Quotation
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“What I seek is certain knowledge, in which the thing known is disclosed so that no doubt remains, and the mind cannot even entertain the possibility of error.”
Al-Ghazālī · Islamic philosophy · Medieval · c. 1100
What does it mean?
He will not count a belief as knowledge while an alternative still feels possible. That standard is so high that it first destroys his trust in the senses and in demonstrative reason, and the book tells how he lived through the wreck. A rival reading treats the page as a sceptic's manifesto and stops, missing a book that moves through philosophy toward a Sufi account of certainty. The sentence is a close paraphrase of the early pages of Deliverance from Error, where he states the knowledge he was hunting.
Did Al-Ghazālī really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. A close paraphrase of Ghazali's description, early in Deliverance from Error, of the certainty he was hunting. It is not one word-for-word sentence from a standard English edition. The Arabic work is secure. This wording is marked as a paraphrase.
Where it comes from
Deliverance from Error (al-Munqidh min al-Ḍalāl), opening movement
Approximate date: c. 1100.
How to use it
A parent at a school gate in Leicester is offered two confident accounts of a playground incident and told to pick before the bell. Ghazali's standard would stall the pick, because a live alternative still feels possible, and ordinary decisions cannot wait for that standard. The useful distinction is which choices actually require it, and which are being frozen by a demand no everyday fact can meet.
A mindset reading
A crisis of knowledge can be a serious event, not a pose, and he describes one, including the bodily toll, without treating the doubt as cleverness. Borrowing the sentence to win an argument by demanding a certainty nobody in the room could reach is a use his own book outgrows. The standard is a test he applied to himself first.
Understand the philosophy
Deliverance from Error is an intellectual autobiography, and the key term is certain knowledge, a disclosure so complete that the mind cannot even entertain the possibility of error. Theology and the philosophers' demonstrations are tested against it and, on his telling, do not quiet him. The Sufi path is the route he says argument alone did not open, so reading only the sceptical pages misses that shape.
- knowledge
- mind
FAQ
What does it mean?
He will not count a belief as knowledge while an alternative still feels possible. That standard is so high that it first destroys his trust in the senses and in demonstrative reason, and the book tells how he lived through the wreck. A rival reading treats the page as a sceptic's manifesto and stops, missing a book that moves through philosophy toward a Sufi account of certainty. The sentence is a close paraphrase of the early pages of Deliverance from Error, where he states the knowledge he was hunting.
Did Al-Ghazālī really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. A close paraphrase of Ghazali's description, early in Deliverance from Error, of the certainty he was hunting. It is not one word-for-word sentence from a standard English edition. The Arabic work is secure. This wording is marked as a paraphrase.
Which work is it in?
Deliverance from Error (al-Munqidh min al-Ḍalāl), opening movement Approximate date: c. 1100.