Dr. Suhail Zubairy in PTV Studio

An extract from Imām al-Ghazālī (d. 1111 CE)’s book “Fātihat al-`Ulum” (Cario, 1322), p. 56, available online at:
(http://read.kitabklasik.net/2010/01/fatihat-al-ulum-imam-al-ghazali.html)

“To drink wine for the purpose of strengthening one’s body is undoubtedly beneficial; nevertheless, it is forbidden. The games of ‘maisir’ and chess involve intellectual exercises, and yet no one considers this to be sufficient justification for the pursuit of them. The same applies to the study of the sciences of Euclid, the ‘Almagest’ [al-majisṭī in Arabic original; — a 2nd-century Greek-language mathematical and astronomical treatise on the apparent motions of the stars and planetary paths, written by Claudius Ptolemy] and the subtleties of arithmetic and geometry [daqāiq al hisāb wa l-hindsa wa-r Riyyadha]. These too render the mind more acute and strengthen the soul, and yet we refrain from them for one reason: they are among the presuppositions of the `llm al-awāil and that these latter [i.e. the `ilm al-awāil] include those sciences, beside arithmetic and geometry, that entail the acceptance of dangerous doctrines. Even if geometry and arithmetic do not contain notions that are harmful to religious belief, we nevertheless fear that one might be attracted through them to doctrines that are dangerous.”

(English translation of the extract by Merlin Swartz, “Studies on Islam,” p. 195, New York etc. Oxford University Press, 1981)