Humanities and Social Sciences Review,

CD-ROM. ISSN: 2165-6258 :: 07(02):151–160 (2017)

NAMING AND BEING ISSUES IN AL-GHAZALI’S PHILOSOPHY OF

LANGUAGE

Mashhad Al-Allaf

American University of Ras Al khaima, UAE

Does naming necessitate the existence of the ‘thing’ named? And what does language refer to in
statements that include concepts and terms such as ‘tree’, ‘unicorn’, ‘dodo bird’, and ‘immortal soul’?
The relationship between language and reality is an essential part of philosophy of language. The
‘existence’ of the thing named in its relation to its concept in the mind and the very word uttered as a
name of it, is a quite complicated relationship. In this paper, I discuss the three levels of existence in
their relations to imaginary words, terms of empty extensions, universals, and the very opposite words
of ‘existence’ such as ‘nothingness’ and the ‘non-existent’ (al-Ma’dum), I discuss them from Western
and Islamic philosophical perspectives. The philosophical implications of the above issues are also
looked at from the angle of propositional function (Russell’s approach) within a system of subject-
predicate logic. In relational words, such as ‘Motherhood’ the concept ‘relation’ itself is discussed to
see whether it is essential or accidental, a dialogue between al-Ghazālī and the Muslim theologians
(Mutakallimun) on ‘relation’ is also brought into discussion.

Keywords: Philosophy of language, Islamic philosophy, naming, al-Ghazālī, propositional function,

empty extension.

1. Al-Ghazālī on Names, Three Kinds of Existence, and the Problem of Universals

Names and naming according to al-Ghazālī (1058-1111 AD.) are related to existence, and existence
according to him is of three levels or kinds:1
· The real existence of particular things that exist outside the mind (Wujod fil A’yan)
· The conceptual existence of concepts that exist in the mind (Wujod fil Athhan)
· The linguistic existence of names and words of the above concepts (Wujod fil Lisan)
The word ‘tree’ for example refers to the concept of ‘tree’ in our mind, and the concept in our mind
is about the real tree outside the mind, which we call ‘reality’.

1
Al-Ghazālī: The Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God (Al-Maqsad al-Asna fi Sharh Asma’Allah al-Husna),
translated by David Burrell and Nazih Daher, The Islamic Text Society, 1999, Cambridge, UK, p. 6. The Arabic
edition is edited by Mahmoud Bijo, published by Matba’at al-Sabah, Damascus, 1999, p. 5. To both editions, I will
refer throughout the paper. I also use the incomplete translation of McCarthy, R.J.: Al-Maqsad al-Asna fi Sharh
Ma’ani Asma’ Allah al-Husna, Appendix IV, in Freedom and Fulfillment, Twayne Publishers, a Division of G.K.
Hall & CO., Boston, 1980, p. 333.

151
152 Naming and Being Issues in Al-Ghazali’s Philosophy of Language

Al-Ghazālī talks about a kind of necessary correspondence among the three levels of existence.
According to him words and names are evidence for the existence of concepts in the mind, and concepts
are evidence indicating that things exist in reality outside the mind, al-Ghazālī says:

“Our saying indicates what is in the mind, and what is in the mind is a representation of that
which exists, which corresponds to it. For, if there were no existence in individuals, there would
be no form impressed on the mind, and if there were no form impressed on the mind and no man
is conscious of it, it would not be expressed in speech. So the word, the knowledge, and the object
known are three distinct things, though they mutually confirm and correspond.”2
If this is the case, then al-Ghazālī needs to answer three related and somehow complicated issues
(although it seems that he was not concerned about further elaboration on them in the context of his
treatise that was restricted to discussing names and attributes of God), these three issues are:

1.1 First issue: Names from Imagination and of Empty Extension

A name or a word might exist on the linguistic level (in speech) as a reference to an individual or a
particular thing, but the thing named does not exist on the level of real existence outside the mind, and
thus its conceptual existence does not correspond to any outside reality. It seems to me that al-Ghazālī
was aware of this issue and he discussed it in his context of discussing names and the things named. Take
for example the name or word ‘Hubal’ (an Arabic name for a chief idol worshipped by the Arab before
Islam) this name does not correspond to anything in the reality outside the mind. In chapter 12 on Joseph
(Yusuf) in the Qur’an God says:
“You worship not besides Him except [mere] names you have named them, you and your fathers,
for which Allah has sent down no authority. Legislation is not but for Allah . He has commanded
that you worship not except Him. That is the correct religion, but most of the people do not
know.” (Qur’an 12:40)

It says that they worshipped ‘names’, but of course they did not worship the uttered words, they
worshipped that which was named; ‘Hubal’ the idol, but in fact there was no such thing named in reality
because according to al-Ghazālī “the thing named is the meaning affirmed in reality in so far as
something is indicated by a word. Yet divinity was not affirmed in reality nor was it known in minds;
rather its names were existed in speech, but they were names devoid of meaning.”3 The verse clearly
relates the idols’ names to the act of naming and to those who made them, and there is no reference to
reality. Thus al-Ghazālī will dismiss these individual or particular names as empty of meaning or they
have empty extension, because meaning to him is that which is affirmed in reality through
correspondence, but the idol ‘Hubal’ is not a god in the outside reality. As if al-Ghazālī is looking at the

2
Ibid: p. 7. This short paragraph brings to our mind the ‘triangle of reference’ presented by Ogden and Richards in
the first chapter of their book: The Meaning of Meaning, please see Ogden, C. K. & Richards, I. A.: The Meaning of
Meaning, 8th Edition, New York, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1923. I think a comparative study of al-Ghazālī’s
ideas with those of Ogden/Richards will bring a useful contribution to the very understanding of the semiotic theory
in relation to the three parts of the triangle: thought, symbol, and referent.
3
Ibid: pp. 20-21.
 Mashhad Al-Allaf 153

name ‘Hubal’ as pseudo-proper name created by human speech to describe something that merely, yet not
clearly, exists in their mind, in order to function as a description of the chief idol, but not a real proper
name of a specific existent that exist in the outside reality.
In the same line of reasoning we can bring examples of words or names of conceptions that we have
in mind about individual things that do not exist outside the mind such as ‘Hamlet’ and the like (while
‘unicorn’ and ‘flying elephant’ refer to species). In this case al-Ghazālī will look at the problem as that
both the linguistic and conceptual levels are neither corresponding to, nor necessitating the existence of
the things named in reality outside the mind. Thus statements in a subject and predicate forms such as:
‘Hubal is the chief idol’ or

‘A Unicorn is beautiful’
both stand as empty of meaning unless we affirm a specific representation of them in the reality outside
the mind to correspond to. Thus, names according to al-Ghazālī are not the same as the thing named.

1.2 Second issue: Names, Universals, and Propositional Functions

The second problem that al-Ghazālī needs to consider is that the word ‘tree’ (in its reference to the
concept ‘tree’ that we have in mind), it refers to universal ‘tree’, while the things that exist outside the
mind are particular trees, thus the word ‘tree’ does not correspond to the real existence of a tree, nor does
it necessitate its existence; the universal word ‘tree’ stops at the conceptual level of existence. However,
the utterance: ‘apple tree’ is better because its concept in mind can refer to the real existence because it
refers to a specific and a particular tree.
Let’s now go further to discuss universal (and imaginary) words such as ‘man’, motherhood’,
‘fatherhood’, ‘unicorn’ and the like. To say:
1. ‘John is tall’ is a statement different from saying:
2. ‘A man is tall’
The first talks about a specific man called John and the second refers generally to a universal and
non-specified person. The second statement does not have truth value; we cannot assign the values true or
false to it; because it does not refer to any particular man in real existence outside the mind, thus a ‘man’
is not a name of anything named in reality. This second statement is not that different from the statement:
3. ‘A Unicorn is tall’,
In propositional logic within a subject predicate form the three statements have the same structure,
while the first one can be true or false according to the reality (of John) that refers to, the second and the
third have no such thing, they are both describing something that does not exist in reality. The third one
has empty extension, while the second has the possibility of assigning a truth value only to its
particularized member. The first one is a proposition while the second and the third both function as a
proposition but they are not. Bertrand Russell calls these types of statements; propositional functions, and
in their book Principia Mathematica, both Russell and Whitehead define propositional function in this
way:
“By a ‘propositional function’ we mean something which contains a variable x, and expresses a
proposition as soon as a value is assigned to x. That is to say, it differs from a proposition solely by the
fact that it is ambiguous: it contains a variable of which the value is unassigned.”4

4
Whitehead, Alfred North, and Bertrand Russell, Principia Mathematica, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
1910–1913 [1925], p. 38. Also a good explanation of Russell’s ideas can be found in: Gödel, Kurt, ‘Russell’s
Mathematical Logic’, in P. A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, Tudor Publishing Co., New York,
1944, pp. 123–144.
154 Naming and Being Issues in Al-Ghazali’s Philosophy of Language

Thus the second statement: ‘A man is tall’ contains a variable x, and it can be changed from
propositional function to a proposition only when a value is assigned to the variable x. The above
definition transformed in Russell’s work to a formula of this type: ‘A man is tall’ is not an empty
proposition, if we can interpret it as:
· There is at least one x,
· That x is a man,
· That x man is tall, and
· This description ‘tall’ is true or false to that (at least one) specific man.
In this way we can make a clear distinction between propositional functions of universal terms and
those of non-existent beings such as a ‘unicorn’, because there is not even a single or one specific x as x is
a unicorn in the outside reality to which the description ‘tall’ can be confirmed as true or false.
Thus ‘man is mortal’, is a ‘subject – predicate’ statement but cannot be true or false, since the word
‘man’ does not refer to a specific man, nonetheless ‘Zayd is mortal’, ‘Sarah is mortal’, and ‘Mary is
mortal’, each one of these propositions can be true or false since it refers to a specific person and that
specific person is described as mortal, in this sense the Qur’anic verse has a better description by saying
‘everyone’ on earth is mortal instead of saying that man is mortal or humanity is:
“Everyone upon the earth will perish” (Qur’an 55:26)

So far, al-Ghazālī’s analysis of the levels of existence is acceptable; there is the existence of the existents
in reality out there, and there is a conceptual or logical existence of existents that are merely in the mind,
and there is a linguistic existence of existents that are nothing but the very names of those concepts in the
mind that refer (and may not refer) to things in reality outside the mind. Now how can we answer with al-
Ghazālī a question related to the reality of the immortality of the soul in a statement like this:
‘The soul is immortal’
In the above statement we use a name ‘soul’ that names something existing in the mind and that
thing named is being described as immortal. First, there is no doubt that the ‘soul’ exist on the linguistic
level since there is a name or word for it. Second, the name soul is referring to a concept exits in the
mind. Third, there is no such thing in the outside reality outside the mind called soul to which the name is
referring to; and if there is such a thing then we will be like Plato (427-347 BC.) believing in the
existence of forms or universals in outside reality, or like Abu Bakr al-Razi (865- 925) who believed in
what he calls the five eternals, and the ‘the Universal Soul’ (al-Nafs al-Kulliyah), is one of these five. But
this universal soul does not exist in the outside reality to be checked. Thus, the above statement: ‘The soul
is immortal’ is not a proposition, because we cannot give it a truth value as either true or false, thus, the
statement is propositional function. The statement must refer to at least one individual person that has a
soul to be described as mortal or immortal. The soul in the Islamic teaching is the soul of each specific
human being that exists in reality, the Qur’an particularly refers to the soul of each individual being by
stating that ‘every soul’ has the description so and so and not the universal soul has the description so and
so:
“Every soul will taste death. Then to Us will you be returned.” (Qur’an 29-57)

In another chapter, the Qur’anic verse mentions this particular description of individual soul in the
following way:
 Mashhad Al-Allaf 155

“Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul
or for corruption [done] in the land - it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one - it
is as if he had saved mankind entirely. (Qur’an 5:32)

The reference was made to one single soul and not to a universal one; because the particular is what exists
out there, while the universal has no reality outside the mind and its existence is only in the mind.

1.3 Third issue: The Name of Non-existent (al-Ma’dum) and Nothingness

With this problem, we face the word that stand as the very opposite of existence, I mean the word
‘nothingness’ itself. Its linguistic existence does not necessitate the existence of a clear conceptual level,
nor does it refer to any real existence of ‘nothingness’; because it is contradictory to talk about the
existence of the non-existent.
This problem has some history in philosophy. In Greek philosophy Parmenides thought that it is
impossible to talk about the non-existent; he made parallelism and correspondence between thoughts and
that which we think of, since we think in terms of words and language, then the correspondence extended
in his philosophy to include language, thoughts, and things. According to him it is impossible to talk
about non-existence, because words refer to thoughts and the latter refer to reality, Parmenides said:
“Thou canst not know what is not –that is impossible- nor utter it; for it is the same thing that can be
thought and that can be.”5
Parmenides thought that it is impossible to think of, and have knowledge about, that which does not
exist or ‘the non-existent’, more than that Parmenides thought that we cannot even utter it, because we
think through names and words that refer to concepts in our minds about things outside, thus if we cannot
think of it, then we cannot even utter it, since language and thought, according to him, are both
necessitating the existence of things or objects outside the mind; if it can be thought of, in terms of
language, then it exists, Parmenides said:
“The thing that can be thought and that for the sake of which the thought exists is the same; for you
cannot find thought without something that is, as to which it is uttered.”6
Parmenides thinks that language somehow necessitates the existence of that we think of.
Parmenides’ objective from this argument, which is not the focus of this paper, is to prove that there is no
change; because that that you can think of, and use language for its utterance, must be always in
existence, but ceasing existence is change and that cease existence is not existent and since we cannot
utter and think of that which does not exist, therefore, there is no change.
Russell gave further clarification to Parmenides texts mentioned above by saying: 7
“if language is not just nonsense, words must mean something, and in general they must not mean
just other words, but something that is there whether we talk of it or not. Suppose, for example,

5
Russell, B.: A History of Western Philosophy, a Touchstone Book, Published by Simon and Schuster, New York,
1972, p. 49.
6
Ibid: p. 49.
7
Ibid: p.49.
156 Naming and Being Issues in Al-Ghazali’s Philosophy of Language

that you talk of George Washington. Unless there were a historical person who had that name, the
name (it would seem) would be meaningless, and sentences containing the name would be
nonsense. Parmenides maintains that not only must George Washington have existed in the past,
but in some sense, he must still exist, since we can still use his name significantly. This seems
obviously untrue.”
Russell also mentioned in a footnote in the same page how Burnet in his translation of Parmenides’ text
commented on Parmenides’ above statement saying: “The meaning, I think, is this…There can be no
thought corresponding to a name that is not the name of something real.”
This philosophical issue of the non-existent has also some history in Islamic theology. The group of
Muslim theologian called al-Mu’tazilah thought that the ‘non-existent’ (al-Ma’dum)8 is a ‘thing’ (shay’)
that has essence but does not have existence9. In their view existence is an addition to essence. And that
which exist is that in which the accidents subsist in, while the essence is not a place or substratum for
accidents. This idea is contradictory to the idea that accidents subsist in the essence. There are many
evidence from the Qur’an to prove that al-Mu’tazila’s idea on the ‘non-existent’ is wrong as we will see
later.
Al-Ghazālī would reject the approach of al-Mu’tazellah, as for al-Ghazālī, the ‘non-existent’ does
not exist and neither has an essence nor an existence. But al-Ghazālī has to face the problem from the
perspective of his philosophy of naming and existence. Since the name ‘non-existent’ (Ma’dum) exist in
our language and speech, then according to al-Ghazālī’s theory this name must indicate the existence of a
concept of the ‘non-existent’ in the mind, which in turn (and according to al-Ghazālī’s theory) this
concept of the ‘non-existent’ indicates the existence of the non-existent in the reality outside the mind.
This is a clear contradiction. I think al-Ghazālī will not be able to easily get out of this contradiction as we
gave him some interpretational aid in the case of imaginary things such as that of ‘Hubal’ in the first
issue, and in fact we were able to do so because the Qur’an was supporting us in verses about mere names
and naming. Al-Ghazālī will probably have some difficulties dealing with this issue on a statement such
as: ‘the non-existent or (al-Ma’dum) is a thing’, it can be rejected altogether based on the Qur’anic
evidence below; since we can find many Qur’anic verses clearly stating that the ‘non-existent’ is not a
‘thing’:
[An angel] said, “Thus [it will be]; your Lord says, ‘It is easy for Me, for I created you before, while
you were nothing.’“ (Qur’an 19:9)

In the same chapter, another verse reads:

“Does man not remember that We created him before, while he was nothing?” (Qur’an 19:67)

Or we can adopt Quine’s solution (of meaning without reference) and say that the statement ‘the non-
existent (al-Ma’dum) is a thing’ can be looked at as that both the name and the concept of ‘non-existent’
do not refer to anything in reality outside the mind; the statement has meaning but surly no reference to a
real ‘thing’ out there, but adopting this position will lead to giving up essential part of al-Ghazālī’s theory
of naming. However, a more developed position to this issues can be found in Ibn Taimiyyah’s
philosophy especially his criticism of Aristotelian logic, were he thinks that the universals and the

8
Al-Shahrastani, in his book Nihayat al-Kalam fi ‘Ilm al-Kalam,, Maktabat al-Thaqafa al-Diniya, Cairo, 2009, p.
146,
9
This is according to Abu Uthman al-Shahham al-Mu’tazili.
 Mashhad Al-Allaf 157

Ma’dum both have no reference out there in reality because names do not give meaning to the things
named nor giving them existence, according to him things first exist and then we name them.

2. Naming, Essence, and Relation

Language according to al-Ghazālī seems to be conventional, posited to indicate individual things. Words
such as ‘tree’, ‘horse’, ‘man’ and the like were primarily posited. Words which are secondarily posited
are the very parts of linguistic studies such as noun (which does not indicate time), verb (which indicates
time as past, present, and future), command, negation, and the like.
According to al-Ghazālī the definition of a noun can be presented in this way: “it is a word posited to
indicate.”10 This means that the word “noun” has existence on the linguistic or speech level only. Each
word that conventionally posited for indication or reference, it means that it refers to something that exists
on one of those three levels of existence. The very process of giving a name to indicate something is
called naming. Sometimes we find more than one name referring to one thing in reality, how should we
consider them?
According to al-Ghazālī if the names are many and the named is one then we should have a clear
concept of what we call ‘identity’ and ‘differentiation’, let’s consider the following examples:
− In Arabic language, the words (Layth) and (Asad) are both names of one thing called Lion.
They are two but both refer to one concept which refers to one real thing called lion. Al-
Ghazālī sees no problem here because these words are identical in reference and called
synonymous. In a logical view the subject is not predicated because the synonymous is still
same as, or identical to, the subject itself and not a description of it. Al-Ghazālī rejects the
idea that the name and the named are same because the named is the thing that has real
existence while the name is mere linguistic indication of the concept of that which exist. The
name can be asked about by saying ‘what is it’? While the named can be asked about by
saying ‘who is he’? The name might change in different languages and in translation but not
the one named. Therefor al-Ghazālī concludes that they are not the same.
− In Arabic language, there are many words for the ‘Sword’ such as (Sarim) which means sharp
sword, and the word (Muhannad) which means sword made of Indian steel. Al-Ghazālī will
look at these names as different in reference; somehow as different interconnected
descriptions of one and the same thing in reality which is the sword. Here, from a logical
point of view, we can say that the subject ‘sword’ is predicated by the word ‘sharp’, and
differently predicated if we say made of Indian steel. Al-Ghazālī also rejects here the idea that
name and the named are the same, in a sense that the named is derived from the name and
inter into it as the named ‘sword’ enters the meaning of sharp sword; because a sharp sword
is a sword with an attribute, “But the thing named is not a name with an attribute, nor is the
act of naming a name with an attribute.”11
− In a statement, such as “snow is white and cold” the two words are different; one is for color
and the other is for temperature, but they are united in this statement due to the unity of the
subject that both predicated it.
Al-Ghazālī thinks, at least on linguistic level, that identity (such as A is A or the thing is itself) is
both unity and plurality; it is unity because the thing is itself, and plurality because when we say ‘identical
with’ we are referring, on the level of speech, to two things.
Al-Ghazālī brought some lengthy arguments to prove his point of view that the name cannot be
the essence of the thing named, he was arguing against Mu’tazilah. According to al-Ghazālī:

10
Al-Ghazālī: The Ninety Nine Beautiful Names of God, P.8.
11
Ibid: p. 12.
158 Naming and Being Issues in Al-Ghazali’s Philosophy of Language

“Saying that the name might be the essence of the thing named has two shortcomings, and both
need to be corrected. Either replace ‘name’ with ‘meaning of the name’ or replace ‘essence’ with
‘quiddity of the essence’. Then it will be said: the meaning of the name may be the reality of the
essence and its quiddity, and it may be other than the essential reality.” 12
Al-Ghazālī brought the word ‘Creator’ as a word that cannot be a name for creation, even though the
creation is contained within it. The word ‘Creator’ is the name of an essence in so far as creation
originates from it; it does refer to the essence but only in relation to that attribute of creation. As the word
‘father’ refers to the essence of the father in so far as he is related to a son. We understand from the word
‘father’ a man who has a son, so the word itself is not the essence, because the essence of man is not
fatherhood; the term refers to the essence of man implicitly in relation to a son.
Attributes, according to al-Ghazālī, will be of two kinds: relational and non-relational, and both
applied to essence. If someone argues that the word ‘Creator’ is an attribute and every attribute is an
affirmation, then there is no affirmation in the word ‘Creator’ except creation, but creation is not the
Creator, thus there is no true description of the Creator that can be derived from the word ‘creation’, thus
the word ‘Creator’ refers to what is other than the thing named. Al-Ghazālī rejects this interpretation; he
thinks it is contradictory; because for him the name must make us understand something about the thing
named because the thing named is equivalent to the meaning of the name.
Al-Ghazālī also rejects the idea that there is no true description in naming, according to him the word
‘creation’ does offer a description for the ‘Creator’ as the ‘writing’ offers description for the ‘writer’, his
proof is “that it can be so described is the fact that sometimes it is described by it and at other times
denied of it.”13 Al-Ghazālī understands relation as that attribute that can be denied or affirmed of the
thing related. To say that ‘Zayd is Sarah’s father’ is definitely giving some knowledge (description or
information) about Zayd. This knowledge is not the essence of Zayd, nor can it subsist by itself. Relations
according to al-Ghazālī are neither Platonic forms nor identical with the essence, they are similar to
attributes and their meaning can be conceived in by comparing two things.

3. Al-Ghazālī against Mutakallimon on: a relation is not an accident

So far al-Ghazālī proved that the relational word ‘creation’ describes the ‘Creator’, and relations are
similar to attributes, and the above confusion came from some Muslim theologians (Mutakallimon) who
did not consider ‘relation’ among the accidents.
Al-Ghazālī asks Mutakallimon:

But what is an accident according to you?

Mutakallimon:
An accident is that which exists in a substratum and does not subsist in itself.

Al-Ghazālī further asked:

Does a ‘relation’ subsist by itself?
Mutakallimon:

Of course, not.
Al-Ghazālī:

12
Ibid: p. 14.
13
Ibid: p. 15.
 Mashhad Al-Allaf 159

Is a relation an existent or not?

Mutakallimon:
Yes, it is an existent;

Al-Ghazālī further comments on their answer:

They cannot say that it does not exist, for if they say so, then they will deny the existence of, for example,
fatherhood, which is impossible.

Al-Ghazālī asks:
Since fatherhood is an existent, does it subsist in itself?
Mutakallimon:

No, it does not; because it needs a father and a son.

Al-Ghazālī:
You (Mutakallimon) “are obliged to admit that it exists but that it does not subsist in itself; rather it
subsists in a substratum.”14
In this dialectical argument, al-Ghazālī led the Mutakallimon to a position of self-contradiction, since
they admitted that a ‘relation’ exists and does not subsist in itself (which is their very definition of an
accident) and then they deny that a relation is an accident.

4. Do Synonyms and close in meaning names indicates one or different meanings?

Al-Ghazālī thinks that each name and description of God and each one of His divine attributes is
indicating different meaning. Take for example these three divine attributes:
· The Forgiver (al-Ghafir)
· The All-Forgiving (al-Ghafur)
· He who is full of forgiveness (al-Ghaffar)
Each one of these three attributes give a specific meaning in relation to a specific thing related to
human actions and sins; the ‘Forgiver’ only indicates the very bases of forgiveness, while the ‘All
Forgiving’ indicates the meaning of multiple forgiveness in relation to the multiple sins of human beings,
and the third attribute of Him as He is ‘full of forgiveness’, designates multiplicity by way of repetition;
in this sense He is al-Ghaffar because He –the exalted- forgive the sins even if the sinner sins again and
repent.
Other example al-Ghazālī gave is the following:
· The Rich (al-Ghanyi)
· The King (al-Malek)
The Rich is in no need for anything for lacking nothing, but the King is also in no need for anything,
while everything needs him, thus the attribute King is designating the meaning of Rich plus something
more.
The same is true for these two attributes:
· The Omniscient (al-’Alim)
· He who is aware of everything (al-Khabir)

14
Ibid: p. 16.
160 Naming and Being Issues in Al-Ghazali’s Philosophy of Language

The first refers to knowledge alone, while the second refers to more detailed knowledge and
knowing the inner subtle things.
Al-Ghazālī thinks that each name of the divine attributes designates different meaning and “it is
improbable that an equivocal term be predicated of all the things named as a common noun.” 15
We may conclude this discussion on the Islamic philosophy of naming by referring to the difficulty
of the topic and to what Russell had said in his book “An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth” about proper
names: “The theory of names has been neglected, because its importance is only evident to the logician,
and to him names can remain purely hypothetical, since no proposition of logic can contain any actual
name.”16

References

Al-Ghazālī, Abu Hamed

1. The Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God (Al-Maqsad al-Asna fi Sharh Asma’Allah al-Husna), translated by
David Burrell and Nazih Daher, The Islamic Text Society, Cambridge, UK,1999.
2. Al-Maqsad al-Asna fi Sharh Asma’Allah al-Husna, The Arabic edition, edited by Mahmoud Bijo, published by
Matba’at al-Sabah, Damascus, 1999.
3. Al-Maqsad al-Asna fi Sharh Ma’ani Asma’ Allah al-Husna, translated by McCarthy, R.J. in Freedom and
Fulfillment, Appendix IV, Twayne Publishers, a Division of G.K. Hall & CO., Boston, 1980.

Gödel, Kurt:

1. Russell’s Mathematical Logic’, in P. A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, Tudor
Publishing Co., New York, 1944.

Russell, B.

1. A History of Western Philosophy, a Touchstone Book, Published by Simon and Schuster, New York, 1972.
2. Russell, B.: An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, George Allen and Unwin LTD, London, fifth edition 1956.

Whitehead, Alfred North, and Bertrand Russell

1. Principia Mathematica, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1910–1913 [1925].

Al-Shahrastani, Abdul Karim

1. Nihayat al-Kalam fi ‘Ilm al-Kalam,, Maktabat al-Thaqafa al-Diniya, Cairo, 2009.

2. Al-Millal wal Nehal, Dar Ibn Hazm, Beirut, Lebanon, 2005.

Badawi, Abul Rahman

1. Madhaheb al-Islamiyyen, dar al-’Ilm lilmalayyin, Beirut, 2005.

Ogden, C. K. & Richards, I. A.

1. The Meaning of Meaning, 8th Edition, New York, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1923.

15
Ibid: p. 27.
16
Russell, B.: An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, George Allen and Unwin LTD, London, fifth edition 1956, p.97.