Özet:

One of the central issues of Medieval Islamic political thought is the theory of the imamate. Kalam and Islamic jurisprudence, which are the source of Medieval Islamic political thought, lead the way in putting forward the imamate theory. The works written in the fields of kalam and political fiqh determine the general framework of the imamate theory, which includes issues related to the state and presidency in Medieval Islamic political thought. Ghazali as a theologian and a jurist also aims to put forward an imamate theory through certain works. The imamate theory put forward by Ghazali has a relationship with both the religious, social, and political conditions of the period he lived in and the religious-political structure of the period he idealized. Because Ghazali is a kind of thinker that tries to strike a balance between political reality and the political ideals he embraced (aspired to / longed for). One of the manifestations of the balance that he needed to establish between realism and idealism politically is the imamate theory. His theory of imamate is based on the search for the balance by a realist that puts political theories to eliminate such tensions with the desires of an idealist that is involved in political, social, and religious tensions of his era (the relationship between the Abbasids and the Seljuks and the Abbasid-Seljuk front against Batiniyyah-Fatimid front). However, this kind of attempt caused his imamate theory to contain a paradoxical structure. This study consists of two parts that claim to complement each other. In the first part, the characteristics of Ghazali's ideal political regime and the characteristics of the political regime in his time will be discussed. In the second part, to what extent the difference between these two regimes is in shaping Ghazali's imamate theory will be revealed. The study will analyse the paradoxical structure of the imamate theory in the light of Fedâihu’l-Bâtiniyye, el-İktisâd fi’l-İtikâd an İhyâu Ulûmu’d-Din in which Ghazali deals with the imamate subject. Although the book that is written by Ghazali titled Ettibrül-Mesbük-fi Nasihat'il-Mülük contains important information in terms of politics, administration and religion-state relationship, it was not preferred as the main source because it does not include direct or indirect arguments about the issue of imamate. This book has been used in the context of al-Ghazali's views on politics and the relationship between religion and state.

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