The Impact of Unity of Actions on Acceptance of Determinism or Free-Will in Viewpoints of Ghazzali and Ibn Arabi

The main objective of the present paper is to study the viewpoints of two renowned advocates of Unity of Action. Without any doubt, one who maintains that God is the absolute actor of the world of being and believes that ‘there is no effective being in the existence except Allah’ would not subscribe to the viewpoint of a person who considers man as an independent actor parallel to God and hence would have a different viewpoint regarding man’s free-will as well. Gazzali refuses the notion of determinism and free-will and advocates a third notion, i.e. acquisition, which is also advocated by the Ash’arites. Ibn Arabi confirms the notion of acquisition, but does not consider it as the final solution to the problem of extremism and free-will. He believes in combination of determinism of Creator and manifestation of free-will of God in man to rid of the problem of determinism and free-will but at the same time preserves the perimeter of unity of action.