This thesis compares the concepts presented in the Seventeenth Discussion of al-Ghazali's Tahafut al-Falasifa with concepts currently being discussed in the field of quantum physics. Written as an attack on the neo-Platonic and Aristotelian thinking which challenged the orthodox theology of Medieval Islam, Tahafut al-Falasifa (Incoherence of the Philosophers) questions the understanding of physical reality forwarded by the philosophers of al-Ghazali's times. The Seventeenth Discussion ('On causality and miracles') in particular, with its aim of proving the possibility of miracles, questions the acceptance of notions such as necessary causality and the validity of scientific observation in the natural world. / Although several scholars have examined al-Ghazali's argument in the Seventeenth Discussion in terms of causality, observation and the nature of human conceptions of physical reality, and many others have noted the implicit potential connections between quantum theory and concepts of religiosity, only one, Karen Harding, has attempted a synthesis of the ideas put forth within these two seemingly diverse subjects. This thesis, then, carries forward from the ideas of Harding and attempts an original comparative analysis of the two. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

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The Philosophers such as ibn-Sina had maintained that time and space were co-eternal with Allah, emanating by necessity from His Attributes, and not being the results of a deliberate act of creation. This must be the case, for otherwise nothing would have been present to induce Him to create the world after a period of non-existence. Al-Ghazali's refutation of this is that Allah had decreed in pre-eternity that the world would materialize at a future, predetermined date, selecting an instance for its birth from a myriad like-instances by exercising His Free Will and manifesting therewith a cause with a delayed effect. The Philosophers' explanation of local phenomena as resulting from the perpetual motion of the spheres is flawed, since perpetual celestial motions would result in perpetual, not transient phenomena. Time, the measure of motion, does not extend beyond the physical realm. Time, and hence motion, is finite. / Religious Studies and Arabic / M.A. (Ancient Languages & Cultures)

The Philosophers such as ibn-Sina had maintained that time and space were co-eternal with Allah, emanating by necessity from His Attributes, and not being the results of a deliberate act of creation. This must be the case, for otherwise nothing would have been present to induce Him to create the world after a period of non-existence. Al-Ghazali's refutation of this is that Allah had decreed in pre-eternity that the world would materialize at a future, predetermined date, selecting an instance for its birth from a myriad like-instances by exercising His Free Will and manifesting therewith a cause with a delayed effect. The Philosophers' explanation of local phenomena as resulting from the perpetual motion of the spheres is flawed, since perpetual celestial motions would result in perpetual, not transient phenomena. Time, the measure of motion, does not extend beyond the physical realm. Time, and hence motion, is finite. / Religious Studies and Arabic / M.A. (Ancient Languages & Cultures)