A Comparative Study of Ahmad Ghazali and Jean-Luc Marion's Views on Love

This study compares Ahmad Ghazali and Jean-Luc Marion's thoughts about love using a descriptive-analytical method. Despite the differences between these two thinkers in terms of thought and time, the content of their thoughts is similar in some ways. In writing Savaneh al-Oshshaq, Ghazali uses the method of esoteric commentary to discover the mysteries of Sufi, and Marion uses Heidegger's phenomenology to explain the hidden angles of the love phenomenon. According to the fact that orientalists like Henry Corbin consider the method of phenomenology in the occident tradition to be in line with the esoteric commentary (Revelation of the Veiled or Kashf al-Mahjoub of Muslim mystics), the comparison of Marion's phenomenological approach and Ghazali's interpretation seems logical in a way. These two thinkers talk about the univocality of the concept of love and do not divide love into metaphorical and real aspects. Therefore, Ghazali and Marion consider love to have the same meaning, whether in human relationships or in connection with God. Marion's main goal is to refute the metaphysical dominance over theology and negate the conceptual and like idol attitude about God, and Ghazali interprets the lived experience of mystics, crosses the narrow fence of philosophical concepts, and uses the language of allegory and mystification to explain love.