rise up in a row.” Therefore, man cannot achieve his goal by any other means than without thinking. Page 54
We have come to understand that man differs from animals by thinking alone, and by thinking alone, he resembles angels. This thinking is one of Allah’s greatest gifts to His servants. Page 54
Man is like mines with his bones, plants with his feathers, springs and rivers with his holes and veins. He has seven faculties with seven faculties, 12 signs with twelve cavities, wads of paper with his muscles and veins; with its two bitter fluids, blood and phlegm, it resembles the four elements. The four elements are; fire, air, water and earth. In short, each part of the person corresponds to a part of the realm. Therefore, man is an example of the lower realm with his person and pattern, and an example of the higher realm with the qualities of his soul and heart. He is like the thinking self-righteous president in him; Like a president, he herds, directs, commands, forbids, destroys what he wants, and keeps what he wants. The thinking is exquisite; He is the Caliph of Allah in the land of the body, the wisdom of Allah in the dense form, the proof of Allah in the weak servant, the way of Allah that lies between animality, which is pure evil, and angelism, which is pure goodness. Page 55
The weakest man, look at the glory of this pure gem. God has brought him down from the angel of the heavens to this dark, murky, small realm of becoming, so that he may be the bearer of this water to drink, the driver of this earth, and the repairer of this ruin.
You should know that; Almighty Allah built this statue only for the thinking soul, and he built this city only for him. Until thinking, like a president, stays and sits in his city, acquiring a throne in the middle of the brain, a protective storehouse from the back of the brain, a postman and messenger from the front of the brain, spies and birds from his senses, a dispenser from his front, wings from his hand, poles and pillars from his feet, infantry and cavalry from his feints and movements. The nafs is very eager to deal with these situations, that is, these means, very eager to be with these actions, and unwilling to depart from them in order to prepare for the Hereafter and to achieve its goal. Thus he transforms enmity into love, contradiction into conformity, rudeness into gentleness, absence into presence. Page 56
The dignity of man is by thinking; The things that he will achieve and achieve are also through thinking. Page 57
You should know that; thinking, no matter how high its condition, how great its value, how great its glory, how obvious its proving, how smooth its structure, how sublime its foundations; Nevertheless, itis an attribute of the human soul and an attribute of the human mind. Because thinking is nothing but the expression and expression of the human soul. Man is a substance that knows, does, perceives, knows, and lives with his soul. You should know that; This ore is an empty ore that was unworked at the beginning of its creation and at its first orientation to the small piece of flesh. But he is receptive to forms and apt to learn information. There is no embroidery of good and evil, nor of knowledge and ignorance. Page: 57-58
When, then, the soul attaches itself to the body for the purpose of orientation and observance, and not by the relation of entering or adjacent, it has been understood by clear proofs and brilliant proofs that the soul does not in any sense inhabit the body and does not enter into it; On the contrary, he is the caretaker and ruler of the body. This problem is known and we do not see the need to explain it.
At the beginning of creation, when the soul takes the first of the objects, it does not receive the meanings of the thinkables, nor does it have the power to perceive the sensibles, and the knowledge of the premises and principles, such as the distinction between universals and particulars, the fact that things that are equal to something are equal to themselves, are not in the soul. Because the soul reaches them with a careful look and the slightest inference. Page 58
In its first form, it is called the pure/simple mind, then the natural/strange mind, then the intellect of the intellect and the intellect of the knowing, then the acquired intellect, and then the intellect of the verb. Therefore, when this soul is directed to the forms of things to be known, it is called reasoning (akl), and when it is capable of expressing what is thought, it is called thinking (speech). The soul is a gem, and thinking is one of its qualities. It is for this reason that the supreme creator is not called a thinker (natik). Because thinking means smart, the creator is not called smart. Because the mind is a gem. Intelligence arises from the geminess of that ore. Almighty Allah is not a substance. Therefore, it is not the mind. Page 59
The intellect is more valuable than the soul; Thinking is the quality of the soul. The soul is a gem and the mind is more valuable than the soul in terms of substance. Page 59
So the supreme creator; He is the Lord of the mind, the soul, and the thinking, all at once. The intellect is an artifact of his speech; The soul is a mystery from his command, and thinking is a precious quality that has been created. Page 59
You should know that; When the universal nafs is directed towards the object (iqbal), its orientation is called the human naf. This orientation can only be achieved by the command of Almighty Allah. When the universal intellect spreads to the object (feyz), this diffusion of it is called thinking
As for the first thing that the universal soul affects, the universal soul acted only on the absolute body, and it became a body called the Universal Soul. As for the first thing to which the mind gives thinking; The intellect first gave thinking to the fell, and the mind became a thinking creature. That is to say, the one who thinks is another. Then man is a thinking, mortal living being. Thinking, then, arises from the intellect, and man’s life arises from the soul. Although the nafs is binary in terms of expression, it is actually one and multiplies only in terms of order.
It has been understood from what we have stated that angels have thinking, man has thinking, universal reason has thinking, prophets have thinking, scholars have thinking, believers have thinking. The thinking of believers is similar to the thinking of fellows; The thinking of scholars is similar to the thinking of angels; The thinking of the prophets is similar to the thinking of the universal mind that gives the thinking. The universal mind is a unique, absolute substance that knows the essence of its creator, is completed by his word, and completes what is below him with his inspiration and mercy. pp. 59-60
SPEECH
The attributes of the people are in addition to their essence so that their unity multiplies and their special beings (inniyyet) continue with these attributes, their descriptions and pictures/descriptions determine with them. As a matter of fact, philosophers have distinguished between definition and painting/depiction and have expressed them as zati, necessary, separated araz and non-separating araz, etc.; such as the adjectives of thinking and laughing. The first of them (thinking) is found in the definition, and the other (laughing) is found in the picture/description. Page 63
As for the way people speak; Before it is called a word, an expression that arises from thought and mental intuition, and which is a regular (verse) combination of them, is called speech.
As long as meaning remains hidden in the room of thought, it is called thinking; When it comes out of thought and approaches the word, it is called speech. Thinking, then, needs an extractor and a transmitter in order to be speech; speech needs an expression, an arrangement, and a word to be a word; The word also needs movement, organ, and sound syllables to be hadith; In order to be heard, Hadith needs an intelligent heart and an understanding ear so that it can appear to him as he has determined. These steps are valid and true only about human beings. Because a human being is a time-consuming compound that emerges by repeating his behavior and words over time periods. Page 66
WORD
You should know that; man’s word is subtle and not fixed in the air. The word is revealed only through sound. Sound is a collision caused by the friction of objects with air. When the air is compressed, it creates sounds; when the sound is interrupted, it forms the letters; when letters are combined, they form speech; Speech, self-inflicted and spiritual meaning becomes thinking when it adjoins letters, and speech when tongues bring them out.
The word, then, is the complete speech that is conveyed to the ears of the listeners by the air carrying this sound that carries those words, which is useful and external. If the forms of the lyrics were in the air for people to benefit from, people would not need to write down and record the lyrics in books and notebooks. However, the air is thin; sounds are truncated; Since words are not fixed and continuous in the air, human souls have resorted to various ways and reasons to make what is said permanent.
The word, then, is the full speech that circulates in tongues. A full speech is not called a word unless it appears in such a way that the ears of the listeners will receive it. Because the intelligible meaning gathered in the soul is called thinking. Regular, complete and active thinking is called speech.
Thinking and speaking happens without an intermediary and a listener. For just as adjective and form belong to the essence, so do thinking and speaking belong to the essence of the speaker. The word can only be spoken with an external audience.
That is to say, he who thinks is the one who thinks with himself, even if he is silent with his tongue; He who speaks is one who speaks by nature, if he does not make a statement; Only after learning the language / phrase of the interlocutor and the level of the listener does the speaker explain the meanings of his inside/secret and express the meanings of his knowledge. Page: 71-72
As for the word of man; In one way it is laid-back, in another way it is discovery. Its lativity is in terms of spiritual meanings and in the sense that after the speaker stops and is silent, it disappears in the air or its traces are erased. Its discovery is in terms of tools, steps, tools, mahres and number. Therefore, when a man’s word appears in his tongue, it is infinite compared to his spiritual word before his declaration. The word of Almighty Allah is not like ours, for our word evokes an organ and needs time. But He is the giver of the wise and the needy. His divine words, then, are the basis of all writing. As a matter of fact, Almighty Allah said: “When we want something, our word is that we simply say to it, “Be!” and it will come to pass immediately. Page 73
The Purpose and Truth of the Word
You should know that in reality, the essence of man is the soul that reasons, thinks, perceives and acts. All conceivable forms are conscious in it. When he learns and makes use of someone who is more competent, wiser, and more knowledgeable than himself, the forms that are conscious arise, and the soul becomes the actual intellect and does not need to study the sensible and taste the taste of corporeal things. Thinking souls are pure, pure and enlightened. No veil and no obstacle will hinder them, and when they are with these moulds made of earth, when they put on the shirt of the body, and when they are surrounded by the space of humanity, they are veiled by the veils of sense, covered with dense and thick veils, and it becomes unbelieveable for them to convey meanings and to receive them with pure clarity and grace, free from matter and tools.
While there are conceivable meanings in themselves, the souls are complete and perfect in their essence in such a way that they do not need anything from outside. But when the receiving soul wants to learn something from the giving soul, when both are in the body fortress, learning is possible only by listening from the outside, and hearing is prepared for prayer. Listening takes place only after explanation and explanation. Therefore, the tongue and vocal cords in the body are prepared so that the giving scholar can express the meanings that exist in his soul with his tongue and explain them to the receiver who listens with his ears.
Divine wisdom created it by preparing the causes of meanings, spreading its rules, and correcting its instruments, so that the substances of knowledge would not be missing from the originals of the souls. When the soul expresses to another person the meaning of speech and the benefit of what is expressed, it is called a word; Although some listeners do not understand it because of a disaster, a fault, a negligence.
Therefore, the expression of the meaning of the soul is in one of two ways, that is, either by word or in writing.
The word is pure and spiritual. Speech, however, is mixed with something corporeal, namely, sound, air, and the places and shapes of letters. The shapes of sounds and letters are pure in relation to the purely spiritual meaning, but they are pure in relation to the script.
What is written is the traces and embroidery in the notebooks.
The word, on the other hand, is the traces and listenable things that are fixed in the soul, nothing more or more than them. When the word comes out of the speaker’s tongue and its expression is ordered, the air carries it through the sound in the letter boxes; It takes it from the throat, the vocal cords, and the origins of the letters, which are instruments of speech, just as psalms are instruments of sound—and conveys arrayed, compound, and clothed meanings to the ears of listeners.
Embroidery stops in the imagination; the sounds that come to the ears with the shapes of letters, their register and order, reach the contemplation; Its forms (suver) also go to memory; Its meanings, which are free from matter and elements, are contiguous with the intelligent soul, and become its ornament and jewelry, the instrument of its perfection, the council of its form, the cause of its happiness, and its distinguishing attribute that distinguishes it from others;
This is the truth of the word of men, Page: 73-74
WRITE
You should know that; Since Allah, the Almighty, created man, made him honorable, and favored him over other creatures, He made the human species interconnected, interrelated, and protective of each other in such a way that they could only live their lives in cooperation and solidarity.
The continuation of the world and the continuity of the world; it is by protecting people and trying to meet the basic needs of the species, by making livelihood and life inviolable, by taking care of productive and useful things, by making the world prosperous. These are only through various professions and various arts. If a single person wanted to do all the arts, he could not afford it, he would not be able to do it. In any case, a helper and collaborator was needed. Sometimes a single profession or art requires a group of people to do that profession or art or to realize the purpose. Page: 79-80
The scientific arts are to know things as they are, to conceive their truths and to perceive their forms. This envisioning can only be achieved through learning. Learning is to desire the perfection of the soul, to adorn it with mental forms, and to keep it away from bodily vices and vices.
The way to learn, teach, receive and give is through words and listening. The word comes out of the tongues; Listening happens with the ears.
However, the sages said: “The word is a pure writing, and the writing is a definite word.”
When the word is transferred from the tongue to the pen, sight takes the place of hearing. Just as hearing belongs to what is said, so is sight specific to what is written. Just as language is for speaking and speaking (address), the pen is for writing.
When the air becomes extremely thin, there is a fever. When the fire begins to intensify, it becomes air. The air is thin, it is lazy, but it is thin compared to the water. In proportion to the fire, the air is not thin, but thick, dense, cut. The writing is also thin compared to the shapes, thick and dense compared to the words. If writing did not circulate from hand to hand among people, meanings could not be determined and souls could not mature. Because, despite their willingness, it happens that all languages do not verbalize every desired meaning, and teaching is in vain and the student is wasted.
By the abundance of His grace and the subtlety of His wisdom, Almighty God inspired some of His servants, and they extracted from the clarity of their minds, from the wombs of their thoughts, and from the mines of their hearts, this general benefit, and took a good measure for the continuity of knowledge; they acquired pens to replace tongues; They stated that what is written belongs to what is said, as bodies belong to souls, and mother-of-pearl to pearls; They preserved spiritual knowledge in fortresses of form and recorded it in notebooks and pages, so that this spiritual knowledge would be a treasure from the previous to the next.
Almighty Allah bestowed upon His Prophet the knowledge of the pen and said: “Read! Thy generous Lord, who taught the pen, taught man what he did not know” It is in the honour of the Scripture that God the Exalted swore by his means and said: He swore by his means and said:
“Nun. I swear by the pen and by the writing of men!”
Writing, then, is a blessing from God’s blessings, and it has a good place for it among the wise. For writing preserves what arises from the minds of wise men, and records what the minds of wise men capture.
The works of writing show the categories expressed, lexicalized; These categories show the hidden spiritual meanings in the figures, embroideries, and lexical letters behind the examples. These meanings mature the souls of the servants and show the blessings and blessings of Allah that make them happy on the Last Day. Page: 80-81
On Letters
Man is in need of tools because he is composed of a fleshy and dense (thick) body and a soul. The human soul, too, is veiled by the veil of darkness and is in need of the instruments which correspond to it in its disposition, for it is through these instruments that it obtains the truth and form of things.
As a matter of fact, man needs the sense of sight in perceiving the forms of sensible and visible things. The sense of sight requires one eye and the pupil. The eye mass consists of seven layers and three fluids.
He needs the ear to hear with his sense of hearing. The ear is also made up of cartilages and hollow nerves. Man needs palate, tongue, lips and teeth to speak. They are also made up of nerves, cartilage and muscles.
Allah is exalted by them. For he sees all beings without tools and without pupils. However, we see with tools. He hears all sounds without ears to words. However, we hear with ears. Again, He can speak all words without an instrument, a palate, or a tongue. However, we speak with instruments and the particulars of letters. Page: 89-90
The fact that people disagree shows the difference in their temperament and understanding. Let you know that Almighty Allah created the human body from the sum of the earth’s soil. This collection includes the good and bad, hard, soft, red, black and white of the soil.
He gave each person a certain composition and a special mixture. From this combination and mixture arose a temperament peculiar to him, which, according to the state of his nature, saved in proportion to his strength and obedience. This situation is not unique to humans, but also includes all creatures, animals, plants and inanimate things.
Each person accepts the soul in proportion to his temperament and ability. The closer his temperament is to moderation (equanimity), the stronger his ability.
The more his ability increases, the stronger the soul becomes, and from the power of the soul comes the power of reason.
From the power of reason arises the goodness of management (prudence).
From the goodness of government comes the order of the world.
Matter, which accepts corporeality, does not detract from the power of the soul, nor does it add anything to it. For the giver of forms has no stinginess, no inhibition, no inclination; In proportion as the substances accept them, the forms are ready, and this is by His providence and grace.
When it is understood that the human temperament is nearer to temperance than the other temperaments, then the form of man is more beautiful than all forms, and the faculties of the souls in human persons are more complete and stronger than those of others.
Not all people stand in one rank, on the contrary, each of them has a temperament and constitution. These meanings are found in the senses of men: a person’s vision becomes sharper, his speech clearer, and his hearing stronger, and he sees, hears, and speaks twice as much as a person of his own kind sees and hears. Sometimes he is a man who hears and thinks, speaks and does something with his hand, without making a mistake of all these things, without one thing preventing him from another. The hearing of another person who is in a weak condition prevents him from seeing; His thought gets in the way of his words.
Since we find this difference in the perception of appearances, we can not doubt that there is more difference in thoughts, conceptions, and attributes. Because they are thinner and harder.
Since, then, difference is necessary between the prudence, thought, and mind of men, sometimes the prudence of one man is stronger than the prudence of another; In fact, a man, with the clarity of his mind and the power of his intuition, conceives of a thousand problems, for instance, in the shortest possible time; Another person exhausts himself all his life in order to gain external knowledge or to conceive of a hidden problem, but he is not able to do so.
All the separation of people in the matter of religion arises from these states and for the reasons stated.
When you understand this, you should know that; The thinking souls are different and the clairvoyances are separate, the faculties are according to the souls, the imagination is according to the prudence.
Whoever acquiesces in ignorance for his part will be deprived of the human ladder and will become a de facto devil in the future. In the sight of Allah, the worst animals are those who are deaf, dumb, and unthinking, and whose hearts, ears, and eyes have been sealed by Allah.
As a result, a man is pleased to conceive of the seniority of letters for his part; another, without revealing their truth and nature, is content to hear that the letters are later; Someone else imagines that the letters are sometimes ancient and sometimes later.
There is no doubt that the judgment of the letters and the speech of God has appeared in the souls, and the minds have resolved the issues related to them and their arbitrariness.
But the feeling of work has been between the debater and the conjectured speaker. However, the truth of things is beyond feeling and conjecture.
But some people are dominated by the power of sensible things, some people are dominated by the power of imaginary things, and some people are dominated by the purposes of jadelin (discussion). As a result, they pay no attention to the explanation of reason and are deaf to listening to the conversation with reason and justice. This is how they befriend the devil and their prudence is dulled. Page 93
Indeed, every human being envisions in proportion to his intellect, understands as much as he conceives, and expresses in proportion as he understands. Page 94
The letters in the state of thinking (contemplation) are thin, the letters in the state of remembering (remembrance) are coarse, and they are thin in one way and coarse in another, and when they are written, they are coarse in every aspect in notebooks.
The vulgar thing admits of dissolution and deterioration; That which admits of becoming and decaying is changeable, annihilation, and does not exist on its own. The really subtle thing is an individual that does not change and does not consist of various substances. In fact, it flows from age to age, from century to century, in the essences of the souls and the gems of the hearts. Page 95
It is enough to show it to a wise free person. A clever person achieves goodness from very little knowledge; On the other hand, the stupid ignorant cannot reach even one hundredth of all the knowledge that he has attained. This is a blessing from Allah and He gives it to whomever He wills. Page 98
You should know that I wrote this book willingly and for the benefit of it. My purpose in writing this is to present this situation to the prudent and secretive. It is necessary to keep secrets away from inexperienced people. Page 98
Source: Ghazali, On Thinking, Speaking, and Speaking, 2022
