Against the Philosophers: Writing and Identity in Medieval

Mediterranean Rhetoric

Brandon Katzir

Philosophy & Rhetoric, Volume 52, Number 4, 2019, pp. 366-383 (Article)

Published by Penn State University Press

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/742474

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 Against the Philosophers: Writing
and Identity in Medieval Mediterranean
Rhetoric

Brandon Katzir

A B S T R AC T

This article explores antiphilosophical polemics written by Muslim and Jewish

thinkers in the medieval Mediterranean world. These writings demonstrate, in both
traditions, a struggle with the incorporation of nontraditional texts and interpre-
tations of theology and textuality. My examination of these writings “against the
philosophers” suggests that, far from constituting the reflexive, antiphilosophical
fundamentalism that typically characterizes assessments of these texts, authors like
al-Ghazali, Halevi, and Ibn Arabi were concerned with what they believed to be
the subordination of Jewish and Islamic tradition to Greek philosophy—a rheto-
ric that, for them, undermined the “conditions of identification” for Muslims and
Jews. I argue that these antiphilosophical texts highlight the extent to which these
thinkers believed that writing was the battleground for identity in the medieval
Middle East.

KEYWORDS: rhetoric, identity, Jewish rhetoric, Islamic rhetoric, medieval rhetoric

This article considers Jewish and Muslim writing of the medieval Mediter­
ranean region as a mode of identity formation. Many scholars of the medi-
eval Judeo-Muslim world explore writing only as a vehicle of transmission
insofar as philosophy, law, or theology was communicated in writing. But
medieval thinkers were cognizant of the fact that writing was an avenue of
cultural expression, and some Jewish and Muslim thinkers used writing as
a way to try to restrain what they saw as the overbearing Greek influence
on medieval thought. The writers I explore in this essay—Judah Halevi,

doi: 10.5325/philrhet.52.4.0366
Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 52, No. 4, 2019
Copyright © 2019 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
 against the philosophers

al-Ghazali, Bahya ibn Paquda, and Ibn Arabi—are themselves often labeled
“philosophers,” though each writes in opposition to what they perceive to
be the philosophical tradition of Aristotle. I argue that, despite these writ-
ers’ divergence in tradition, genre, and purpose, they each participate in a
tradition of writing that defiantly asserts Jewish or Muslim culture against
the putative universal values of Greek philosophy.
I begin by exploring the stakes of writing “against the philoso-
phers.” I explain what antiphilosophical writing looks like in a medieval
Mediterranean context, specifically as it concerns Jewish and Muslim
discourse. What I call antiphilosophical literature is neither monolithic,
nor resolutely antiphilosophical, at least in any contemporary disciplinary
sense. “Antiphilosophical” I take to mean reading the claims of Aristotelian
logic, particularly Greco-Arabic rationalism, as a genre that inappropri-
ately assumes discursive objectivity. Critiquing that supposed objectivity—
what Chaïm Perelman calls the portrayal of philosophy as “non-rhetorical
argumentation”—is the project of writings as diverse as Halevi’s Kuzari,
al-Ghazali’s Tahafut al-falasifah, Bahya ibn Paquda’s Chovot haLevavot, and
the mysticism of Ibn Arabi. Each of these writers has a different critique
of philosophy; for Halevi, the problem is that Greek philosophy derives
from an extraneous cultural tradition, and he suggests that the Judaism has
enough intellectual and ethical material to preclude the necessity of Greek
influence, which ignores action for idle contemplation. Ghazali’s argument
is ultimately similar; he sees in the Aristotelianism of Ibn Sina claims that
controvert Islamic epistemology. Bahya, in a critique of Judaism’s quasi-
Aristotelian rationalism, argues for the moral virtues of the mitzvot, con-
cerned that Jews adhere only to the external forms of the commandments
without grasping their true essence. In that sense, Bahya’s “antiphilosophi-
cal” contribution suggests more of a Neoplatonist anti-Aristotelianism.
Ibn Arabi’s writings are similar. Using mysticism in his unique critique
of Islamic Aristotelianism, Ibn Arabi crafts a rebuke of rationalism by
developing a philosophy of language and revelation imbued with Islamic
Neoplatonism.
Each of these writers critiques what they perceive to be philosophi-
cal interventions in Jewish or Muslim thought. I argue that the antiphi-
losophical writers see themselves as overcoming the forces of external
influence and rationalism by problematizing language, particularly writing,
and mobilizing text-centered approaches to re-form Jewish and Islamic
modes of thought and religious practice. In order to demonstrate how they
emphasize writing over philosophy, I explain the subordination of textuality

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to philosophy among the Jewish and Muslim philosophers, particularly

Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, and Maimonides. Finally, I examine how al-Ghazali,
Halevi, Bahya, and Ibn Arabi write “against philosophy” to develop an ideal
of Jewish and Muslim thought that places Jewish and Muslim textuality
and religious knowledge at the center of discourse.

ibn sina, ibn rushd, maimonides

Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, and Maimonides wrote in Arabic, and each worked
in very specific religious and philosophical traditions. The Greek influence
over their works was already assimilated to their unique modes of Muslim
or Jewish thought. In other words, from the very beginning, their projects
undermined any Greek-specific notion of universal language because at
least some of their writings were composed within theological and epis-
temic frameworks that diverge from Greek concepts of universality. And
yet, in various ways, they inherited the Greeks’ belief that philosophy is
nonrhetorical, that rationalism aspires to a more objective mode of “show-
ing” than could be expected from written language.
Greek-influenced universal idealism is a hallmark of the philosophers
I mention above; their respective theories of knowledge reveal that they
conceive of philosophy as universal, unwed to specific languages, traditions,
or cultures, and therefore beyond the need for persuasion. It’s from Ibn Sina
that we first encounter the fundamentally Greek assumption of universal
rational thought. Ibn Sina, known also by his Latin moniker Avicenna, was
a chief propagator of Greek thought in the medieval Islamic world. Aside
from his influence in the medieval Middle East, his works were also trans-
lated into Latin and disseminated in Europe. In the Middle East itself he
occasioned both critiques and apologies from philosophers like Ibn Rushd
and Maimonides, and he drew especial ire from al-Ghazali a century after
his death. Remarking on the question of Ibn Sina’s inventiveness in the
crowded history of Arab philosophy, Majid Fakhry notes,

An autobiographical tradition points out [Ibn Sina’s] debt to al-

Farabi. . . . His cosmology, his psychology, his theory of the intel-
lect, his theory of prophecy, etc., despite the refinements they make
on al-Farabi’s parallel doctrines, are essentially variations on simi-
lar themes. However, Ibn Sina was a far more lucid and systematic
writer than his predecessor, and the fluency of his style contributed
greatly to the dissemination of his works among students of phi-
losophy, historians of ideas, and others. (2004, 133)
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Fakhry also distinguishes Ibn Sina from al-Farabi by noting that the former
had numerous followers, while the latter had few followers or commenta-
tors. Furthermore, “thanks to translators like Michael the Scot, Hermann
the German, Hispanus, and Gundissalinus” (133), Ibn Sina, and then Ibn
Rushd, enjoyed popularity in Europe as interest in Aristotelianism intensi-
fied on the continent.
In one of Ibn Sina’s later works, al-Isharat wa al-Tanbihat, or Remarks
and Admonitions, he discusses the importance of logic, noting, “logic is
intended to give the human being a canonical tool which, if attended to,
preserves him from error in his thought” (1984, 87). On language, Ibn Sina’s
views are close to Aristotle’s in De Interpretatione. Ibn Sina writes, “Because
there is a certain relation between the expression and the concept, and
[because] some states of expressions often affect some states of concepts,
the logician must also pay attention to the non-restricted aspect of the
expression—insofar as that [aspect] is not restricted to the language of one
group of people rather than that of another, except rarely” (48). This remark
reveals Ibn Sina’s emphasis on universal language at the outset of al-Isharat
wa al-Tanbihat. In his analysis of the text, Inati argues that much of Ibn
Sina’s philosophy emphasizes two types of knowledge: “tasawwur (concep-
tion, picturing, form-grasping, imaging) and tasdiq (declarative phrase, i.e.,
true or false; a relation in the mind . . .)” (5). Tasdiq presupposes tasawwur,
meaning that any judgment on the truth or falsehood of a claim is based
upon “picturing,” or “form-grasping.” In other words, on an epistemic level,
language is subordinated to “picturing” or “form-grasping,” which are more
important to the search for truth and knowledge. Pictures and forms are
universal; languages are limiting and corruptible.
Finally, Ibn Sina’s writing style intentionally impedes communication
and, far from being written with an aim to persuade, his prose is designed
to limit the audience for philosophical works. Inati notes that Ibn Sina
“intended [his writing] to be highly difficult in order to prevent its acces-
sibility to the majority of readers.” In fact, Ibn Sina goes so far as to warn
his readers to “protect this truth from the ignorant, the vulgar, those who
are not endowed with the sharpness of mind, the skill and habit, those
who lend an ear to the crowds, those who have gone astray from philos-
ophy and have fallen behind” (3). Ibn Sina believed “there is no way to
make such readers understand such profound truths. If you were to try to
make them understand them, you would be trying in vain since such readers
lack the proper instrument for grasping these truths” (4). So Ibn Sina does
not view philosophy as a rhetorical discourse aiming to gain the adherence of
minds. In fact, he suggests that individuals either adhere to philosophy and
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philosophers, and thus already speak the language, or are unsympathetic to

the search for truth and therefore do not speak the language. Ibn Sina fol-
lows his understanding of language to its logical conclusion: writing is so
flawed that it can’t be used to persuade people of the truth of philosophy;
instead, it can only be used as a gate-keeping mechanism and as an instru-
ment of communication for those who already follow the philosophers.
The eleventh century witnessed the rise of Ibn Rushd and the
decline—due in part to al-Ghazali’s eviscerating critiques—of Ibn Sinian
philosophy. A stalwart defender of Aristotelianism, we find in Ibn Rushd a
familiar subordination of rhetoric to philosophy. Remarking on the reputa-
tion of Aristotle in medieval Arab thought, Majid Fakhry writes, “He was
confused with Plotinus, reconciled with Plato, declared to be a disciple of
Hermes, and even hailed as a venerable monotheistic sage” (2004, 282). But
Ibn Rushd, known in the West as Averroes, wrote voluminous commentar-
ies on the works of Aristotle, rehabilitating Aristotle and Aristotelianism
in the Middle East. Additionally, his commentaries were widely translated
into Latin and disseminated in Europe. Like Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd held that
preexisting knowledge was divided into tasdiq and tasawwur, assent and
conception. For Ibn Rushd, as for Aristotle, istiqra, or induction, proves
that “all instruction and ‘intellectual learning is rooted in pre-existing
knowledge.’” Science and mathematics, for example, rest on “self-evident
premises which are universal in character,” while dialects and rhetoric “rest
on pre-existing knowledge of particulars” (2001, 34).
Ibn Rushd’s theory of knowledge demonstrates his philosophical debt
to Aristotle. Fakhry writes,

Averroes concludes by asserting that the first principles of demon-

stration or definition are known through a faculty or disposition in
us which rises from the lowest level of sense-perception, through
the imagination and memory to the highest level of intellectual
apprehension of the first principles of demonstration. These prin-
ciples are by definition more certainly known to us than demon-
strations themselves. It is for this reason that the intellect, or the
faculty of apprehending those first principles, may be regarded as
the principle of principles. (38)

In short, demonstrative knowledge necessitates premises that are “true,

primary and immediate; that is, not known through a middle term” (37).
Definition reveals the essence of what is defined, and demonstration ­uncovers

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what is extraneous to essence. Philosophy, therefore, is the examination of

self-evident essences and empirically or mathematically determined causes,
which indicates that language has no role in the faculty  of apprehending
first principles.
While Ibn Rushd was the last of the Islamic Aristotelians, he was much
more successful than Ibn Sina at combining his interests in Greek philoso-
phy with his acute knowledge of Islamic theology and jurisprudence. In
his History of Islamic Philosophy, Fakhry explains, “Ibn Rushd is fully com-
mitted to the infallibility of the Koran also, but he is equally committed
to the postulate of the unity of truth. . . . Better than any other Muslim
philosopher, Ibn Rushd has given clear expression to this concept of parity
[of philosophy and Scripture] and drawn all the logical corollaries implicit
in it” (2004, 287). But despite Ibn Rushd’s reconciliation of rationalism with
traditional Islamic modes of thought, the idea still pervades his work that
philosophical discourse is nonrhetorical.
Neither Ibn Sina nor Ibn Rushd were silent on rhetoric; both, in fact,
wrote commentaries on Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Yet, in their commentaries,
both philosophers subordinate rhetoric to philosophy, much like Aristotle
himself, who identifies dialectics as the engine for knowledge creation.
Ibn Sina’s Compendium on Aristotle’s Rhetoric defines rhetoric as “a faculty
whose object is persuasion in any particular matter. Persuasion is the belief
that something is true, with the conviction that it may face opposition and
disagreement” (Ezzaher 2015, 55). Contrasting rhetoric and dialectic, Ibn
Sina writes,

Rhetoric resembles dialectic, for each one of them is geared toward

public address; they both encompass all purposes and are con-
cerned with general matters, and they both are concerned with
opposites. Rhetoric is different from dialectic, since dialectic is
concerned only with general issues, which are its subject matter. . . .
Rhetoric . . . is almost entirely concerned with particular issues and
optional facts. (55)

Ibn Sina continues by expounding upon the uses of rhetoric: he notes its
occasional use in propagating religious beliefs, “advocating natural beliefs,”
“promoting moral beliefs,” “appealing to emotions for the purpose of pro-
voking sympathy, indulgence, satisfaction, anger, incitement, fear, and so
on” (55). In short, rhetoric has no bearing on truth, but only on discus-
sions geared toward praising or blaming (epideixis), granting or refusing

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permission (deliberative), or accusing someone of injustice or arguing

for their guild (forensic). Ibn Rushd’s understanding of rhetoric is nowhere
clearer than when he explores the difference between demonstration, syl-
logisms, and enthymemes. Ibn Rushd argues, “What distinguishes the syl-
logism from the enthymeme, which is used in this art [of rhetoric], is that
the syllogism is arranged in such a way as to draw a necessary conclusion,
whereas with the enthymeme, its premises are arranged in a manner famil-
iar and acceptable to the general public, which is different from technical
arrangement” (92). Neither Ibn Sina nor Ibn Rushd present rhetoric as a
mode of determining truth, which is the sole domain of a philosophical
discourse that relies on demonstration rather than persuasion.
Maimonides’s view on rhetoric is somewhat more complex, since he
suggests the possibility of al-nutq al-dakhil, literally “internal speech.” David
Metzger has argued that in his theorization of rational internal discourse,
Maimonides presents a model for self-persuasion, treading new ground
for medieval rhetorical theory. Maimonides places internal speaking on
roughly the same epistemic level as “form-creating” for the Greeks. He also
identifies “external reasoning,” al-nutq al-kharij, as a mode of logic, and he
defines that mode as “the expression in language of the notions impressed
upon the soul” (2014, 114). Maimonides might have more of an interest in
the relationship between cogitation and language than, say, Ibn Sina, but
he also views language as an ideally transparent vehicle for the objective
communication of truth. Language is the mere receptacle for communicat-
ing a truth that occurs externally. Like his Muslim counterpart Ibn Rushd,
Maimonides is unrivaled in the domain of religious jurisprudence and in
his articulation of Jewish theology; yet, also like Ibn Rushd, Maimonides’s
“philosophical premises” are arrived at by demonstration and by recourse
to Aristotle and “that which is perceived by the senses” (2014, 183). In the
domain of religious law or Hebrew or Arabic scriptural exegesis, these
thinkers may turn to persuasive language to make their case. But on ques-
tions of theology or epistemology, each has recourse to a Greek understand-
ing of universal rationalism that is ultimately unmoored from Jewish or
Muslim tradition. While orthodox belief and practice might exist alongside
Greek rationalism, it is nevertheless the case that some writers were con-
cerned about Greek rationalism eroding traditional religious knowledge.
In their varied works, al-Ghazali, Ibn Arabi, Bahya, and Halevi chal-
lenge the universal rationalism of Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, and Maimonides
in favor of a particularism that derives from Jewish or Muslim texts, which
involves communal epistemologies of Jews and Muslims, and which

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therefore necessitates localized modes of argumentation. It is al-Ghazali,

in the Incoherence of the Philosophers, who challenges most directly the uni-
versalist language of the philosophers and particularly the abstruseness
of Ibn Sina. Al-Ghazali (d. 1111) was a jurist and prolific writer whose
works include critiques of philosophy, mysticism, Ash’ari theology, and the
Qur’an. So respected was al-Ghazali, he bears the honorific mujaddid, or
renewer of the faith. Incoherence contains four introductions, each of which
deals with a particular critique advanced against philosophy. The third and
fourth introductions are most pertinent to Ghazali’s views on philosophical
discourse. In the third, he writes,

Let it be known that our objective is to alert those who think well
of the philosophers and believe that their ways are free from con-
tradiction by showing the various aspects of their incoherence.
For this reason, I do not enter into argument objecting to them,
except as one who demands and denies, not as one who claims
and affirms. I will render murky what they believe in by showing
conclusively that they must hold to various consequences of their
theories. (1997, 7)

Al-Ghazali shows that one aspect of philosophers’ incoherence is that,

when convenient, the philosophers adhere to competing schools of Islamic
theology. Al-Ghazali argues that adherence to a school of Islamic theology
is foundational both to coherent theological knowledge and to religious
practice. Not only do the philosophers, according to al-Ghazali, operate
outside classical modes of Islamic thought, they pick and choose aspects
of different schools to adhere to based on ideas or practices in the various
schools they wish to deny. Ghazali proposes to reveal the practical or ideo-
logical inconsistencies that arise from philosophers’ incongruous assem-
blage of Islamic thought and practice.
Ghazali also disputes philosophers’ understanding of reasoned dis-
course, arguing that philosophers are unconcerned with structured argu-
mentation and that they argue without regard to rhetorical techniques.
A lengthy quotation from the fourth introduction showcases al-Ghazali’s
claims about attempts at a nonrhetorical philosophy. Ghazali writes,

One of the tricks these philosophers use in enticing people when

confronted with a difficulty in the course of an argument is to
say: “These metaphysical sciences are obscure and hidden, being

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the most difficult of the sciences for intelligent minds. One can
only arrive at knowing the answer to these difficulties through the
introduction of mathematics and logic.” Thus, whoever imitates
them in their unbelief when confronted with a difficulty in their
doctrine would think well of them and say: “No doubt their sci-
ences include a resolution of [this difficulty], but it is difficult for
me to apprehend it since I have neither mastered logic nor attained
mathematics.” . . . Yes, when [philosophers] say that the logical
sciences must be mastered, this is true. But logic is not confined
to them. This is the principle which in the discipline of theology
we name “The Book of Reflection.” They changed its expression
to “logic” to magnify it. . . . When the one seeking to be clever,
who is weak, hears the name “logic,” he thinks it an unfamiliar art,
unknown to the theologians, known only to the philosophers.

Here, we see a direct challenge to the assumption of a universal discourse in

philosophy as well as a critique of nonrhetorical language. In Ghazali’s con-
ception, all discourse should bear interrogation, and any metaphysics should
be explainable. Instead of debating with clarity and precision,  Ghazali
argues that philosophers intentionally use abstruse language in order to
avoid debating their detractors. Philosophers “trick” people with their spe-
cialized argot by making it seem as if philosophical topics are too difficult
for the average man, a charge confirmed by the writings of Ibn Sina.
Furthermore, Ghazali remarks that in his dispute against philosophy,
he will forgo the terminology of theologians and lawyers and express his
critique “in the idiom of the logicians, casting it in their molds, following
their paths expression by expression, and will dispute with them in this
book in their language—I mean, their expressions in logic” (9). There are a
variety of important points about philosophy and writing here: First, as I
noted above, al-Ghazali is clearly laboring under the notion that philoso-
phy is a discourse like any other, one that he sees as foreign to Islamic reli-
gious discourse. The second is that he identifies philosophy itself as a way of
writing, a mode of argumentation that glosses over its status as a genre by
feigning to be a universal language. Al-Ghazali’s arguments attack notions
of philosophical discourse in two ways: he emphasizes localized, Islamic
knowledge, and he compares the philosophers’ writings to that localized
knowledge. Additionally, he critiques their mode of obfuscatory writing
and, most damagingly, emphasizes the fact that their mode of universalist
discourse is idiomatic. As al-Ghazali deftly demonstrates, he too can adopt
the idiom of philosophy and critique philosophy from within.
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Judah Halevi (d. 1141) also wrote against philosophical encroachment,

and his greatest work, The Kuzari, blends the genre of philosophical dis-
course, poetry, and traditional Jewish narratives. The Kuzari begins with an
invective against philosophers:

I was asked to state what arguments and replies I could bring to

bear against the attacks of philosophers and followers of other reli-
gions, and also against [ Jewish] sectarians who attacked the rest of
Israel. This reminded me of something I had once heard concern-
ing the arguments of a Rabbi who sojourned with the King of the
Khazars. The latter, as we know from historical records, became a
convert to Judaism about four hundred years ago. To him came a
dream, and it appeared as if an angel addressed him, saying: “Thy
way of thinking is indeed pleasing to the Creator, but not thy way
of acting.”

The story continues with the king seeking out anyone who could teach him
a way of acting acceptable to God. The King of the Khazars first holds an
interview with a philosopher, describing his predicament to the philoso-
pher and asking for his recommendations for altering his way of acting.
A philosopher comes to the Kuzari king and explains to him the various
ways the king should reconcile his thoughts and actions.
In counseling the Kuzari king, the philosopher argues that the attain-
ment of knowledge leads an individual to become One with the “Active
Intellect.” The philosopher further claims,

If thou hast reached such a disposition of belief, be not concerned

about the forms of thy humility or religion or worship, or the word
or language or actions thou employ. . . . Fashion thy religion accord-
ing to the laws of reason set up by philosophers and strive after
purity of the soul. . . . Seek the purity of heart in which way you are
able, provided you have acquired the sum total of knowledge in its
real essence; then you will reach your goal, viz., the union with this
Spiritual, or rather Active Intellect. Maybe he will communicate
with you or teach you the knowledge of what is hidden through
true dreams and positive visions. (1964, 39)

Here, Halevi’s philosopher purveys universalist knowledge unbound to reli-

gious tradition, moored only in “laws of reason” and the acquisition of knowl-
edge. Interestingly, the philosopher advocates for a “disposition of belief ”
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not only beyond mundane ritual (forms of humility, religion, worship), but
also beyond “the word or language” employed by the Kuzari king. In other
words, true belief, in the terms of Halevi’s philosopher, depends on the kind
of imagistic, universalist reason imagined by Plato, precluding culturally or
religiously founded epistemologies.
Eventually, of course, the king of Khazars consults a rabbi. When asked
what he believes, the rabbi replies,

I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, who led the
children of Israel out of Egypt with signs and miracles; who fed
them in the desert and gave them the land, after having made
them traverse the sea and the Jordan in a miraculous way; who
sent Moses with His law, and subsequently thousands of prophets,
who confirmed His law by promises to the observant, and threats
to the disobedient. Our belief is comprised in the Torah—a very
large domain. (44)

The rabbi’s response to the Kuzari king’s query contrasts sharply with the
philosopher’s. The rabbi links tradition first of all to ancestry, noting that he
believes in the God of the Jewish patriarchs, the God who plays a central
role in Jewish historiography. Not only does the rabbi intimate he believes
in the God who rescued the children of Israel from Egypt, he also notes
that the same God gave the Israelites a land, sent them a law code, and
numerous prophets. In a later exchange, the rabbi also notes, “Intellect is
man’s birthright above all living beings. This leads to the development of his
faculties, his home, his country, from which arise administrative and regu-
lative laws” (47). While the philosopher advocates a life dedicated to pur-
suing universalist rationalism, the rabbi references Jewish writings as the
basis of Jewish identity and practice: Jews share a common ancestry, his-
tory, land, law code, and revelatory tradition. And notably, intellect, man’s
birthright, leads not to a singularity with an Active Intellect as envisioned
by the philosopher, but to the development of a home and a country with
the rule of law.
Halevi’s focus on religious and cultural knowledge over and against the
rationalism of philosophy underscores the importance of discourse. Halevi
represents jurisprudence as humans’ highest calling, and notes that Jewish
belief is comprised “in the Torah,” in text. Like Ghazali, Halevi suggests
that philosophy’s apathy toward forms—forms of religious ritual or the
“words or language” of tradition—is a particular way of understanding the

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world, but with no greater claim to objectivity or universalism than any

other belief system. Unlike Ghazali’s Incoherence, which Ghazali writes in
the style of a philosophical discourse, The Kuzari is written in the form of
a poetic dialogue, mostly between the rabbi and the king. Additionally, the
rabbi makes extensive use throughout of citations from the Mishnah, the
Talmud, the Torah, and other Jewish canonical texts. In other words, with a
popular literary arrangement and style, Halevi offers critiques against phi-
losophy and arguments for Judaism for a general audience. Using a combi-
nation of poetry, dialogue, and traditional texts, Halevi’s rhetorical strategy
differs from Ghazali’s. While the latter uses philosophical rhetoric to argue
against the exclusivity of philosophical knowledge, Halevi uses popular lit-
erary techniques combined with traditional Jewish ethos (canonical cita-
tion) to argue for local, contextualized values and epistemology.
Like Ghazali and Halevi, Bahya ibn Paquda (d. 1156) was clearly influ-
enced by philosophy, and was a writer and jurist predominantly concerned
with advocating tenets of religion and, most significantly, advancing a con-
cept of Jewish ethics. His most important work, Duties of the Heart, was pub-
lished in Arabic in 1040 as Al Hidayah ila Fara’id al-Qulub and translated by
ibn Tibbon in the twelfth century under the title Chovot haLevavot. While
I place him in the broad category of writers arguing against the rationalist
universalism of Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, and Maimonides, Bahya’s project was
different from Ghazali’s and Halevi’s in that his transparently Neoplatonist
project with respect to Jewish ethics does seem to advocate for universalist
ethics. But Bahya is also altogether different from the philosophers. He
argues that there are basic ethical principles undergirding and necessitating
the observance of Jewish law, and he chastises what he sees as the tendency
of religious Jews to obey the tenets of the law without considering their
ethical or moral significance. In his introduction, Bahya writes, “All the
parts of wisdom and their various branches are gates opened by God for the
benefit of men, through which they may perceive religion and the world.
But while some of these gates are more specially concerned with religion,
others are more proper for the uses of the world” (1973, 86). Bahya’s dual
concern, with branches of knowledge that concern religion and branches
of knowledge that concern “the world,” is noteworthy throughout Chovot
haLevavot.
Proceeding with a structure borrowed from the Muslim rationalists,
Chovot haLevavot opens with a treatise on the unity of God. The similarities
between the rationalists and Bahya end there, however. Bahya argues that
the most basic principle of Judaism is “the pure assertion of the unity of our

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Creator” (109). Most of the philosophers and theologians who proclaim the
unity of God do so only in theological or philosophical terminology, and
Bahya criticizes them for imagining that “the matter of the unity of God
is as simple as uttering the words for it” (113). Instead, he claims that the
“meaning of the unity of God must be divided according to the different
intellectual powers of different men and their various abilities to discrimi-
nate in this matter.” Bahya identifies those divisions as follows: the first
is the assertion of the unity of God “by tongue alone”; the second is the
assertion “by the heart and tongue together, based on imitation and vol-
untary acceptance of tradition”; the third is the assertion of unity “by both
tongue and heart after the verification of this unity of God and his exis-
tence through speculation, but without understanding the meaning of the
True One, the Admissible One”; and the final assertion of the unity of God
is by “both tongue and heart, after the truth has been verified by speculation
in the light of reasonable judgment” (114). The divisions Bahya describes
are levels of understanding God’s unity, and they begin with understand-
ing simply by rote repetition of the words and end with understanding the
unity of God by way of reason.
Bahya’s understanding of the categories of knowledge means that,
unlike Ghazali or Halevi, he argues for an absolute knowledge gained from
rational inquiry. But Bahya suggests that the only way to attain universalist
knowledge is to first develop a thorough understanding of the words of tra-
dition, and consequently a belief and commitment to the actions demanded
by tradition. But anyone capable of logical reasoning is obliged to explore
higher levels of understanding. In other words, universalist knowledge is
available only through particular tradition; it is unavailable outside of it.
Bahya claims, “Whoever is qualified to investigate this and other intel-
ligible matters in a reasonable way is indeed obliged to do so, in proportion
to his understanding and discriminative powers.” Discoursing further about
who is obligated to perform these higher tasks of reason, Bahya writes,

If the Scriptures had expressed this meaning in terms in keeping

with the full truth, they would have been intelligible only to the
clever and the wise, while the rest of mankind would have been left
without religion and without Law because their understanding was
limited and their discrimination weak where ­spiritual meanings were
concerned. A discourse implying a material meaning cannot harm
the clever man, who is able to understand it with discrimination,

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while it can greatly benefit the simple man by establishing in his soul

the fact that he has a Creator whom he is obliged to obey. (137)

While an intelligent, discerning person is required to consider the nature

of God at a higher intellectual level (philosophy), understanding tradition-
ally communicated knowledge is still a satisfactory mode of understanding
truth. This reversal of philosophical writing suggests that universal knowl-
edge can be reached through a rigorous understanding of traditional Jewish
knowledge. Notably, Chovot haLevavot mostly relies on citations from the
Tanakh and the Talmud while suggesting that the wise will be able to rec-
oncile Jewish understandings of the world with Greek philosophers and
thereby communicate the inherent rationalism of Judaism. In that sense,
then, Judaism is a domain of the rational, and it is the only entry point of
rational discourse that Bahya identifies.
The final antiphilosophical writer I named, Ibn Arabi, privileges lan-
guage above rationalism in a way distinct from Ghazali, Halevi, and Bahya.
Ibn Arabi (d. 1240) was an Andalusi scholar and mystic whose work, al-
Futuhat al-Makkiya, or Meccan Revelations, comprises an outlook on Sufi
mysticism, theology, and poetics. Noting Ibn Arabi’s significant debt to
Islamic Neoplatonism and his tendency toward synthesizing “a vast, com-
plicated system of ranked entities, stations and sub-realities,” Ian Almond
relates the Neoplatonist and Sufi preoccupation with God’s names and
attributes to Ibn Arabi’s focus on the importance of language and an
understanding of “the real” (al-haqq):

Ibn Arabi’s first gesture in reply to the philosophers and theolo-

gians is to underline, beneath all the ideas and concepts of God we
construct for ourselves, an utterly unknowable, unthinkable God,
bereft of all names and attributes (shifa). . . . Rather like Eckhart’s
“God beyond God” and Plotinus’ Ineffable One, it remains forever
untouched by every proposition we try to make about it. Hence the
error of the rational thinkers, who have mistaken their constructs
for the Real itself. (2009, 15)

Ibn Arabi’s criticism of philosophy is similar to al-Ghazali’s in the sense

that the latter also critiqued philosophers for suggesting that their language
has some objective quality in the domain of metaphysics. While Ibn Arabi
borrows from philosophical discourse, as do his fellow “antiphilosophers,”

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he too privileges localized knowledge and problematizes language rather

than subordinating it to reason.
The seventy-third chapter of The Meccan Revelations deals specifically
with writing in the vein of Sufi mysticism. The chapters of Revelations open
with questions Ibn Arabi proceeds by answering. This chapter opens as
follows:

What is the Crown of the King (taj al-malik)?

Answer: The Crown of the King is the sign of the king, while the
“crowning” (tatwij) of the royal document is the sultan’s signature
upon it. . . . Existence is “an inscribed writing, witnessed by those
brought nigh” (Qur’an 83:20–21), but ignored by those who have
not been brought nigh. The “crowning” of this writing can only
take place through him who gathers together all realities. (Ibn al-
Arabi’ 2002, 43)

Ibn Arabi’s mysticism aside, the connection of existence with “an inscribed
writing” references Surah 83, which warns against cheating in business
transactions and compares “clearly written records” to the revelations of the
Qur’an. Comparing an “inscribed writing” to existence, Ibn Arabi inter-
prets the Qur’an to mean that existence itself is fundamentally connected
to the clear writing upheld by the Qur’an.
A later chapter of the Revelations talks more extensively, and even more
mystically, about language. Discussing the mystical elements of the alif ba
and its relationship to Muslim theology, Ibn Arabi writes,

Know—may God give us help—that letters are a community

whose members receive the word of God and are bound by the
Law (mikhatabun wa mukallifun). They have messengers just as
we have. As such, they have names that only those on our path
who have received the gift of unveiling know. The world of Letters
is endowed with the purest of languages and the clearest of elo-
quence. The letters are distributed in accord with the way the world
is commonly considered to be divided. (Ibn al-Arabi’ 2002, 161)

Ibn Arabi’s divisions and subdivisions are extensive, but some of his most
significant categories revealing how the world is divided include God’s
sphere (jabarut), the upper world (malakut), the intermediate world (al-alam

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al wasat), and the lower world, or the sphere of the senses (‘alam al-mulk wa
l-shaha-da) (161). Assigning theological significance to letters is popular in
both Jewish and Islamic mysticism, and Ibn Arabi’s epistemology clearly
depends upon his understanding of language; letters, as he shows in the
excerpt above, are the building blocks of each plane of existence. And while
Ibn Arabi suggests that the “world of letters” has the purest language and
clearest eloquence, it is significant that his system is built upon Arabic
letters—in other words, despite the transcendental nature of language in
Ibn Arabi’s work, the language itself cannot be transliterated into another
alphabet or abstracted into a general theory—the writing upon which exis-
tence is based is, for Ibn Arabi, Arabic.
The notion that the world is composed of letters, and that different
combinations of letters operate on different planes of existence, shows the
important, albeit exceedingly complex, role that language (and writing in
particular) play in Ibn Arabi’s epistemology. Almond notes that Ibn Arabi
applies his orthographic theory to Qur’anic interpretation believing that
“every letter, each number of consonants in a stanza or lines on a page,
must have a carefully premeditated meaning.” Remarking on the belief
that the Qur’an is a “shoreless ocean,” Almond says of Ibn Arabi, “To read
the Koran in a straightforward fashion is not enough: the infinite rich-
ness of the Word of Allah yields different meaning when read in different
manners—and every single one of them is intended” (82). He notes that
Ibn Arabi’s “unorthodox severing and re-contextualizing” of Qur’anic pas-
sages “offers up ‘secrets’ that any ‘normal’ reading would have missed.” Like
Ghazali, Halevi, and Bahya, Ibn Arabi’s works privilege writing and local
forms of knowledge over the rationalism of the philosophers.
All of these writers, whether by adopting the style of philosophical
writing, authoring a poetic dialogue, appealing to traditional knowledge as
the gateway to universal reason, or arguing for a linguistically based meta-
physics, accomplish what Perelman suggests is the cornerstone of the new
rhetoric. Rebutting the rationalist strain of philosophy that sees thought
as nonrhetorical and extralinguistic, al-Ghazali, Judah Halevi, Bahya Ibn
Paquda, and Ibn Arabi each appeal to traditional modes of argumentation
and use localized knowledge to advance their positions. Situating knowl-
edge in a religious and cultural context and basing it on traditional forms
of writing demonstrates the degree to which, though indebted to a polyph-
onous intellectual culture, Jewish and Muslim writers of the medieval
period were interested in using writing and argument to preserve tradi-
tional knowledge and traditional forms of discourse even when—maybe

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especially when—those forms countervailed against the rationalism of such

important figures as Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, and Maimonides.

conclusion
Many scholars of rhetoric who focus on the Jewish and Muslim rhetorical
traditions have explored rhetoric in Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, and Maimonides.
That scholarship is laudable not only for its fresh interrogation of central
figures to Judaism and Islam, but also because each of these thinkers articu-
lates an understanding of language refracted both through rationalist Islam
and Judaism and Greek philosophical influence. While the Jewish and
Muslim philosophers are of indisputable importance to intellectual history,
other writers—in this essay I have covered only four—are also important
for scholars of rhetoric because they illustrate that a focus on argumenta-
tive strategies, traditional knowledge, and writing was important even in a
period often overshadowed by the philosophers in intellectual history. In
exploring critical historiographies in rhetoric studies, Richard Graff and
Michael Leff note that the focus has shifted somewhat “from defining a
rhetoric or a system of rhetoric to the interpretation of the cultural exi-
gencies that enable or encourage multiple modes of rhetorical response”
(2005,  23).  They also implore historians to have “sensitivity to local con-
ditions” and to understand that the teaching of tradition will reveal that
“diversity and dispute are the norm” (26). The writers whom I have called
“antiphilosophical” highlight the degree to which dispute and “local condi-
tions” factor into rhetorical historiography.
While the works of Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, and Maimonides are logi-
cal places for historians of rhetoric to begin to assess the importance and
complexity of Jewish and Muslim rhetorics, those who wrote against the
philosophers wed traditional forms of rhetoric and argumentation to the
idea that writing itself aids in the development of religious and cultural
cohesion in the medieval Middle East. It is noteworthy that Perelman and
Olbrechts-Tyteca conclude The New Rhetoric by combatting absolutist and
irreducible philosophical oppositions, among them “a universally accepted
objectivity and an incommunicable subjectivity, of a reality binding on
everybody and values that are purely individual” (1969, 510). The project of
the new rhetoric coincides neatly with the arguments of the antiphiloso-
phers I have explored who interrogate the production of cultural knowl-
edge while critiquing assumptions of universalist rationalism. These debates
are important for an understanding of the reception of philosophy in the

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period, but they also show how writing became an essential mechanism for
constructing cultural identity in the medieval Mediterranean world.

Department of English
Oklahoma City University

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