The concept pf prophecy and allegorical interpretation (ta'wil) within Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali's and Maimonides' oeuvres
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazzālī (1055-1111) and Rabai Mosheh ben Maimun (1138-1204), better known in English as Maimonides, share the same religiously motivated concern towards scriptural exegesis: How one ought to interpret the divine (or divinely inspired) texts when a literal reading of the passages is at odds with one's reasoning.Since they consider the intellect (al-ʿaql) to be divinely endowed as well, al-Ghazzālī and Maimonides take it upon themselves to reconcile the belief in the authority of the revealed text(s) with what each author understands by independent intellectual reasoning.Their goal is to balance the limits of faithful belief in the prophets' veracity and their commitment to the reliability of the intellect.To this end, they argue for the presence of (at least) two layers of meaning in the revealed tradition: outward (ẓāhir) vs. inward (bā ṭin) and endeavour to prove that the conflict exists only at the superficial level due to the reader's inability to comprehend the depth of inward message the text conveys.They both consider the issue important enough to dedicate a major part of their works to it, and hence the topic of allegorical interpretation (taʾwīl) plays, directly or indirectly, a central role in their intellectual projects.In this study, I explore the two authors' approach to the question of taʾwīl and try to demonstrate its dependence on the notions of prophecy and revelation (waḥy).iii Résumé Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazzālī (1055-1111) et Rabai Mosheh ben Maimun (1138-1204), plus connu sous le nom de Maïmonide, partagent la même problématique à propos de l'exégèse du texte sacré : comment devrait-on interpréter les textes révélés (ou d'inspiration divine) lorsqu'une lecture littérale du texte va à l'encontre de la raison pure ?Puisqu'ils considèrent la raison pure (al-ʿaql) comme étant également divinement dotée aux êtres humains par Dieu, al-Ghazzālī et Maïmonide se décident de réconcilier la croyance en l'autorité des textes divins avec leur conception du raisonnement pur et indépendant.Leur but est de trouver le point d'équilibre entre une foi fidèle en la véracité des prophètes et la conviction que la raison est un outil fiable.Pour cela, ils soutiennent la présence de (au moins) deux niveaux de signification dans la tradition révélée : ce qui relève de la signification extérieure (ẓāhir), et ce qui relève de la signification intérieure (bā ṭin).Ils cherchent ainsi à prouver que la tension entre foi et raison existe seulement au niveau superficiel, du fait de l'incapacité du lecteur à saisir la profondeur du message intérieur du texte.Tous deux considèrent que la problématique est assez importante pour y dédier une majeure partie dans leur œuvre.Par conséquent, le sujet de l'interprétation allégorique (taʾwīl) joue, directement ou indirectement, un rôle central dans leurs projets intellectuels.Cette étude examine l'approche des deux auteurs à la question du taʾwīl et tente d'établir la dépendence de ce dernier sur les notions de prophétie et de révélation (waḥy).My thanks go first and foremost to my supervisor, Professor Carlos Fraenkel, for his unreserved help, support (both intellectually and emotionally), guidance (unlike Maimonides' which came to be more confusing at some points!), and his enthusiastic encouragements during these tough years.I have learnt a lot from him both as my academic mentor and a caring human being-I will be indebted to him forever.I have also been very fortunate to have Professor Lawrence Kaplan as my adviser.I benefited a lot from his encyclopaedic knowledge of Jewish Law, philosophy, history, and mysticism in the courses of my Master's studies at McGill University.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.044 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.007 | 0.005 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".