ABSTRACT
Does al-Ghazali believe in a possibility of universal love for God? Can all people love God? AI-Ghaziili does not pose this question, and we can only suggest his answer. While seemingly not denying love for God from any person, he appears to advocate different degrees of love. That is because if love depends on knowledge, and naturally people vary with regard to their possession of knowledge, there are necessarily different degrees of love. Consequently, the best lover is the best knower of God and the world, and the worst lover is the ignorant. Moral traits are desired not by virtue of themselves, but as requisites for acquiring knowledge, for they disconnect man from materiality which constitutes the veil between man and knowledge.
