A Critical Assessment of Moral Behaviors according to al-Ghazālī with reliance on Allamah Tabatabai's Perspective

The relationship between morality and religion is one of the serious concerns of our age. What is morality based on? Where does good, evil, virtue and vice emanate from? What is the evaluation criterion? What is the interplay between religion and ethics? This article delves into Abū Hāmid Muhammad ibn Muhammad alGhazālī's works with a religious approach to critically assess and examine his idea of the dependence of the sanctions of moral behavior on religion as seen by Allamah Tabatabai. Hence, al-Ghazālī is of the view that morality comes with religion and religion is the source of morality as it plays a very basic role in it. According to al-Ghazālī, religion is a supernatural source guaranteeing the observance of moral rules. Allamah Tabatabai, however, maintains that when it comes to the sanctions of moral codes, morality remains independent of religion.