Back when I was completing my Masters Degree in 2007, I realized that Pico della Mirandola had likely drawn inspiration from Al Ghazali in a gloss of his about the Neoplatonic doctrine of the Great Chain of Being. Hans Daiber, a famous Orientalist, has taken issue with my thesis in his latest book (2022):

Not convincing is the thesis of Craig Truglia…Truglia concluded from the existence of some books by Gazali in the library of Pico that Pico was inspired by Gazali. However, the hierarchy of being is a Neoplatonic idea and the concept of man’s dignity and freedom is not typical of Gazali. (From the Greeks to the Arabs and Beyond: Volume 4, p. 134)

Daiber is a specialist. My background in Islamic philosophy is little more than one course I took on the subject at Columbia University. I only received an A-, though if one’s thesis gets published, I should have easily received an A+; but I digress! So, if it comes to appealing to authority and expertise, I am not one on this subject.

However, I believe that Daiber misrepresents my thesis. For one, the existence of such books from Ghazali in Pico’s library is not the thrust of my argument, because it cannot be known with certainty whether they contained the thematic parallels as found in Ghazali’s Alchemy of Happiness and Niche of Lights. My thesis was simple: previous Renaissance and Medieval writers did not teach anything roughly approximating to Pico’s gloss on the Chain of Being. Ghazali did. Why? I close the article saying that additional work had to be done digging into manuscripts to find precisely how Pico picked up the idea from Ghazali and if Ghazali has written about it in books I had no access to in English translation.

Seemingly unbeknownst to Daiber, Scott Michael Girdner has done the hard work that I surmised years previously that needed to be done. In “GIOVANNI PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA, JOHANAN ALEMANNO, AND AL-GHAZĀLĪ’S THE NICHE OF LIGHTS” (2018a) and “GIOVANNI PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA, JOHANAN ALEMANNO, AND THE BOOK OF LOVE BY AL-GHAZĀLI” (2018b), Girdner recognizes the thematic parallels I identified are compelling. More importantly, Girdner shows that Pico’s instruction in the Hebrew language brought him into direct contact with at least one of the works of Ghazali I theorized provided the basis for his re-invention of the Chain of Being. (2018a, p. 373-374) The smoking gun appears to be Pico citing a passage from the Quran also found in the Niche of Lights. (2018a, p. 376-377) Girdner (2018b) in considerable detail shows that the “concept of man’s dignity and freedom” is quite integrated into the work of Ghazali and he was appreciated for this by Pico’s Hebrew instructor, Alemanno.

As a side note, other scholars have also recognized the seriousness of my thesis, including Maureen Heath (2018, p. 143), Lorena Galan (2017); and Ian Goldin and Chris Kutarna (2016, p. 69).

So, in short, if Daiber is not convinced of my thesis, at least Girdner is! Ultimately, the former would have to thoroughly address the latter’s analysis to really prove the point he sets out to establish in his footnote.

What interest is the preceding to readers in Orthodox theology? Well, this won’t be my last foray with top notch Orientalist German scholarship. Stay tuned!