This line of thought was a form of rationalism which Ghazali...

This line of thought was a form of rationalism which Ghazali branded as heresy (bid'ah) because he considered the conclusions it advanced as dictated by reason to be not only contrary to religion but based upon faulty arguments in which reason overstepped its own limits.

The idea that philosophers make unwarranted claims on behalf of the intellect became the object of Mawlavi Jalal al-Din Rumi's sarcasm in the Mathnavi.[^2] Mawlavi claims that the philosophers sin in two ways: first, they overestimate the power of the rational intellect; and second, they fail to appreciate the importance of a more direct form of knowledge through illumination.

The philosopher is in bondage to things perceived by the intellect; the pure rides as a prince on the Intellect of intellect. Know that knowledge consists in seeing fire plainly, not in prating that smoke is evidence of fire. O you whose evidence, in the eyes of the Sage, is really more stinking than the evidence of the physician, Since you have no evidence but this, O son, eat dung and inspect urine! O you whose evidence is like the staff in your hand indicating that you suffer from blindness!

Noise and pompous talk and assumption of authority (means) "I cannot see: excuse me." [^3] The object of Mawlavi's ridicule is not just any form of philosophy, but is the same form of philosophy against which Ghazali inveighed. The association of philosophy with medicine in the second passage quoted above recalls the fact that Ibn Sina was as famous a physician as a philosopher.

Clearly, Mawlavi does not mean to include Socrates among those he finds guilty of 'noise and pompous talk', for Socrates, like Mawlavi, was engaged in exposing the ignorance of those who proudly but falsely claimed to know. Plato, as well, does not seem to fit Mawlavi's image of the philosopher, for he was just as emphatic as Mawlavi about the importance of illumination over finding evidence and engaging in syllogistic reasoning.

Even Aristotle does not entirely fit with the image Mawlavi portrays of the philosopher, for he was much more concerned than the medieval Aristotelians to point out problems ( aporiai ) for which he could offer no clear cut solution (like the problem of substance in the central books of the Metaphysics, or the problem of future contingents in De Interpretatione ).