# A Moslem Seeker after God/Al-Ghazali as a Mystic

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Al-Ghazali as a Mystic
​"Mysticism is religion, and supplies a refuge for men of religious minds who find it no longer possible for them to rest on 'external authority'—as George Tyrrell both expounded and illustrated for us. Once turn away from revelation and little choice remains to you but the choice between Mysticism and Rationalism. There is not so much choice between these things, it is true, as enthusiasts on either side are apt to image. The difference between them is very much a matter of temperament, or perhaps we may even say of temperature. The Mystic blows hot, the Rationalist cold. Warm up a Rationalist and you inevitably get a Mystic; chill down a Mystic and you find yourself with a Rationalist on your hands. The history of thought illustrates repeatedly the easy passage from one to the other. Each centers himself in himself, and the human self is not so big that it makes any large difference where within yourself you take your center. Nevertheless just because Mysticism blows hot, its 'eccentricity' is the more attractive to men of lively religious feeling."
—Benjamin B. Warfield, in the "Princeton Theological Review."
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AL-GHAZALI AS A MYSTIC
ONE of the earliest mystics in Islam was Rabia', who was buried in Jerusalem. She was a native of Busrah and died at Jerusalem as early as the second century of Islam. Her tomb, according to Ibn Khallikan, was an object of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages, and was probably visited by Al-Ghazali. The following verses are quoted from her in the Ihya (vol. iv. p. 298):
"Two ways I love Thee: selfishly, And next, as worthy is of Thee. 'Tis selfish love that I do naught Save think on Thee with every thought: 'Tis purest love when Thou dost raise The veil to my adoring gaze. Not mine the praise in that or this, Thine is the praise in both, I wis."
The Moslem mystics, or Sufis, however, received their name through Abu Khair, who lived at the end of the second century of the Hegira. His disciples wore a woolen garment, and from the ​word suf, which means wool, they obtained their nainc. .In the next century, al-Junaid (\. 11. ~U7), one of Al-Ohazali’s favourite authorities, was the great leader of the movement, which spread throughout Islam. It was a reaction from the barren monotheism and the rigid ritualism of Islam. This kind ot orthodoxy did not meet the needs of the more imaginative mind ot the Kastern races who accepted Islam. The preachers of the new doctrine travelled everywhere and mixed with men of all conditions. In this way they adopted ideas from many sources, although always pro fessing to base their teaching on the Koran and Tradition.
According to Nicholson, the Mystics of Islam bor rowed not only from Christianity and Neoplato nism, but from (Gnosticism and Buddhism. Many Gospel texts and sayings of Jesus, most of them apocrvphal, are cited in the oldest Suti writings. Kroni Christianity they took the use of the woollen dress, the vows of silence, the litanies (/ikr), and other ascetic practices. Their teaching also has manv interesting parallels which Nicholson sum marizes as follows: " The same expressions are applied to the founder of Islam which are used by St. John, St. Paul, and later mystical theologians concerning Christ. Thus, Mohammed is called the Light of Cod, lie is said to have existed before the creation ot the world, he is adored as the source ot all life, actual and possible, he is the ​Perfect Man in whom all the divine attributes are manifested, and a Suii tradition ascribes to him the saying, He that hath seen me hath seen Allah. In the Moslem scheme, however, the Logos doctrine oc cupies a subordinate place, as it obviously must when the whole duty of man is believed to consist in realizing the unity of God."
Neoplatouism gave them the doctrine of emana tion and ecstasy. The following version of the doctrine of the seventy thousand veils, as ex pounded to Canon Gairduer by a modern dervish, shows clear traces of Gnosticism. " Seventy Thousand Veils separate Allah, the One reality, from the world of matter and of sense. And every soul passes before his birth through these seventy thousand. The inner half of these are veils of light: the outer half, veils of darkness. For every one of the veils of light passed through, in this journey towards birth, the soul puts otT a divine quality; and for every one of the dark veils, it puts on an earthly quality. Thus the child is born weeping, for the soul knows its separation from Allah, the one Reality. And when the child cries in its sleep, it is because the soul remembers something of what it has lost. Otherwise, the passage through the veils has brought with it for get fulness (nisyan): and for this reason man is called insan. He is now, as it were, in prison in his body, separated by these thick curtains from "The Mystics of Islam." ​
Allah. But the whole purpose of Sufism, the Way of the dervish, is to give him an escape from this prison, an apocalypse of the Seventy Thou sand Veils, a recovery of the original unity with The One, while still in this body." *
In regard to Buddhist influence, Professor Goldziher has called attention to the fact that in the eleventh century the teaching of Buddha ex erted considerable influence in eastern Persia, especially at Balkh, a city famous for the number of Sufis who dwelt in it. From the Buddhists came the use of the rosary (afterwards adopted by Christians in Europe), and perhaps also the doc trine of fana or absorption into God.
" While fana/ says Nicholson, " in its panthe istic form is radically different from Nirvana, the terms coincide so closely in other ways that we cannot regard them as being altogether uncon nected. Fana has an ethical aspect: it involves the extinction of all passions and desires. The pass ing away of evil qualities and of the evil actions which they produce is said to be brought about by the continuance of the corresponding good quali ties and actions."! The cultivation of character by the contemplation of God in a mystical sense was the real goal. To know God was to be like Him and to be like Him ended in absorption or
"The Way of a Mystic," The Moslem World, Vol. II, p. 171.
"Mystics of Islam," p. 18. ​
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ecstasy. 1 One of their favourite sayings was that attributed to God by the Prophet, " I was a hidden treasure and I desired to be known, so I created the creation in order that I might be known." Just as the universe is the mirror of God’s being, so the heart of man is to the Sufi the mirror of the uni verse. If he would know God or Truth he must look into his own heart.
To quote Al-Ghazali himself: "The aim which the Sufis set before them is as follows: To free the soul from the tyrannical yoke of the passions, to deliver it from its wrong inclinations and evil in stincts, in order that in the purified heart there should only remain room for God and for the in vocation of His holy name.
"As it was more easy to learn their doctrine than to practise it, I studied first of all those of their books which contain it: The Nourishment of Hearts, by Abu Talib of Mecca, the works of Hareth el Muhasibi, and the fragments which still remain, of Junaid, Shibli, Abu Yezid, Bustami and other leaders (whose souls may God sanctify). I acquired a thorough knowledge of their researches, and I learned all that was possible to learn of their methods by study and oral teaching. It became clear that the last stage could not be reached by
tween these high ideals and practical morality. A surprising statement is made by Al-Ghazali regarding Junaid in this connection. " Ihya," Vol. II, p. 19. ​
mere instruction, but only by transport, ecstasy, and the transformation of the moral being " (p. 41, "Confessions").
"Among the teachings of the Sufis was that of the preexistence of Mohammed the Prophet in the Essence of Light. According to the Traditions, I was a prophet while Adam was yet between earth and clay, and There is no prophet after me/ Sufis hold that Mohammed was a prophet even before the creation and that he still holds office. This identification of Mohammed with the Primal Element explains the names sometimes given him, such as Universal Reason, the Great Spirit, the Truth of Humanity, the Possessor of the Ray of Light the Nur-i-Muhammadi from God’s own splendour."
Absorption in God, therefore, or union with Him is the goal of all the Sufi teachings and prac tices. The entire negation of self clears the way for the apprehension of the Truth. This journey towards God has its stages which are generally given as eight in number: service, love, abstraction, knowledge, ecstasy, truth, union, extinction. Some of the Sufis went so far as to set aside external religion, and showed an utter indifference to the ritual as well as to the moral law. Al-Ghazali was not of their number. He teaches, however, that the ordinary theologian cannot enter on the mystic path, for he is still in bondage to dogma and wan
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ders about in darkness. Prayer, fasting, pilgrim age in all their requirements and the details of their observations have, therefore, a twofold signifi cance; the outward and formal one which is under stood by the common people, and the spiritual, real, esoteric significance which is only grasped by those who give themselves entirely to God.
Al-Ghazali was thoroughly aware of the dangers of Sufism both in its creed by way of becoming pantheistic, and in its antinomian practices. He saw that divorce between religion and morals would be disastrous and must therefore have been shocked by such verses as those of Omar Khayyam:
" Khayyam! why weep you that your life is bad; What boots it thus to mourn? Rather be glad. He that sins not can make no claim to mercy; Mercy was made for sinners be not sad."
His teaching regarding sin and repentance was, as we shall see later, altogether more fundamental.
From the earliest times pantheistic Sufism found a home in Khorasan among the Moslems. The old idea of incarnation emerged when the Shiah sect separated itself and paid such high veneration to Ali. The sect of the Khattahiyah worshipped the Imam Jafar Sadik as God. Others believed that the divine spirit had descended upon Abdallah Ibn Amr. In Khorasan the opinion was widely spread that Abu Muslim, the great general who overturned the dynasty of the Ommeyads and set up that of the Abbassides, was an incarnation of the spirit of ​God. In the same province under Al Mansur, the second Abbasside Caliph, a religious leader named Ostasys professed to be an emanation of the God head. He collected thousands of followers, and the movement was not suppressed without much fighting. Under the Caliph Mahdi a self-styled Avatar named Ata arose, who on account of a golden mask which he continually wore was called Mokanna, or " the veiled prophet. * He also had a numerous following, and held the Caliph’s armies in check for several years, till in A. D. 7T9, being closely invested in his castle, he, with his whole harem and servants, put an end to themselves.
What Al-Ghazali himself thought of these specu lations of the Sufis and the danger of this kind of mysticism we learn from his book: " The specula tions of the Sufis may be divided into two classes: to the first category belong all the phases about love to God and union with Him, which according to them compensate for all outward works. Many of them allege that they have attained to com plete oneness with God; that for them the veil has been lifted; that they have not only seen the Most High with their eyes, but have spoken with Him, and so far as to say The Most High spoke thus and thus. They wish to imitate Hallaj, who was crucified for using such expressions, and justify themselves by quoting his saying, I am the Truth/ They also refer to Abu Yazid Bistami, who is re ported to have exclaimed, * Praise be to me! in ​
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stead of Praise be to God! This kind of specu lation is extremely dangerous for the common people, and it is notorious that a number of crafts men have left their occupation to make similar assertions. Such speeches are highly popular, as they hold out to men the prospect of laying aside active work with the idea of purging the soul through mystical ecstasies and transports. The common people are not slow to claim similar rights for themselves and to catch up wild and whirling expressions. As regards the second class of Sufi speculation, it consists in the use of unintelligible phrases which by their outward apparent meaning and boldness attract attention, but which on closer inspection prove to be devoid of any real sense."
Not only did Al-Ghazali realize the danger on the side of pantheism, but he was aware that such religious enthusiasm often led to gross hypocrisy. In his Ihya he mentions " that the prophet com manded that whoever did not feel moved to tears at the recitation of the Koran should pretend to weep and to be deeply moved "; for, adds Al Ghazali sagely, " in these matters one begins by forcing oneself to do what afterwards comes spontaneously." Moreover, the fact that religious excitement was looked upon as the mark of a fervent mind and devout intensity, vastly increased the number of those who claimed mystic illumina tion. He divides the ecstatic conditions which the hearing of poetical recitations produces into four ​
classes. The first, which is the lowest, is that of the simple sensuous delight in melody. The sec ond class is that of pleasure in the melody and of understanding the words in their apparent sense. The third class consists of those who apply the meaning of the words to the relations between man and God. To this class belongs the would-be initi ate into Sufism. He goes on to say, " He has necessarily a goal marked out for him to aim at, and this goal is the knowledge of God, meeting Him and union with Him by the way of secret contemplation, and the removal of the veil which conceals Him. In order to compass this aim the Sufi has a special path to follow; he must perform various ascetic practices and overcome certain spiri tual obstacles in doing so. Now when, during the recitation of poetry, the Sufi hears mention made of blame or praise, of acceptance or refusal, of union with the Beloved or separation from Him, of lament over a departed joy or longing for a look, as often occurs in Arabic poetry, one or the other of these accords with his spiritual state and acts upon him like a spark on tinder, to set his heart aflame. Longing and love overpower him and unfold to him manifold vistas of spiritual ex perience."
"The fourth and highest class is that of the fully initiated who have passed through the stages above mentioned, and whose minds are closed to everything except God. Such an one is wholly ​
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denuded of self, so that he no longer knows his own experiences and practices, and, as though with senses sealed, sinks into the ocean of the contempla tion of God. This condition the Sufis characterize as self-annihilation (Fana)." ("The Confes sions.")
Elsewhere he compares this highest condition of ecstasy of the human soul to a clear mirror of course he means the mirror of the ancients made of polished brass or bronze which reflects the colours of anything towards which it is directed. Again and again he comes back to this metaphor in his books. Sin is like rust on the mirror of the soul. Light is reflected in it, but the rays are no longer clear, until by repentance the rust of guilt and passion are removed.
Al-Ghazali’s mysticism was always accompanied by orthodox insistence on the six articles of faith and the five pillars of practice, through which alone the soul can receive its fundamental impulse to wards God.
Yet Al-Ghazali’s mysticism leads him to empha size always the spiritual side of worship. The mere form is nothing in itself. The author of the Masnavi had mastered Al-Ghazali and absorbed his spirit when he wrote:
" Fools laud and magnify the mosque, While they strive to oppress holy men of heart. But the former is mere form, the latter spirit and ​truth.
The only true mosque is that in the hearts of saints. The mosque that is built in the heart of the saints Is the place of worship of all, for* God dwells there."
What he says on the imitation of God is based al most literally on Al-Ghazali’s book describing God’s attributes.
" God calls Himself Seeing/ to the end that His eye may every moment scare you from sinning. God calls Himself Hearing/ to the end that You may close your lips against foul discourse. God calls Himself Knowing/ to the end that You may be afraid to plot evil. These names are not mere accidental names of God, As a negro may be called Kafur (white); They are names derived from God’s essential
attributes, Not mere vain titles of the First Cause."
Abu Sa id bin Abu-1-Khair, also of Khorasan (A. H. 396-440), was one of Al-Ghazali’s teachers in the school of mysticism. When he was asked what a Sufi was he said: " Whatever is in thy head, forget it; whatever is in thy hand, give it away; and whatever happens to thee, disregard it."
In regard to the rise of Sufic teaching, its origin and character, Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje re marks: " The lamp which Allah had caused Mo hammed to hold up to guide mankind with its light,
Facsimile title page of the last book Ghazali wrote, entitled "Minhaj-Al-Abidin." On the margin this Cairo edition gives another of his celebrated works, "Badayat-al-Hadaya."
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death, in order to shed its light over an ever in creasing part of humanity. This was not possible, however, without its reservoir being replenished with all the different kinds of oil that had from time immemorial given light to those different nations. The oil of mysticism came from Chris tian circles, and its Neoplatonic origin was quite unmistakable; Persia and India also contributed to it. There were those who, by asceticism, v by dif ferent methods of mortifying the flesh, liberated the spirit that it might rise and become united with the origin of all being; to such an extent that with some the profession of faith was reduced to the blasphemous exclamation: I am Allah/
But he goes on to say that although many went to such extremes and in their pantheistic ideas lost sight of the moral law and the restriction of con duct it was Al-Ghazali who rescued Islam to a large degree from this danger. He recommended moral perfection of the soul by asceticism as the only way through which men could approach nearer to God. " His mysticism wished to avoid the danger of pantheism, to which so many others were led by their contemplations, and which so often engendered disregard of the revealed law, or even of morality."
It is therefore from the days of Al-Ghazali that ethical mysticism obtained its birthright in the world of Islam together with law and dogma. These now form the sacred trio of religious ​
sciences, and are taught in every great centre of Moslem learning. For dogma other writers are more authoritative. For Moslem law there is the study of the great writers of the four Schools, but in matters of ethics Al-Ghazali still holds his own.
To quote once more from Hurgronje: " The ethical mysticism of Al-Ghazali is generally recog nized as orthodox; and the possibility of attaining to a higher spiritual sphere by means of methodic asceticism and contemplation is doubted by few. The following opinion has come to prevail in wide circles: the Law offers the bread of life to all the faithful, the dogmatics are the arsenal from which the weapons must be taken to defend the treasures of religion against unbelief and heresy, but mysti cism shows the earthly pilgrim the way to Heaven." *
In one particular, however, this ethical teaching is utterly disappointing. Al-Ghazali’s mysticism is not for the multitude. It is esoteric, for a par ticular class who are filled with religious pride that they, in this respect, are not as other men. Even the noblest minds in Islam restrict true religious life to an aristocratic minority, and, like the Phari sees of old, consider the ignorance of the multi tude an evil that cannot be remedied. The teach ing of Al-Ghazali was intended not for the masses but for the initiates.
"Mohammedanism," C. Snouck Hurgronje, New York and London, 1916. ​
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It is remarkable that while he founded a cloister for Sufis at Tus and taught and governed there himself during the closing years of his life, he left no established order behind him. Professor Mac donald thinks that in his time the movement to wards continuous corporations and brotherhoods had not yet begun. But this is a mistake, for in the Kashf-al-Mahjub (A. H. 456) we already find a list of the various schools of Dervishes and their peculiar methods of devotion. Al-Ghazali’s teach ing, however, is popular among all the Dervish orders of to-day.
A special study has been made of one of Al Ghazali’s esoteric works on mysticism entitled Mishkat atAnwar, by Canon W. H. T. Gairdner, in which he answers the critics of this work, and shows conclusively that whatever may have been Al-Ghazali’s method he was sincere. We borrow from this interesting and scholarly paper two paragraphs to illustrate the method of Al-Gha zali:
" In expounding the tradition of the Seventy Thousand Veils with which Allah had veiled Him self from the vision of man, Ghazali finds oppor tunity to graduate various religions and sects ac cording as they are more, or less, thickly veiled from the light; i. e., according as they more or less nearly approximate to Absolute Truth (al-Haqq the Real Allah). The veils which veil the vari ous religions and sects from the Divine Li ​ght are
conceived of as twofold in character, light veils and dark veils, and the principle of graduation is ac cording as the followers of these religions and sects are veiled (a) by dark veils, (b) by dark and light mixed, or (c) by light veils only. The recital closes with a short passage which tells us that the Attainers (al-wasilun) have had the Sufi doc trine of kashf in its most explicit and striking form.
" (a) Those veiled by pure darkness, called here the mulhida, are those who deny the existence of Allah and of a Last Day. They have two main divisions, those who have inquired for a cause to account for the world and have made Nature that cause; and those who have made no such inquiry. The former are clearly the Naturists or dahriya who were the very abomination of desolation to Ghazali. It is curious that nothing further is said of their evil conduct, and it is entirely characteristic of mediaeval thought that the deepest damnation is thus reserved for false opinion, rather than for evil life. Evil doers form the second division (which, however, is not definitely said to be higher than the first), composed of those who are too greedy and selfish so much as to look for a cause, or in fact to think of anything except their vile selves. These we might style the Egotists; they are ranged in ascending order into (1) seekers of sensual pleasure, (2) seekers of dominion, (3) money-grubbers, (4) lovers of vain-glory. ​
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In the first he has the ordinary sensual herd in view, as well as the philosophers of sensualism; their veils are the veils of the bestial attributes, while those of the second are the ferocious ones (saba iya). The denotation of the latter class is quaintly given as Arabs, some Kurds and very numerous Fools. The third and fourth subdivi sions do not call for comment.
" Mounting from these regions of unmitigated darkness we come to (&), those veiled by light and darkness mixed. Ghazali’s idea of the dark veils in general may be gathered from a com parison of this and the previous section. In this section the dark veils are shown to be the false conceptions of deity, which the human mind is deluded into making by the gross and limited ele ments in its own constitution, namely (in ascend ing order) by the Senses, the Phantasy or Imagina tion and the Discursive Reason. The dark veils of the previous section were the unmitigated ego tism and materialism which employed these facul ties for self and the world alone, without a thought of deity. The light veils, accordingly, are the true but partial intuitions whereby man rises to the idea of deity, or to a something at least higher than himself. These intuitions are no more than partial, because they fix upon some one aspect or attribute of deity, majesty, beauty, and so forth, and be lieving it to be all in all proceed to deify all ma jestic, beautiful, etc., things. Thus they half re ​
veal, half conceal, Allah, and so are literally veils of light." *
Does not this remind us of St. Paul’s words: " Now we see through (in) a glass darkly but then face to face, etc."? Did Al-Ghazali borrow from the Gospel here also?
It has been pointed out by Margoliouth and others that Mohammedan Sufism is largely based on Christian teaching. This is especially true in the case of Abu Talib, Al-Ghazali’s favourite writer on this subject. " Sometimes the matter is taken over bodily; thus the Parable of the Sower is told by the earliest Sufi writer. Abu Talib takes over the dialogue in the Gospel eschatology be tween the Saviour and those who are taunted with having seen Him hungry and refused Him food; only for the questioner he substitutes Allah, and for the least of these his Moslem brother. Not a few of the Beatitudes are taken over sometimes with the name of their author. Commonplaces which are found in Christian homiletic works re appear with little or no alteration in the Sufi ser mons. In the Acts of Thomas, the Apostle, when employed by a king to build a palace, spends the money in charity to the poor. Presently the king’s brother dies, and finds that a wonderful palace has been built for the king in Paradise with the Alms
111 Der Islam," Band V, Heft 2/3 article, "Al-Ghazali’s Mishkat Al-Anwar and the Ghazali Problem," by Canon W. H. T. Gairdner. ​
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which Thomas bestowed in his name. This story reappears in the doctrine of Abu Talib that when a poor man takes charity from the wealthy, he is thereby building him a house in Paradise." =
Not only in Qut-ul-Qulub, the famous book of Abu Talib, but in all Al-Ghazali’s works we have numerous quotations and references to the Gospels apocryphal or genuine, as we shall see later.
Al-Ghazali prescribed forms for morning and evening prayer which do not differ greatly from the prayers recommended in Christian manuals of de votion. His teaching on prayer is an effort to spiritualize the ceremony, and in this he follows the teaching of the older Sufis. Absorption in God during prayer was their ideal. To avoid distrac tion men were advised to pray towards a blank wall, lest any architectural ornament might dis tract their attention. Others boasted that they could attain to absorption under any circumstances. " There were saints who when they started their salat told their womenfolk that they might chatter as much as they liked and even beat drums; they were too much absorbed in prayer to hear, how ever loud the noise. When one of them was say ing his salat in the Mosque of Basrah a column fell, bringing down with it an erection of four storeys; he continued praying, and when after he had finished the people congratulated him on his escape, he asked, what from? Great names were 1 " Development of Mohammedanism," pp. 143-144. ​
quoted for the practice of praying hastily, and so shortening the time taken by the devotion as to give Satan no chance of distracting the thoughts."
Al-Ghazali, however, believed in reverence and emphasized outward and inward preparation for this act of devotion. " Prayer, * says he, " is a nearness to God and a gift which we present to the King of kings even as one who comes from a dis tant village brings it before the ruler. And your gift is accepted of God and will be returned to you on the great day of judgment, so that you are responsible to present it as beautiful as possible." He quotes with approval a saying of Mohammed: " True prayer is to make one’s self meek and humble," and adds that the presence of the heart is the soul of true prayer and that absent-minded ness destroys all its value.
" True prayer," he continues, " consists of six things: the presence of the heart, understanding, magnifying God, fear, hope, and a sense of shame." He then treats successively these elements of true prayer, showing in what they consist, how they are occasioned and how they may be secured. We secure the presence of our hearts by a deep sense of the eternal. What he says in regard to God’s greatness may well be compared with such passages as the eighth Psalm, " What is man that Thou art mindful of him? " Our sense of shame is quick ened, he says, by remembering our shortcomings in ​
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worship. The only way we can secure the presence of the heart in prayer is by drawing oun thoughts away from outward diversions and from those within. We should not pray in the public streets, for there our mind is diverted. If we can pray towards a dead wall on which there is nothing to see it will be helpful. But the inward withdrawal of the heart is still more important.
What he says about the true kibla is also worth quoting. " It is the turning away of your out ward gaze from everything save the direction of the holy house of God. Do you not then think that the turning aside of your heart from all other things to the consideration of God Most High is required of you? It certainly is. Nothing else is required of you in prayer than this, so that I would say the face of your heart must turn with the face of your body; and even as no one is able to face the house of God save by turning away from every other direction, so the heart does not truly turn towards God save by being separated from every thing else than himself."
" When you stand up to pray," he says, " re member the day when you must stand before God’s throne and be judged. Be clear of hypocrisy in prayer. Do not follow those who profess to wor ship the face of God and at the same time seek the praise of men. . . . Flee from the devil, for he is as a devouring lion. How can any one who is pursued by a lion or an enemy who would devour ​
him or kill him say, I take refuge with God from them in this castle or in this fort/ and still linger without entering the fort? Surely this will not profit him. The only way to secure protection is to change his place. In like manner whoever fol lows his lusts, which are the lurking place of Satan and the abomination of the Merciful, the mere say ing, I take refuge in God will not profit. Who soever takes his passions for a God he is under the reign of the devil and not in the safe keeping of his Lord."
He gives a long spiritual interpretation of the fatihah which is beautiful. "At the conclusion of your formal prayer, * he says, " offer your humble petitions and thanksgivings and expect an answer and join in your petition your parents and the rest of true believers. And when you give the final salaams remember the two angels who sit on your shoulders."
In the giving of alms he says seven things are required: promptness, secrecy, example (and in this connection he quotes a Tradition ascribed to the Prophet about the left hand not knowing what the right hand doeth) absence of boasting or pride, the gift must not be spoken of as great, our best is demanded, for God is supremely good and He will only take the best, and we must give our alms to the right persons. Of these he mentions six classes: the pious, the learned, the righteous,
A Mihrab or prayer-niche made of cedar wood and dating from the Eleventh Century. (Cairo Museum.)
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ness or family distress, and relatives. With him, charity ends at home.
It is clear, however, from Al-Ghazali’s teaching that only Moslems are intended in his classification of those who may receive the Zakat. There is no universal brotherhood in Islam. Jews and Chris tians are outside the pale, save as they have " the rights of neighbours."
Christians might well regard Al-Ghazali’s mys tical method of reading the Koran in their perusal of the Scriptures. He tells us we must regard eight things: the greatness of the revelation; the majesty of the Speaker; the need of a prepared heart; meditation; understanding the content of the passage, not twisting its meaning; we are to make the application to ourselves; and finally we must read it so that its effect may show in our lives. By the word Koran, he says, " we mean not the reading but the following of the teaching, for the movement of the tongue in pronouncing the words is of little value. The true reading is when the tongue and the mind and the heart are associ ated. The part of the tongue is to pronounce the words clearly in chanting. The part of the mind is to interpret the meaning. The part of the heart is to translate it into life. So that the tongue chants and the mind interprets and the heart is a preacher and a warner."
The greatest chapter of his opus magnum is un doubtedly that on Repentance. It may well be ​
compared with the fifty-first Psalm or the seventh chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. That Al-Ghazali himself had a deep sense of sin, no one can doubt. He was not a Pharisee but an earnest seeker after God. He teaches clearly that all the prophets, including Mohammed, were sinners, al though he nowhere mentions any sinfulness in Jesus Christ.
One of the most important passages is that in which he speaks of the benefit of asking pardon. It reads as follows: " Said Mohammed the Prophet (upon him be peace): Verily, I ask forgiveness of God and repent towards Him every day seventy times/ He said this, so says Al-Ghazali, al though God had already testified, " We have for given thee, thy former and thy latter sins." " Said the Prophet of God, i Truly a faintness comes over my heart until I ask God forgiveness every day one hundred times/ And said the Prophet (on him be peace), * Whosoever says when he goes to sleep, " I ask forgiveness of the Great God, than whom there is no other, the living, and I repent of my sins three times," God will forgive him his sins even though they were as the foam of the seas or its sands piled up, or as the numbers of the leaves on the trees or the days of the world/ And said the Prophet of God (upon him be peace), Whosoever says that word I will forgive his sins though he deserts the army/ Al-Ghazali relates a story of one Hudhifa, who said, " I was accus ​
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tomed to speak sharply to my wife, and I said, O, Apostle of God, I am afraid lest my tongue should cause me to enter the fire, and then the Prophet of God (upon whom be peace) said, Where art thou in asking for forgiveness compared with me, for I ask forgiveness of God every day one hundred times/ And Ayesha said (may God give her His favour), concerning the Prophet, He said to me, " If you have committed a sin ask forgiveness of God and repent to Him, for true repentance for a sin is turning away from it and asking forgiveness." And the Apostle of God (upon whom be peace) was accustomed to say when he asked for forgive ness: O God, forgive my sin and my ignorance and my excess in what I have done, and what Thou knowest better than I do. O God, forgive me my trifling and my earnestness, my mistakes and my wrong intentions and all that I have done. O God, forgive me that which I have committed in the past and that which I will commit in the future, and what I have hidden and what I have revealed and what Thou knowest better than I do, Thou who art the first and the last and Thou art the Almighty/ " * How different all this is from the present day superficial teaching about the sinlessness of Mo hammed which is current in popular Islam.
Since Al-Ghazali tells this about Mohammed and his need for forgiveness, he naturally deals with repentance in no superficial fashion but as one who
1 " Ihya," chapter on Repentance. ​
has tasted the bitterness of remorse and has dis covered his own inability to meet the demands of the Moral Law. His book on repentance has the following sections: (1) The reality of repentance. (2) The necessity for repentance. (3) True re pentance expected by God. (4) Of what a man should repent, namely, the character of sm. (5) How small sins become great. (6) Perfect re pentance, its conditions and its duration. (7) The degree of repentance. (8) How to become truly penitent.
One can only give a summary of his teaching. He rises far above the Koran. In fact in some cases his proof texts, when we consider the context, are a terrible indictment of the Prophet. 1
He says the necessity of repentance always and for all men is evident because no one of the human race is free from sin. " For even though in some cases he is free from outward sin of his bodily members, he is not free from sin of the heart; though free from passion he is not free from the whisperings of Satan and forgetfulness of God, or of coming short of the knowledge of God and His
1 One of the texts he uses is (Surah 2, verse 222), " Verily, God loves those who repent and loves those who are puri fied." The context is in relation to the infamous statement " Your wives are your tillage, etc.," which many Moslem commentators interpret as a license for immorality. No wonder that Al-Ghazali was led in this connection to begin to speak on the text "all have sinned" although he does not quote St. Paul’s first chapter to the Romans. ​
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attributes and His works." All this is a failure of attainment and has its reasons; but if a man should forsake the causes of this forgetfulness and employ himself with the opposite virtues it would be a re turn to the right way; and the significance of re pentance is the return. You cannot imagine that any one of us is free from this defect, for we only differ in degrees, but the root undoubtedly exists in us. Of course he ignores original sin, being a Moslem, but he makes a great deal of the effect that unrepented sin causes; but it enters deeper and deeper into the heart until the image of God on the mirror of the human soul is effaced.
Another illustration he uses is that of the heart as a goodly garment which has been dragged through filth and needs to be washed again with soap and water. " Using the heart in the exercise of our passions makes it filthy. We must there fore wash it in the water of tears and by the rubbing of repentance. It is for you to rub it clean and then God will accept it." How near and yet how far from the teaching of David and Isaiah and St. Paul! Did Al-Ghazali ever hear some pious Jew quote Isaiah’s statement that "all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags "?
True repentance has a twofold result according to this Moslem theologian. Although he does not touch the deeper problem of how God can be just and justify the sinner, he teaches that the result of the forgiveness of our sins is that "we stand ​
before God as though we had none," and that " we attain a higher degree of righteousness." The cross of Christ is the missing link in Al-Ghazali’s creed. He comes very close to Christianity and yet always misses the heart of its teaching. He is groping towards the light but does not grasp the hand of a friend or find a Redeemer. It is all a righteousness by works and an attainment of the knowledge of God by meditation without justifica tion through an atonement.
Yet Al-Ghazali’s teaching on " the Practice of the Presence of God " is very much like that of Brother Lawrence in his celebrated Essay. In his "Beginner’s Guide to Religion and Morals" (Al Badayet) he writes: "Know, therefore, that your companion who never deserts you at home or abroad, when you are asleep or when you are awake, whether you are dead or alive, is your Lord and Master, your Creator and Preserver, and when soever you remember Him He is sitting beside you. For God Himself hath said, I am the close com panion of those who remember me/ And when ever your heart is contrite with sorrow because of your neglect of religion He is your companion who keeps close to you, for God hath said, I am with those who are broken-hearted on my account. And if you only knew Him as you ought to know Him you would take Him as a companion and forsake all men for His sake. But as you are unable to do this at all times, I warn you that you ​
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set aside a certain time by night and by day for communion with your Creator that you may de light yourself in Him and that He may deliver you from evil." * At times, especially when he speaks of the veils that hide reality and God, we are re minded of the lines of Whitehead on " the Second Day of Creation ":
" I gaze aloof at the tissued roof
Where time and space are the warp and woof, Which the King of Kings, like a curtain flings, O er the dreadfulness of eternal things.
But if I could see, as in truth they be,
The glories that encircle me,
I should lightly hold this tissued fold
With its marvellous curtain of blue and gold;
For soon the whole, like a parched scroll,
Shall before my amazed eyes unroll, And without a screen at one burst be seen The Presence in which I have always been."
But Al-Ghazali did not know God’s nearness through the Incarnation of Christ. The hoped-for Vision of God was always full of fear and dread of judgment. The fear of God was the beginning and end of wisdom. What he understood by the fear of God is clear from the following passage taken from the " Revival of Religious Sciences ": " By the fear of God I do not mean a fear like that of women when their eyes swim and their J "Al-Badajet," Cairo Edition, p. 41. ​
hearts beat at hearing some eloquent religious dis course, which they quickly forget and turn again to frivolity. That is no real fear at all. He who fears a thing flees from it, and he who hopes for a thing strives for it, and the only fear that will save thee is that fear that forbids sinning against God and instils obedience to Him. Beware of the shallow fear of women and fools, who, when they hear of the terrors of the Lord, say lightly, * We take refuge in God/ and at the same time continue in the very sins which will destroy them. Satan laughs at such pious ejaculations. They are like a man who should meet a lion in a desert, while there is a fortress at no great distance away, and when he sees the ravenous beast, should stand exclaim ing, I take refuge in God/ God will not protect thee from the terrors of His judgment unless thou really take refuge in Him."
Included with his fear of God there was always a fear of death which can best be described as mediaeval or early Moslem. Towards the close of his life he composed a short work on eschatology called " The Precious Pearl." It is no less lurid in its terrible pictures of death and the judgment than some of his older works. In it he says: "When you watch a dead man and see that the saliva has run from his mouth, that his lips are contracted, his face black, the whites of his eyes showing, know that he is damned, and that the fact of his damnation in the other world has just ​
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been revealed to him. But if you see the dead with a smile on his lips, a serene countenance, his eyes half -closed, know that he has just received the good news of the happiness which awaits him in the other world. . . .
"On the day of Judgment, when all men are gath ered before the throne of God, their accounts are all cast up, and their good and evil deeds weighed. During all this time each man believes he is the only one with whom God is dealing. Though peradventure at the same moment God is taking account of countless multitudes whose number is known to Him only. Men do not see each other or hear each other speak."
In summing up the character of the Mystic Claud Field says: "As St. Augustine found de liverance from doubt and error in his inward ex perience of God, and Descartes in self-conscious ness, so Ghazali, unsatisfied with speculation and troubled by scepticism, surrenders himself to the will of God. Leaving others to demonstrate the existence of God from the external world, he finds God revealed in the depths of his own conscious ness and the mystery of his own free will. . . . He is a unique and lonely figure in Islam, and has to this day been only partially understood. In the Middle Ages his fame was eclipsed by that of Averroes, whose commentary on Aristotle is al luded to by Dante, and was studied by Thomas Aquinas and the schoolman. Averroes system ​
was rounded and complete, but Ghazali was one of those whose reach exceeds their grasp; he was always striking after something he had not at tained, and stands in many respects nearer to mod ern mind than Averroes. Renan, though far from sympathizing with his religious earnestness, calls him the most original mind among Arabian philosophers/
The disciple of Al-Ghazali is perhaps of all Mos lems the nearest to the Gospel, and we may hope that when his works are carefully studied and com pared with the teaching of Christianity many may find in him a schoolmaster to lead them to Christ. Educated Moslems of to-day may well heed the warning with which Al-Ghazali closes his " Con fessions ": " The knowledge of which we speak is not derived from sources accessible to human dili gence, and that is why progress in mere worldly knowledge renders the sinner more hardened in his revolt against God. True knowledge, on the con trary, inspires in him who is initiated in it more fear and more reverence, and raises a barrier of defense between him and sin. He may slip and stumble, it is true, as is inevitable with one encom passed by human infirmity, but these slips and stumbles will not weaken his faith. The true Mos lem succumbs occasionally to temptation but he repents and will not persevere obstinately in the path of error. I pray God the Omnipotent to place us in the ranks of His chosen, among the number ​
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of those whom He directs in the path of safety, in whom He inspires fervour lest they forget Him; whom He cleanses from all defilement, that nothing may remain in them except Himself; yea of those whom He indwells completely, that they may adore none beside Him."
Being a Moslem, Al-Ghazali was either too proud to search for the true historical facts of the Christian religion, or perhaps it would be more charitable to say that he had no adequate oppor tunity, in spite of his quotations and misquotations from the " Gospels." Otherwise he could have found there what would have met his heart-hunger and satisfied his soul the manifestation of God not in some intangible principle, but in a living person, in Jesus Christ, who " is the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature. For by Him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; in Him are all things, and by Him all things con sist." (Colossians 1: 15-17.) Those who dwell in Christ and in whom He dwells are a part of His spiritual body. They are the branches of the living Vine. They are one in life and purpose, al though they remain conscious evermore of their own individual existence; they are fitted progress ively for a deeper communion with God. To such a conception the Sufi never attained. Al-Ghazali admits that no man has seen God at any time, but ​
he failed to realize that " the Only Begotten, Who is in the bosom of the Father, hath declared Him." The artificial glory of Mohammed in his case, as for centuries afterwards, hid the light of the knowl edge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Yet not altogether, as the next chapter will make clear.