Another interesting piece related to the previous post.
Discussions of causality and necessity in Islamic thought were the result of attempts to incorporate the wisdom of the Greeks into the legacy of the Qur”an, and specifically to find a philosophical way of expressing faith in the free creation of the universe by one God. Moreover, that article of faith was itself a result of the revelation of God’s ways in the free bestowal of the Qur”an on a humanity otherwise locked in ignorance, which a purportedly Aristotelian account of the necessary connection of cause and effect might be taken to rule out. Thus free creation of the universe and free gift of the Qur’an formed a logical unit. The challenge, therefore, was to compose an account of metaphysical and ethical matters which permits rational discourse about them, without obscuring their ultimate source or precluding divine action in the course of world events and human actions.
The scheme of emanation elaborated by al-Farabi sought to give ‘the First’ the place of pre-eminence which the Qur’an demanded for the Creator, but did so by modelling creation on a logical system whereby all things emanated necessarily from this One. It was this necessity, further articulated by Ibn Sina, which al-Ghazalii took to jeopardize the freedom of God as Creator and as giver of the Qur’an. al-Ghazali’s objections were honed by a previous debate among Muslim theologians (mutakallimun), who had elaborated diverse views on human freedom in an effort to reconcile the obvious demand for free acceptance of the Qur’an with its claims regarding God’s utter sovereignty as Creator over all that is. Natural philosophy was also affected by these debates, specifically with regard to the ultimate constitution of bodies as well as accounts that could be given of their interaction. However, the primary focus was on human actions in the face of a free Creator.
Read the rest here.
Stray Reflections 
jazakAllah bhai for these 2 posts, most illuminating. I guess independent scholars have already traced the infiltration of emanationism in Islam… Imam Ghazzali is truly a guardian of orthodox aqida, except on the issue of the Aql e Kashfi which opened the door for the later Sufis to in effect ignore the Qur’an.
Presumably by aql e kashfi you mean the heart-intellect that can know directly. This has to be part of any genuine spiritual epistemology but the question is: what are its limits and how does it relate to other means of knowing? Even Allama Ibn Taymiyya (RA) accepts the existence of supra-rational knowledge which is hard to deny by virtue of the countless people that have testified to its existence and especially since there is nothing in the Quran and Sunnah that prohibits it. Of course if it is genuine it can never contradict these two.
The problem is the attitude that since aql e kashfi [heart intellect or knowledge from God or ilm e Ladunni] is superior to aql e naqli, therefore forget about aql e naqli [rationality & Revelation]. The latter, Revelation, in the sense that kasfh & revelation were sufficient.
Maulana Rumi is often quoted in support of this attitude, altho’ his dualistic Metaphysics is very different from Hzt Ibn Arabi I believe:
Gar ba istadlal Kar e deen buday
Fakhr e Razi raz-dar e din buday
But I think Maulana is referring to Love, not aql e kashfi as such.
We have to keep the balance between different modes of knowing, as you say. Mystics tended to ignore aql e naqli with the predictable disastrous consequences. [the kharafaat found in later Sufi books such as Manaqib ul Arifeen & iqtibas ul anwar for e.g.]
It is hard to keep a balance, but I believe that if we dismiss any of our God-given faculties, be they rational, physical or spiritual [let alone Scripture] we disrespect God’s gift. And pretty soon God takes away that gift.
You are quite right Cyclewala bhai. The important thing is balance and putting things in their proper places. Kashf and Ilham and intellect are all subject to Revealation or should be in the proper scheme of things. Unfortunately this has sometimes been overlooked by adherents of sufism leading to all manner of problems.