Part 10

Of all his writings none is celebrated more justly than his greatest work “The Revival of Religious Sciences” (_Ihya ʿulum id Din_). It is a veritable encyclopædia of Moslem teaching and ethics and covers the whole range of Moslem thought. Many editions of this work have been printed and commentaries written on it, the most celebrated of which is by Mohammed-uz-Zubeidi Al-Murtadha, in ten large volumes. The work itself consists of four volumes of ten books each and has a total of over one thousand closely printed pages. Although widely read in its original form, popular demand has called forth several abbreviated compendia of the work. One of them entitled “A Homily for Believers,” by Mohammed Jamal-ud-Din of Damascus, is used as a text-book on Islam in the Theological Seminary of the American Mission in Cairo.

The first part of the original work is entitled “Things that pertain to worship”; the second part, “Things that pertain to practice”; the third part, “Things that destroy the soul,” _i. e._, the vices; the fourth part, “Things that deliver the soul,” _i. e._, the virtues. The contents are as follows:

“THINGS THAT PERTAIN TO WORSHIP”

I. _The Book of Knowledge_, which has seven divisions:

1. The Benefits of Learning.

2. What Kind of Knowledge is Forbidden and Permitted.

3. Theological Learning and Nomenclature.

4. Conditions of Debate and Controversy.

5. The Relation of Teacher and Pupil.

6. The Dangers of Learning.

7. The Mind and its Uses.

II. _The Book of Dogma_, which has four divisions:

1. The Moslem Creed.

2. Degrees of Faith.

3. God, His Being, Attributes, Work.

4. Faith and Islam.

III. _The Book of the Mysteries of Purity_, which has three divisions:

1. Purification from Unclean Objects.

2. Purification from Unclean States.

3. Purification from Unclean Matters that cling to the Body (finger-nails, ears, etc.).

IV. _The Book of the Mysteries of Prayer_, which has seven divisions:

1. The Benefits of Prayer.

2. Outward Observance of Prayer.

3. Conditions of Prayer.

4. The Imam.

5. Friday Prayers.

6. Miscellaneous Matters.

7. Special Prayers.

V. _The Book of the Mysteries of Almsgiving_, which has four divisions:

1. Kinds of Alms.

2. Conditions of Giving.

3. To Whom.

4. How they are Observed.

VI. _The Book of the Mysteries of Fasting_, which has three divisions:

1. Its Necessity.

2. Its Mysteries.

3. Obedience through Fasting.

VII. _The Book of the Mysteries of the Pilgrimage_, which has three divisions:

1. Its Benefits and Character.

2. The Order of Procedure.

3. Its Inward Significance.

VIII. _The Book of the Perusal of the Koran._

IX. _The Book of Zikr and Prayer._

X. _The Book of the Night Meditation._

“THINGS THAT PERTAIN TO PRACTICE”

I. The Ethics of Eating and Drinking.

II. The Ethics of Marriage.

III. The Ethics of Trade.

IV. Things that are Allowed and Forbidden.

V. Ethics of Friendship and Conversation.

VI. The Life of Seclusion.

VII. The Ethics of Journeying.

VIII. The Ethics of Music and Poetry.

IX. On Favours and Offenses.

X. The Ethics of True Living and the Virtues of the Prophet.

“THINGS THAT DESTROY THE SOUL”

I. The Wonders of the Heart.

II. The Exercise of the Soul.

III. The Dangers of the Two Desires, namely, of the Appetite and of Lust.

IV. The Evils of the Tongue.

V. The Evils of Anger and Envy.

VI. On Despising the World.

VII. On Despising Property and Greed.

VIII. On Despising the Love of Honour and Hypocrisy.

IX. On Despising Vanities.

“THINGS THAT DELIVER THE SOUL”

I. The Book of Repentance.

II. The Book of Patience and Thankfulness.

III. The Book of Fear.

IV. The Book of Poverty and Asceticism.

V. The Book of the Unity of God.

VI. The Book of Love.

VII. The Book of Good Intent and Sincerity.

VIII. The Book of Self-examination.

IX. The Book of Meditation.

X. The Book of the Remembrance of Death.

Especially the third and fourth parts of his great work show us Al-Ghazali as a mystic and a preacher of righteousness. His ten books on “Things that deliver the soul” furnish material from which it would not be difficult to collect a beautiful anthology or a daily calendar of spiritual thoughts. Such a rosary of pearls from Al-Ghazali’s works might well be used for devotion by Christians as well as by Moslems.

Another most interesting book is that on the names of God, entitled _Al-Maksad ul-Asna Sharh-Asmaʾ-Allah ul Husna_, “The Highest Aim: the Explanation of the Beautiful Names of God.” The book is divided into three parts of which the first deals philosophically with the meaning of the word “name” and its distinction from the naming of the thing and the thing named itself: also how it is possible for God to have many names and yet to be one essence. The second part of the book is the longest and treats of the ninety-nine names of God in order showing how they are comprehended in the seven attributes and the one essence. The third part is brief and shows that there are really more than ninety-nine names, but that this was the number fixed upon for good reasons. And finally there is a section telling how God may and may not be described.

Al-Ghazali teaches in this book _that the imitation of God’s attributes is the highest happiness for the believer_. There are three degrees in the knowledge of God, and in this respect he says: “The virtues of the righteous are the faults of the Saints”; by which he means that the nearer we approach to God the more perfect is our standard of character. The three degrees of knowledge are (1) intellectual, (2) that of admiration and attempted imitation, (3) that of actual acquirements of God’s attributes such as the angels. Nearness to God is by rank and degree, not in regard to position or place. He quotes with approval the famous saying of Junaid: “No one knows God save God Himself Most High, and therefore even to the best of His creatures He has only revealed His names, in which He hides Himself.” He says that two statements are true in regard to God and the believer. The true believer must say, “I know nothing but God,” and “I know nothing of God.”

The last book Al-Ghazali wrote was the _Minhaj al-ʾAbidin_ or “Guide of True Worshippers.” It is said to have been written for those who could not understand the _Ihya_ and deals with the creed and ritual of Islam from the standpoint of the mystic. Our illustration shows in facsimile the first page of this celebrated work from a recent Cairo edition. On the margin of the text we have the Beginner’s Guide, already spoken of. These two works of Al-Ghazali are very popular and have recently had an increasing circulation.

The _Minhaj_ shows that Al-Ghazali at the close of his life had adopted the vocabulary of the mystics even for popular teaching. The various chapters are called “stages” in the progress of the soul towards salvation and peace. The first stage is that of knowledge, then follows repentance, a list of the hindrances on the road to God, things that delay the soul in its onward progress, such as the world and its allurements, the flesh, the devil, the senses. Other hindrances are the cares of gaining a living, the perplexities and troubles of life, while the last stages in the road of the mystic are those of praise to God under all circumstances, and earnest endeavour to attain to the reality of the experience of His presence.

So difficult is the road which Al-Ghazali describes that he says: “Some seekers can only finish these stages in seventy years, some in twenty, some in ten. Others there are, however, whose souls are so enlightened, so free from the care and perplexity of the world, that they finish the journey and arrive at the goal in a year, a month, what do I say, in an hour; so that they awaken like the Companions of the Cave, and the change they see in themselves and those about them is to them as a dream.”

His teaching on prayer as given in the _Ihya_ certainly rises very high above that of the ritualist who puts all his attention on the punctiliousness of outward observance. “Prayers are of three degrees, of which the first are those that are simply spoken with the lips. Prayers are of the second kind when with difficulty, and only by a most resolute effort, the soul is able to fix its thoughts on divine things without being disturbed by evil imaginations; they are of the third kind when one finds it difficult to turn away the mind from dwelling on divine things. But it is the very marrow of prayer when He who is invoked takes possession of the soul of the suppliant, and the soul of him who prays is absorbed into God, to whom he prays, and, his prayer ceasing, all consciousness of self has departed, and to such a degree that all thought whatsoever of the praying is felt as a veil between the soul and God. This state is called by the Sufis ‘absorption,’ for the reason that the man is so absorbed that he takes no thought of his body, or of anything that happens externally, or even of the movements of his own soul, but is first engaged in going towards his Lord, and finally is wholly in his Lord. If even the thought occurs that he is absorbed in the Absolute it is a blemish, for that absorption only is worthy of the name, though they will be called, as I well know, but foolish babbling by raw theologians, are yet by no means without significance. For consider: The condition of which I speak resembles that of a person who loves any other object, such as wealth, honour, or pleasure. We see such persons so carried away with their love, and others with their anger, that they do not hear one who speaks to them, nor see those passing before their eyes. Nay, so absorbed are they in their passion that they do not perceive their absorption; you necessarily turn it away from that which is the object of it.”

Elsewhere Al-Ghazali says: “The commencement of this life is the going to God; then follows the finding Him, when the absorption takes place. This at first is momentary, as the lightning swiftly glancing upon the eye, but afterwards, confirmed by use, it introduces the soul into a higher world, where, the most pure essential essence meeting it, fills the soul with the images of the spiritual world, while the majesty of Deity discovers itself.”

The evident sincerity and the moral earnestness of Al-Ghazali shown in his works and in the extracts which we have quoted, surely explains in a large degree why his influence has been so deep and permanent, far greater than that of the merely intellectual philosophers, such as Averroes. While he discouraged scholastic philosophy, he encouraged moral philosophy. The reader will remember how he carried a book of ethics with him on his journeys. After his death several famous ethical treatises were composed which derived much from him. Claud Field says “the most important of these is the ‘Akhlaq-i-Jalali,’ by Jalaluddin Asaʾad Aldawani, which has been ably translated into English by Mr. W. F. Thompson. The ‘Akhlaq-i-Jalali’ itself is largely a translation into Persian from the Arabic, the original of which appeared in the tenth century under the name of ‘Kitab-ut-Taharat.’ Two centuries after it was translated into Persian by Abu Nasr, and named ‘Akhlaq Nasiri,’ enriched with some important additions from Avicenna. In the fifteenth century it assumed a still further improved form under its present name, the ‘Akhlaq-i-Jalali.’”[60]

That Al-Ghazali was a careful student of nature is evident in all his writings. Those portions of the Koran which deal with natural theology and the proof of God’s existence from the starry heavens, from the fertile ground, the animal creation, and the sea with its terrors, especially seem to appeal to him. One of his books is entitled _Al Hikmat fi Makhlukat Allah_ (The Wisdom of God Shown in the Marvels of Creation). It is one of his shorter writings but full of beautiful passages on the glory of the starry heavens, the earth and the sea, and the four primal elements. One long chapter is devoted to embryology and the physical wonders of the human frame. Another is on birds, another on quadrupeds and on fishes. The conclusion of the whole treatise is the argument from design, for the goodness and greatness of the Creator as shown in His works. What he says in regard to the benefits to be obtained from gazing into the starry vault may be compared with David’s words in the eighth and the nineteenth Psalms. Says Al-Ghazali: “To look up into the vault of heaven drives away anxiety, removes the whisperings of Satan, takes away idle fear, reminds us of God, brings the heart to magnify Him, banishes evil thoughts, cures pessimism, comforts the passionate, delights the lover, and it is the best _Kibla_ for those who call to God in prayer.”

Al-Ghazali was also a dogmatic theologian and controversialist. He wrote a commentary on the Koran in forty volumes, never printed; and a dozen books against various heretics, including one entitled: “The Best Reply to Those Who Have Tampered with the Gospel.” Al-Ghazali, who was himself cursed for alleged heresy, is memorable among the theologians of Islam in that by his breadth of sympathy he forbade the cursing of Yazid, the notorious slayer of Hussein, Mohammed’s grandson, and gave his opinion in these words: “It is forbidden to curse a Moslem: Yazid was a Moslem. It is not certain that he slew Al-Husain, and it is forbidden to think ill of a Moslem. We cannot be certain that he ordered his death; really we cannot be certain of the cause of the death of any great man, especially at such a distance of time. We have also to remember the party spirit and false statements in this particular case. Again, if he did kill him, he is not an unbeliever because of that; he is only disobedient to God. Again, he may have repented before he died. Further, to abstain from cursing is no crime. No one will be asked if he ever cursed Satan; if he has cursed him he may be asked, Why? The only accursed ones of whom we know are those who die infidels.”[61]

Among his books against the philosophers we must mention three which are closely related to one another. They are the _Maqasid-ul-Falasifa_, a statement of the true teachings of the philosophers and a presentation of their views of the world; the _Tahafut ul Falasifa_ which overthrows their views and shows that they are untenable to those who would follow Islam with heart and mind; the _Qawaʾid_, which shows the truths that must be built up to take the place of the errors of the philosophers. In the first-named book, according to Macdonald, he “smites the philosophers hip and thigh, turns their own weapons against them and goes to the extreme of intellectual scepticism; seven hundred years before Hume he cuts the bond of causality with the edge of his dialectic and proclaims that we can know nothing of cause or effect, but simply that one thing follows another.”

Al-Ghazali’s great work “The Revival of Religious Sciences,” caused great scandal in Andalusia. There the intolerance of the learned passed all bounds because of the narrowness of their views. Their theology was limited to minute knowledge of Canon Law. They had no place for the religion which Ghazali preached, which was personal and passionate, a religion of the heart. When he attacked contemporary theologians busy with questions of legality and the externals of religion, he touched these pharisees of the law at the quick and they not only squirmed but screamed loudly. According to Dozy, “the Kady of Cordova, Ibn Hamdin, declared that any man who read Al-Ghazali’s book was an infidel ripe for damnation, and he drew up a _fatwa_ condemning all copies of the book to the flames. This _fatwa_, signed by the _Fakihs_ of Cordova, was formally approved by ʾAli. Al-Ghazali’s book was accordingly burnt in Cordova and all the other cities of the Empire, and possession of a copy was interdicted on pain of death and confiscation of property.”

But this opinion was not shared by Moslems elsewhere. In his lifetime and especially after his death his works against philosophy and his great exposition of Islam found ever larger circles of readers and commentators.

He has been accused, and not without good reason, both by Moslem writers and European critics, of carelessness and inaccuracy in his quotations and references to other books.[62] One of the charges brought against him by his assailants is that he falsified Tradition. Macdonald’s judgment is very charitable when he says that “he quoted from memory too freely, because he was a man of too large a calibre to watch his quotations and they were loose to the end of his life.”

As-Subqi in his Tabakat-ash-Shafaʾiya al Kubra devotes a special section to what is entitled “A List of all the Traditions given by Al-Ghazali in his _Ihya_ which have no _isnad_, or pedigree, _i. e._, Traditions _quoted by him as authoritative and yet which from the standpoint of Moslem criticism are on this account absolutely worthless_.” This section of the book referred to covers many pages and by actual count I found over six hundred Traditions each catalogued by reference to the chapter in which they occur. Now we have no reason to doubt that As-Subqi (d. 771 A. H.) was an admirer of Al-Ghazali and esteemed his teaching, yet what shall we say when in this collection of the lives of the saints so strong an indictment is made of Al-Ghazali’s inaccuracy by one of his own disciples?

When reading this collection of “true sayings” of the Prophet (which are after all often ascribed to him without any authority or foundation) one is shocked both at the credulity and the lack of love for veracity in this greatest of all Moslem apologists. If even Al-Ghazali handled Tradition so carelessly as to ascribe to Mohammed so much that is altogether puerile, fabulous and often immoral, what confidence can we put in other and later tradition-mongers and how can we clear Al-Ghazali from the charge of using pious falsehood?

We add another fact of great interest in regard to his writings. Al-Ghazali exercised a commanding influence on Jewish thought in the Middle Ages. In the appendix is a list of some of the translations of his books made in Hebrew. Jewish students of philosophy, including Maimonides, drew many of their theories from the _Maqasid_ and his other works. Al-Ghazali’s attacks on philosophy were imitated by Judah ha-Levy in his _Cuzari_; but it was chiefly his ethical teaching rather than through his philosophy that Al-Ghazali attracted the Jewish thinkers. Broyde says, “He approached the ethical ideal of Judaism to such an extent that some supposed him to be actually drifting in that direction, and his works were eagerly studied and used by Jewish writers. Abraham ibn Ezra borrowed from Al-Ghazali’s _Mizan al ʿAmal_ his comparison between the limbs of the human body and the functionaries of a king, and used it for the subject of his beautiful admonition _Yeshene Leb_; Abraham ibn Dawud borrowed from the same work the parable used by Al-Ghazali to prove the difference in value between various branches of science; and Simon Duran cites in his _Keshet_ a passage from the _Mozene ha-ʾIyyunim_, which he calls _Mozene ha-Hokmah_.”[63]

The translations of his works into Hebrew were made as early as the thirteenth century. Not less than _eleven_ Hebrew commentaries are known on the _Maqasid_. “Johanan Alemanno recommends Ghazali’s hermeneutic methods, and compares the order and graduation of lights in Ghazali’s theory with those of the theory of the cabalists.”

In regard to science, Al-Ghazali’s views were naturally those of his contemporaries. His world was built on the Ptolemaic system. There are four elements only. Existence has three modes: the world of sense, the world of God’s eternal decree, and the world of ideals or of God’s power. In dreams and visions we are in contact with the two other worlds. Al-Ghazali avoids the difficulties of concrete Moslem teaching by this method. There may be things which are real and actual and yet do not belong to the world of sense.[64]

Doctor Macdonald admirably summarizes his influence on Islam as four-fold. “First of all he led men back from mere scholastic dogma to a living contact with the Koran and the Traditions as the true source of Islam. He might be called a Biblical theologian in our modern use of the word, understanding by ‘Bible’ always the Moslem bible, namely the Koran. Nearly every paragraph of his _Ihya_ begins with a Koran quotation, and his interpretation of the book is not a slavish following of the earlier commentators but a spiritual interpretation of the text.”

“In the second place he reintroduced into Islam the element of fear. In the earliest days, as for example in the Koran itself, the terrors of the day of judgment and the horrors of hell operated in order to lead men to repentance. Al-Ghazali emphasized this part of the Moslem teaching to the utmost, witness his little book _Al-Durra al-Fakhira_, which has to this day great acceptance among pious Moslems.”

In the third place mysticism, already existing in Islam, but looked upon in many quarters as heretical, received its birthright through Al-Ghazali’s life and teachings, and from his day on held an assured position in orthodox Islam.

Lastly, he brought philosophy within the range of the ordinary mind, warning the people against its dangers as well as showing them its fundamental principles and above all illustrating through his writings how true philosophy and true Islam are not contradictory. In this respect he resembles Raymond Lull who also desired to use philosophy as the handmaid of Christianity.[65]

Macdonald thinks that of these four phases of his work and influence the first and the third were undoubtedly the most important. These alone made him a reformer of the first rank in the history of Islam.

VII

His Ethics

“The religion of Christ contains whole fields of morality and whole realms of thought which are all but outside the religion of Mohammed. It opens humility, purity of heart, forgiveness of injuries, sacrifice of self to man’s moral nature; it gives scope for toleration, development, boundless progress to his mind; its motive power is stronger, even as a friend is better than a king and love higher than obedience. Its realized ideals in the various paths of human greatness have been more commanding, more many-sided, more holy, as Averroes is below Newton, Haroun below Alfred, and ʾAli below St. Paul. Finally, the ideal life of all is far more elevating, far more majestic, far more inspiring even as the life of the founder of Mohammedanism is below the life of the Founder of Christianity.”

—_“Life of Mohammed,” R. Bosworth Smith._

VII

HIS ETHICS