Sami Al Daghistani | Al-Ghazali's Influence on Islamic Thought, Ethics & Economic Philosophy - afikra - June 16, 2025

Youtube Video:

https://youtu.be/KhyPZ-i064c?si=Gc0GYOTOvj_5jnoT

We're joined by professor and author Sami Al Daghistani to explore the life and thought of Al-Ghazali, a prominent figure in Islamic intellectual history. We delve into Al-Ghazali's multifaceted contributions to Islamic law, philosophy, and theology, highlighting his major works, such as "The Revival of Religious Sciences" and "Deliverance from Error and the Beginning of Guidance." We examine his ethical system of economic thought, existential crises, and his impact on modern economic theory, ethics, and the philosophical landscape. The conversation also touches upon the relevance of Al-Ghazali's ideas in today's global economy and ethical contexts.

Sami Al Daghistani is Associate Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Islamic Studies at Lund University, Associate Faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, and Research Scholar at Columbia University’s Middle East Institute. His research explores intersections of Islamic economics, ethics, law, and the environment through interdisciplinary and historical approaches. He is the author of The Making of Islamic Economic Thought (Cambridge, 2022) and Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī’s Ethical Teachings (Anthem, 2021), among other works. Sami holds a PhD from Leiden University and previously held fellowships in Oslo and New York.

Amazon: Ethical Teachings of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali - Sami Al-Daghistani

This book studies the interplay of economic philosophy and moral conduct as reflected in the writings of one of the most renowned scholars in Islamic history, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazālī (d. 1111). As is well known, Imām al-Ghazālī, nicknamed “the proof of Islam”, contributed immensely to Islamic theology, philosophy, and Sufism or Islamic mysticism ( taṣawwuf ). Strikingly enough, al-Ghazālī also made seminal contributions to the field of economic thought, but this contribution has been largely neglected, although al-Ghazālī dedicated many chapters to what he considered just and  Sharī'a -based economic conduct in (Muslim) society. This book aims to analyze and revive al-Ghazālī's understudied contribution to economic thought by emphasizing his economic philosophy and its correlation between  Sharī'a's  moral law and the tradition of  taṣawwuf , as well as to situate his thought within the context of modern economic theories.

Sami Al-Daghistani is a postdoctoral fellow at the Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society in Oslo and an associate faculty member at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research in New York. He is also a research scholar at the Middle East Institute at Columbia University.

https://www.amazon.com/Ethical-Teachings-mid-al-Ghaz-Economics/dp/1785275305

Amazon: The Making of Islamic Economic Thought: Islamization,Law and Moral Discourses - Sami Al-Daghistani

Interrogating the development and conceptual framework of economic thought in the Islamic tradition pertaining to ethical, philosophical, and theological ideas, this book provides a critique of modern Islamic economics as a hybrid economic system. From the outset, Sami Al-Daghistani is concerned with the polyvalent methodology of studying the phenomenon of Islamic economic thought as a human science in that it nurtures a complex plentitude of meanings and interpretations associated with the moral self. By studying legal scholars, theologians, and Sufis in the classical period, Al-Daghistani looks at economic thought in the context of Sharī'a's moral law. Alongside critiquing modern developments of Islamic economics, he puts forward an idea for a plural epistemology of Islam's moral economy, which advocates for a multifaceted hermeneutical reading of the subject in light of a moral law, embedded in a particular cosmology of human relationality, metaphysical intelligibility, and economic subjectivity.

https://www.amazon.com/Making-Islamic-Economic-Thought-Islamization/dp/1108845754

MAYDAN:An Online Publication of the AbuSulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University -Sami Al-Daghistani's Papers

https://themaydan.com/bio/sami-al-daghistani/