Part 13
In regard to the rise of Sufic teaching, its origin and character, Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje remarks: “The lamp which Allah had caused Mohammed to hold up to guide mankind with its light, was raised higher and higher after the Prophet’s death, in order to shed its light over an ever increasing 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 Christian circles, and its Neoplatonic origin was quite unmistakable; Persia and India also contributed to it. There were those who, by asceticism, by different 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 conduct 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 recognized 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 mysticism shows the earthly pilgrim the way to Heaven.”[77]
In one particular, however, this ethical teaching is utterly disappointing. Al-Ghazali’s mysticism is not for the multitude. It is esoteric, for a particular 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 Pharisees of old, consider the ignorance of the multitude an evil that cannot be remedied. The teaching of Al-Ghazali was intended not for the masses but for the initiates.
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 Macdonald thinks that in his time the movement towards 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 _teaching_, 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 al-Anwar_, 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-Ghazali:
“In expounding the tradition of the Seventy Thousand Veils with which Allah had veiled Himself from the vision of man, Ghazali finds opportunity to graduate various religions and sects according 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 various religions and sects from the Divine Light are conceived of as twofold in character, light veils and dark veils, and the principle of graduation is according 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 doctrine 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 mediæval 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. 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 (sabaʾiya). The denotation of the latter class is quaintly given as Arabs, some Kurds and very numerous Fools. The third and fourth subdivisions do not call for comment.
“Mounting from these regions of unmitigated darkness we come to (_b_), those veiled by light and darkness mixed. Ghazali’s idea of the dark veils in general may be gathered from a comparison 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 elements in its own constitution, namely (in ascending order) by the Senses, the Phantasy or Imagination and the Discursive Reason. The dark veils of the previous section were the unmitigated egotism and materialism which employed these faculties 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 believing it to be all in all proceed to deify all majestic, beautiful, etc., things. Thus they half reveal, half conceal, Allah, and so are literally veils of light.”[78]
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 between 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 reappear with little or no alteration in the Sufi sermons. 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 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.”[79]
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 devotion. 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 distraction men were advised to pray towards a blank wall, lest any architectural ornament might distract their attention. Others boasted that they could attain to absorption under any circumstances. “There were saints who when they started their _salat_ told their women-folk that they might chatter as much as they liked and even beat drums; they were too much absorbed in prayer to hear, however loud the noise. When one of them was saying 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 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 distant 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-mindedness 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 quickened, he says, by remembering our shortcomings in worship. The only way we can secure the presence of the heart in prayer is by drawing our 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 outward 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 everything else than himself.”
“When you stand up to pray,” he says, “remember 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 worship 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 follows his lusts, which are the lurking place of Satan and the abomination of the Merciful, the mere saying, ‘I take refuge in God’ will not profit. Whosoever 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, the deserving poor, those in need because of sickness 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 Christians are outside the pale, save as they have “the rights of neighbours.”
Christians might well regard Al-Ghazali’s mystical 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 associated. 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 undoubtedly 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, although 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, although God had already testified, “We have forgiven thee, thy former and thy latter sins.” “Said the Prophet of God, ‘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 accustomed 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 ʾAyesha 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 forgiveness: ‘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.’”[80] How different all this is from the present day superficial teaching about the sinlessness of Mohammed 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 has tasted the bitterness of remorse and has discovered 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 repentance expected by God. (4) Of what a man should repent, namely, the character of sin. (5) How small sins become great. (6) Perfect repentance, 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.[81]
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 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 return to the right way; and the significance of repentance 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 therefore 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 justification 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 whensoever you remember Him He is sitting beside you. For God Himself hath said, ‘I am the close companion of those who remember me.’ And whenever 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 set aside a certain time by night and by day for communion with your Creator that you may delight yourself in Him and that He may deliver you from evil.”[82] At times, especially when he speaks of the _veils_ that hide reality and God, we are reminded 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 amazèd eyes unroll, And without a screen at one burst be seen The Presence in which I have always been.”