AL-GHAZALI & THE CONTEMPORARY AGE
Chapter Two
(Copyright © P.A.W. Greenland 2000 – 2006)
‘The
Spirituality of Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (1058-1111CE).
An examination of al-Ghazali’s
writing and teaching and its relevance for the Islamic Community in the
contemporary world’.
The Spirituality of Al-Ghazali
In this chapter I shall
argue that Ghazali’s
spirituality was one of experiment, exposition, and demonstration. Before his
period of withdrawal from scholasticism into scepticism he was a jurist and
teacher of religion. Afterwards he was also a religious man who could teach his
students how to understand Sufi spirituality. Whether or not Ghazali himself can be said to have become a mystic like Jalaludin Rumi (d. 1273 CE), or
his mentor Abul-Quasim al-Junayd
(d. 1085 CE), rather than having also gained a masterful knowledge of mysticism
to enhance his teaching, is less certain. On balance this cannot be fully
substantiated from the texts of other writers but is, instead, argued as my own
thesis. Also accepted is Margaret Smith’s opinion that Ghazali offered a ‘reasoned type of mysticism (1)’.
In order to support my
thesis I shall first discuss some selected contents from a selection of Ghazali’s
works, especially recent translations Ihya,
and compare them with the texts of other Sufi writers. I will also take into
account scholarly understandings of Ghazali as a
mystic and examine critically attempts to define mysticism. In particular I
will discuss whether Ihya can be considered as
a mystical text like Rumi’s
Masnavi.
Second, I shall discuss
the assumption that Ghazali was the reconciliator between Sunni orthodoxy and Sufi belief and
practice. Although many current writers, notably now including W. Montgomery
Watt, who had also once described him as Hujjat
al-Islam (cf. Chapter One), doubt if he was unique in this achievement, an
understanding of the contribution of Ghazali is
essential when examining his personal spirituality. This is because Ghazali certainly played a major part in bringing Sufis
into Muslim holistic life. Additionally in view of the state of Islam at the
end of the eleventh century (CE), with a situation of chaos caused by the
perceived threat from the philosophers, I subscribe to the view of the majority
of writers in regarding Ghazali as Islam’s renewer in the twelve century (CE).
In a very broad sense,
mysticism is the total incorporation, or comprehension, of the self, with
Ultimate Reality. And from various accounts of his life and his texts,
especially in Ihya, I argue that while Ghazali was not a mystic his teaching and writings enabled
others to achieve a form of cognition with Ultimate Reality, so enabling them to
become mystics. Nancy E. Auer Falk has recently
described mysticism as:
(The) belief that God or spiritual
truths can be known through individual insight, rather than by reasoning or
study. A
person who has mystical experiences is called a mystic. Most mystics find such
experiences difficult to describe. During these experiences, mystics may feel
ecstasy or great peace (2).
Mystics differ in their
practice and experiences even within the same religion. However most mystics
share three basic goals: knowledge of a spiritual or ultimate reality that
exists beyond the everyday world; spiritual union with some higher power; and
freedom from selfish needs and worldly desires. To attain these goals most
mystics undergo some form of self-discipline. For example they may isolate
themselves from material comforts and other people. In addition their
discipline may involve extremes of mental and physical activity. Some members
of the Islamic Sufi sect go into a trance as they perform a whirling dance,
while other Sufis constantly repeat the ‘Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God’ and often count a rosary of ninety-nine, or thirty-three beads
thrice, to remind themselves of each name (3). The latter – repetition – is the literal translation of the
Arabic word dhikr, but like dancing and bead
counting dhikr, as an ultimate form of
meditation, leads to total unawareness of oneself, or self-annihilation (fana’). In Islam, just as in Judaism,
Christianity and other religions that emphasize a supreme God, mystics may
believe that their experiences result from divine actions (4).
Within
the world’s
five major religious faiths (ie. Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism,
Islam, and Judaism) and their respective attitudes towards mysticism, Sufis
have the greatest problem in reconciling their beliefs with those of ordinary
believers, or imam practising Muslims. ‘In the
opinion of many reformers, the majority of Sufi beliefs and practices did not
exist at the time of Muhammad and are therefore undesirable innovations (5)’. Some traditionalist Muslims regard the antinomian or heterodox
expressions of Sufism as morally degenerate and hedonistic. They are also
especially distrustful of a Sufi allegiance, for example, with the Kurds of
Turkey and
Margaret Smith, in Al-Ghazali The Mystic, regarded the final stage of the Way
in a mystical experience as an emphasis on the Unitive
life leading to the final comprehension of Ultimate Reality, or an attempt by
mystics to describe the Beatific Vision and the Union to which it leads (7). Ghazali tried to reach a mystic’s state of union in
beholding the Vision (8) but failed, as I shall argue when discussing his
thesis of the gradations of veiled light in Mishkat.
This may be because the borderline between having a comprehensive knowledge of
mysticism, which Ghazali most certainly did, and
actually being a mystic is very narrow.
Many writers refer to Ghazali either unintentionally or from deep conviction as a
mystic but scholars should be far more clear and precise about where they
actually see and place him. It is argued that they should either define Ghazali as a true mystic or as an intellectual giant who
could appreciate the central elements in Islamic mysticism. Abdur-Rahman
Ibrahim Doi speaks about
the ‘Divine Truth’ which may also alternatively be
regarded as The Beatific Vision or a perception of Ultimate Reality and the
place of Ghazali:
In the (late) eleventh century CE, the world of Islam saw
the emergence of three trends in the intellectual sphere: the Sunni theologians
believed that the study of theology was causing more harm to common people than
good; others felt that religious knowledge was incompatible with secular knowledge;
and ordinary Muslims regarded the study of science as irrelevant to their
spiritual life. A genius was needed to bring about an intellectual synthesis of
these mutually repellent trends. The…. Genius…was…Ghazzali…. After carefully considering the works of Muslim philosophers such as Avicenna and al-Kindi as well as
the Greek philosophers translated into Arabic, he came to the conclusion that
they were not explaining, but were rather explaining away, Islamic beliefs. In
criticizing them, al-Ghazali restricted the limits of
human reason in apprehending Divine Truth. He strongly believed that Sufism
alone could revive the religion through its emphasis upon spirituality (9).
That Ghazali
was spiritual rather than a mystic, properly speaking, ‘did not prevent his knowledge being at the service of a sensitive and
deeply religious soul that the majesty of God kept in suspense and that was
drawn to His love (10)’.
But R.C. Zaehner in the 1959
In Ghazali we will look for the
deep concentration of thought that we found in Junayd
in vain; for, in my opinion at least, Junayd was a
spiritual genius of the very first rank and was rightly hailed as the Crown of
the Mystics. Ghazali was essentially the popularizer of other men’s ideas, and in his
mystical writings bothered very little about consistency. ‘When we come to the books of ... al-Ghazali’, writes the twelfth-century Andalusian
philosopher Ibn Tufayl, ‘so far as he addresses himself to the general public, he binds in one
place only to loose in another, pronounces certain doctrines heretical at one
time only to adopt them later.... Manichaean and
Platonic conceptions of the nature of the world jostle each other happily, and
no attempt is made to reconcile them’ (11A).
I agree with Zaehner’s
analysis for three reasons. First, as I have already argued, that Ghazali wrote about mysticism extremely well but Ihya is not a mystical work in the strictest sense
of the term. This is principally shown when I outline Ghazali’s contribution to Islamic
mystical life when he emerges from it as a first class teacher but whose
theories in Ihya may, for some, read in a way
to only arouse various degrees of intellectual and pious, rather than mystical,
response. That Ihya actually inspired people,
who had a desire to seek pure mysticism, is submitted to be the cardinal factor
in considering Ghazali as a spiritual genius. For
this reason I do not accept Zaehner's light dismissal
of his influence.
Second, Ibn Tufayl and others of his age
have been followed by modern scholars, including Idries
Shah (12), in accusing Ghazali of publicly using both
sides of an argument to reach the same conclusion or even of preaching one
thing and doing another. At first this may seem a very serious accusation to
make, especially by Shah who in several texts on Sufism expresses great
admiration of Ghazali’s
style of teaching. But I can appreciate the views of Ibn
Tuffayl and Shah because the simple language employed
by Ghazali, in both Ihya
and Kimiya, have made the texts popular for
readers. The majority of explanations, which appeared on first examination to
be lucid, were later found by scholars to have much deeper and complex
meanings. Alternatively Ihya may be thought of
as a popular encyclopaedia for guidance in the conduct of a proper Islamic
life. Finally, in that Ghazali could later write
esoteric and complex texts such as Mishkat,
which Smith regards as a book for educated and spiritually enlightened Muslims,
may certainly give the impression that he produced works from conflicting
viewpoints and said different things on the same subject.
But Ghazali
was a restless intellectual who could always reach out and comprehend enormous
amounts of knowledge and give an immediate analysis. Lack of continuity or keeping
to the strictest details of his findings, and even ambiguity, were Ghazali’s
weakest points as a writer. Later in this chapter I will show an example of
this weakness when I discuss the story in Ihya
and Kimiya of the Chinese and Greek
Artists.
In Mishkat
Ghazali recognized seven metaphorical defects of the
eye or the human perception of zahir and batin realities (cf. Chapter Three). That he
personally strove to achieve both – the way of the true mystic – but ultimately failed shows, I would argue, a transparent honesty in
all that he accomplished both as a writer on spiritual matters and as an
aspiring Sufi mystic.
Ghazali writing on the fourth defect of
the eye shows an experiential longing for the very perception of total
creativity which in turn he could convey to his students. And he is honest enough in his
work to the point of stating that he had failed in his quest. Ghazali’s
words to the educated, including Tufayl and others,
cry aloud the sobs of one who is accumulating so much knowledge that his human
frailty cannot keep up with its flow from his inner self. As a consequence Ghazali was unable to make both a rational and consistent
analysis of what he is seeing:
The fourth defect: the eye perceives only the exterior
surfaces of things, but not their interior; nay, the mere moulds and forms, not
the realities; while the intelligence breaks through into the inwardness of
things and into their secrets; apprehends the reality of things and their spirit;
elicits causes and laws - from what they had origin, how they were created, of
how many ideal forms they are composed, what rank of Being they occupy, what is
their several relation to all other created things, and much else; the
exposition of which would take very long; wherein I think good to be brief.
(13).
While Ghazali
sought during his withdrawal the mystic’s need for isolation, in
addition to the renunciation of worldly comforts and the other demands on the
mystic which are outlined by Falk, nowhere in his writing does he evince being
in a state of spiritual ecstasy. In Munqidh Ghazali admits instead to a desire to escape from his work
of teaching in almost a self-centred way (14). But it was not an escape from
God, the awareness of Whom the mystic seeks. Perhaps
this was why in Mishkat Ghazali
does not display the mystic’s
calm sense of acceptance when he actually encounters the nearness of Ultimate
Reality, but instead cries that he cannot rationalize what he is experiencing. Ghazali's expressed desire for isolation was to save himself from ‘hell-fire’:
I examined my motive in my work of teaching, and realized
that it was not a pure desire for the things of God, but that the impulse
driving me was the desire for an influential position and public recognition. I
saw for certain that I was on the brink of a crumbling bank of sand and in
imminent danger of hell-fire unless I set about to mend my ways (15).
Ghazali in Munqidh
continued to be brutally frank about himself. The
reader is not presented with the spiritual fruits of mystical contemplation,
like Rumi’s
Masnavi. Nor can Ghazali
be compared with
As an example, Ihya does not rely on Ghazali’s personal mystical
experiences but instead on those of others. Ghazali
held fast to hadiths quoted in judicial
rulings, and Muslim theology (kalam) and at
the end of his life Ghazali was able to recognise
that all there was left to him, as a faithful Muslim, was to study the Sunna to see where Muhammad had placed real
knowledge. In this way Ghazali seems to realise that
a full understanding of the Prophet’s words and actions was precisely why it was
important to bring zahir and batin together with the authority of the Qur’an,
Sunna, and Hadith.
Both as a teacher and aspiring mystic Ghazali could
appreciate that mysticism was only possible with an understanding of the inner
meaning of tradition, prayer, and worship. D.B. Macdonald considered that
philosophy was the reason for Ghazali’s desire to seek inner (batin)
meanings for existence and the nature of God after the example of the Prophet:
Philosophy had been tried and found wanting. In the Tahafut he had smitten the philosophers
hip and thigh …. (and)
that with their premises and methods no certainty could be reached. In that
book he goes to the extreme of intellectual skepticism,
and seven hundred years before Hume, he cuts the bond of causality … and proclaims that we can know nothing of cause or effect, but simply
that one thing follows another. He combats their proof of the eternity of the
world, and exposes their assertion that God is its creator. He demonstrates
that they cannot prove the existence of the creator, or that that creator is
one; that they cannot prove that he is incorporeal, or that the world has any
creator or cause at all; that they cannot prove the nature of God, or that the
human soul is a spiritual essence. When he finished there is no intellectual
basis left for life; he stands beside the Greek skeptics
and beside Hume …. So it was natural in the latter
part of his life (that) he should turn to the study of the traditions of the
Prophet (16).
It is argued that
Macdonald is writing about Ghazali almost at the end
of his life, and that he is still searching logically for a spirituality which
is rooted in mysticism. But Munqidh which was
written before Ghazali’s
retreat and in which he tried to address the nature of his personal mysticism,
reads more like lectures on mysticism from a disinterested lecturer in religion
because of their precise clarity, logic, and style of delivery. Ghazali seems in both his own words and those of his
commentators to lack the humility of the Sufi but I submit this was not
correct. His explanations of mysticism may well read as normal everyday
happenings in the world, and not fana’, but for example Ghazali in Munqidh actually addresses the nature of prophecy by
separating an intellectual from mystical understanding of faith:
Admit, then, that wonders of this sort ... are one of the
proofs and accompanying circumstances out of the totality of your thought on
the matter; and that you attain necessary knowledge and yet are unable to say
specifically on what it is based. The case is similar to that of a man who
receives from a multitude of people a piece of information which is a matter of
common belief. He is unable to say that the certainty is derived from the
remark of a single specific person; rather, its source is unknown to him; it is
neither from the outside the whole, nor is it from specific individuals. This
is strong intellectual faith. Immediate experience, on the other hand, is like
actually witnessing a thing and taking it in one’s hand. It is only found
in the way of mysticism. (17)
Ghazali clearly separated ‘intellectual faith’, which he could teach, from an ‘immediate faith’ or a distinctive and personal spirituality based on mysticism which
he sought, as Macdonald showed, throughout his life.
Partial support for my
thesis that Ghazali was a teacher of mysticism but not
a mystic himself was given by Shaykh Abdal Qadir al-Murabit, although in a violent way and possibly without
respecting Ghazali’s
genius. He attacks the popularly held view of Ghazali
as the reconciler between Sunni Orthodoxy and Sufi belief and practice in the
following way:
This split – between dhahir
(or zahir) and batin – this license to make half-men -
outward legalists or inward experientialists – had come
from al-Ghazali and his notorious Ihya.
Indeed his reputation (that he brought together the Sufis and the legalists)
rests on the very opposite of his accomplishment ... he surgically separated
the body from its life support (18).
al-Murabit is incorrect. In Ihya Ghazali was very careful to define zahir
and batin (cf. Chapter Three) and went to extreme
lengths to ensure that both Sunni Orthodoxy and Sufism could regard each other
with respect. Ghazali’s
spirituality may only be thought of as being surgical because he examined Islam
in the greatest detail. And to assert that this form of examination ruined
Islam, as al-Murabit effectively does, is submitted
to be misleading.
Annemarie Schimmel
by contrast regards Ghazali as a theologian rather
than a mystic and offers evidence to support my thesis that Ghazali
was a teacher of mysticism. Schimmel also felt that
he had a great ability to teach the sacred law. Finally, her argument followed
to its logical conclusion, which is that the law is conveyed by God to the
Prophet, takes readers back to Macdonald’s summary and the
conclusion on the nature of Ghazali’s examination of the Sunna
in his final years:
All that Ghazali teaches...is
only to help man to live a life in accordance with the sacred law, not by
clinging exclusively to its letter, but by an understanding of its deeper
meaning, by sanctification of the whole life, so that he is ready for the
meeting with his Lord at any moment.…This teaching - a marriage between mysticism
and law - has made Ghazali the most influential
theologian of medieval Islam (19).
This in a deep sense is
what Islamic mysticism is. It is the spiritual understanding brought to bear on
the Five Pillars of Islam (cf. Chapter Three) especially the second (Salat), which follows on immediately after the
Affirmation (Shahadah).
Muhtar Holland sees a unifying trend in Ghazali's role, and argues that Ihya
should be read in an open sense to make it a book for living in many dimensions
(20).
Where lies the truth? ...
(Without) implying that all of al-Ghazali's teachings
are in the same vein, that what is presented here indeed invites us to live a
life in accordance with the Shari’a, with heart fully
alive and present, so that it remains whole and healthy, pure and free from
evil, worthy of going to its Lord, without any shame or disgrace upon it. It
helps us to interiorise the externals.... That our personality and life have
many dimensions (outward and inward) can hardly be disputed.... The crux of the
issue is what they are, where they should be placed, how they should be related
to each other (21).
In Chapter Three I
discuss in detail Holland’s
suggestion of zahir and batin
dimensions in worship with the object of showing that in the contemporary age,
or in any other period of history, batin is
always special and a constantly available ‘non-historical’ dimension (cf. Chapter One) when humankind is with God. I also argue
that the two cannot, in a rational sense, be related to each other. Further
mysticism by its very nature also demands a detachment from any conscious
attempt to consistently, and logically, justify the
mystical experience, although many mystics have tried to write about their
experiences. Or put another way, some mystics in giving up themselves
completely to union with Ultimate Reality will either, as Falk stated, be
unable to describe the experience or, like Rumi in
writing Masnavi, will not be constrained by
the need for consistency.
In taking forward the
discussion of the contrast between Ghazali and Rumi it is explained that both gave accounts of the famous story
about the Greek and Chinese artists. They are included in Ihya
(Book XX1, The Wonders of the Heart), and Rumi’s Masnavi.
Also another version of the story was written by Ghazali
in Kimiya. First Rumi’s account
:
The Chinese and the Greeks disputed before the Sultan
which of them were better painters; and, in order to
settle the dispute, the Sultan allotted to each a house to be painted by them.
The Chinese procured all kinds of paints, and coloured their house in the most
elaborate way. The Greeks on the other hand, used no colours at all, but
contented themselves with cleansing the walls of their house from all filth,
and burnishing them till they were as clear and bright as the heavens. When the
two houses were offered to the Sultan's inspection, that painted by the Chinese
was much admired; but the Greek house carried off the palm, as all the colours
of the other houses were reflected on its walls with an endless variety of
shades and hues (22).
Rumi writes the story without
introduction or explanation. And like the majority of Sufi masters he leaves batin meaning to the heart (qalb)
of the adept to employ on his spiritual journey from zahir
to batin (23). The Sufi adept may ask his
master for an explanation of a parable but is more likely to be given another
even more baffling reply. The symbolic meanings in the story of the artists are
also considerable and complex.
Ghazali in contrast to Rumi, and despite his earlier scepticism of Platonic and Aristotelian
elements, places the account within a qualified and logical context. But like Rumi he undoubtedly intended its meanings for the
non-rational qalb. As a teacher of mysticism Ghazali in the style of a Sufi Master first addresses the
conscious, rational, and reasoning mind.
As the English title of
Book XX1 of Ihya would suggest – The Wonders of the Heart - the heart has its very important
meaning in Sufi mysticism. Ghazali said, ‘(that it) acts as the reality of man who perceives, knows, and intuits
(24)’. He also, at least consciously, tries to emphasize a
distance from any Hellenistic influence by making the Byzantines only scholars
and not Sufis:
The heart is like a pool filled either from rivers or from
underground springs. The first represent knowledge derived by means of
deduction from the evidence of the world, while the second is the inner
spiritual knowledge. One side of a portico was once decorated by craftsmen from
Ghazali was very much attracted to the
Sufi idea of the qalb being the repository for
secret and hidden meanings. It is argued that the heart was a logical place in
the body to perceive what was normally illogical and beyond human cognition. Or
as he wrote, for ‘the reality of (a person who)
perceives, knows, and intuits (26)’. And if Ghazali is
not to be regarded as a mystic it is not a very large step to regard him
instead as a Gnostic who is able to realise, and keep only for a disclosure to
chosen intellectuals, hidden secrets and mysteries which do not come from
experiential mysticism. The ability for the few to reach out from within
themselves to give a meaning and comprehension to otherwise unfathomable
questions lay at the very centre of Ghazali’s search for a personal
spirituality founded on mysticism.
Gnosticism further
enabled Ghazali to go a little closer than the
average Muslim devotee in attempting to understand the nature of Ultimate
Reality. But I also argue that Ghazali was frustrated
by not being able to immediately define the knowledge emanating within him.
Additionally the Gnostic spiritual journeys also frightened him in a very real
sense because as an orthodox Muslim theologian Ghazali,
as I have already illustrated, held to the belief that God can only be
comprehended in strict accordance to the Shari’a. If Ghazali did go beyond the religious law in a quest to
elucidate what was within his own heart he would have been guilty of indulging
in a form of ‘mystical adventurism’, or even haram. As
I have argued above, and below with reference to Mishkat,
Ghazali held back from anything which could not be
explained outside the Shari’a.
Ghazali’s
account of the decorators especially enhances the suggestion of an inherent
Gnostic tendency. There is a veil between the two groups of workers which is
lifted, but by whom? Ghazali did not explain. There
is light or brilliance reflected as from a mirror. Again Ghazali
did not say who put the mirror in place or gave the source of the light. Rumi by contrast with Ghazali
gives a sultan responsibility for commissioning the work. But the story also
has a Sufi influence if as Claud Field advances in
the Introduction to his translation of Kimiya,
the story of the artists illustrated the favourite Sufi tenet ‘that the heart must be kept pure and calm as an unspotted mirror (27)’.
Taking a less charitable
view I submit that Ghazali’s
account in Ihya appears to show that he is
fighting against a power which by the time he is writing his magnum opus
has completely overwhelmed him. It is not in the style of Ghazali’s personal methodology to
leave out rational explanations for actions such as naming the remover the
curtain and the installer of the mirror.
Two other suggestions for
this lapse are offered. First, that he was still suffering from ‘a psychosomatic illness (which had) impeded his academic career (28)’. Or a
second reason, that the bulk of his work including Ihya
has been translated from copies and not all of them are accurate transcriptions.
Accordingly allowing for my personal admiration of Ghazali
I like to think that one of these – probably the second – caused an apparent lapse in his usually comprehensive style. In Kimiya Ghazali
writes very clearly about distinguishing between the rational state and sleep
and the self after death. He does not hesitate, as in the Ihya account, to
place the mirror with the heart and say that We (or God) have/has removed the
veil:
Now the rational soul in man abounds in marvels, both of
knowledge and power. By means of it he masters arts and sciences, can pass in a
flash from earth to heaven and back again, can map out the skies and measure
the distances between the stars.... His heart is then like a mirror which
reflects what is pictured in the Tablet of Fate. But, even in sleep, thoughts
of worldly things dull this mirror, so that impressions it receives are not
clear. After death, however, such thoughts vanish and things are seen in their
naked reality, and the saying of the Qur’an is fulfilled: ‘We have stripped the veil off thee and thy sight today is keen (29)’.
Ghazali’s ‘neo-Gnostic-pietism’, as I will term an aspect of his
spirituality, reached an extreme form in Mishkat
where he does write clearly and logically. There is again the appearance of a
veil and light but this time both have strong pious or devotional rather than
mystical foundations to underpin a tract in which Ghazali
appears to try to cross the divide between being a mystic and being a teacher
of mysticism. First the veil which was stated by him to be based on the Muslim Veil’s
Tradition:
Allah hath Seventy Thousand Veils of Light and Darkness:
were He to withdraw their curtain, then would the splendours of His Aspect
surely consume everyone who apprehended Him with his sight (30).
Second the use of light
when Ghazali employed strictly Qur’an based reasoning:
God is the light of the heavens and the earth. His light
may be compared to a niche that enshrines a lamp, the lamp within a crystal of
star-like brilliance. It is lit from a blessed olive tree neither eastern nor
western. Its very oil would almost shine forth, though no fire touched it.
Light upon light; God guides to His light whom he will – S.24.35 (31)
But in spite of having a
strong pietistic based argument Ghazali is
consistently justifying himself as if he is presenting students, as evidenced
by the methodology of Munqidh, with a well
articulated, reasoned, logical, metaphorical and totally comprehensible lesson.
And as such he fails to convince readers that he is a mystic leading to a form
of ‘neo-Gnostic-pietism’. Zaehner
(above) did not hesitate to quote Ibn Tufayl’s
view about Ghazali’s
inconsistency, which is certainly found to be correct in Ghazali’s symbolism of the veil
and mirror. Shah also selects the explanation of the Veil’s Tradition to be the most
interesting part of Mishkat ‘for the study of Ghazali's inner life,
thought, and convictions (32)’.
Additionally Shah
regarded the explanation as Neoplatonic and Gnostic
which ‘lent itself completely to the Gnostic and
theosophical mode of thought (of, amongst others, Ghazali)
which so soon invaded Muslim Sufism, after its less successful effort to
capture orthodox Christianity (33)’. And because of Shah’s
two reasons it is argued that Ghazali wrote of a God
who is supreme over the utmost scientific and logical rationale of man. But Mishkat even if it failed as a book on mysticism is
still a very definite Muslim devotional text based on strict Sunni orthodoxy in
which man as the slave (abd) of Allah
approaches as far as he dares to his Lord.
Shah also offers evidence
for the argument that Ghazali was the supreme
academic who tried to comprehend the nature of reality, seen and unseen, or the
Beatific Vision. He writes that when reading Mishkat
we have ‘the sensation of overhearing Ghazali
as he speaks aloud to his own soul, or to a circle of initiates (34)’. Shah’s
assessment is suggested to be very important in reaching an opinion about Ghazali’s
personal spirituality because once again Ghazali is shown
as a superb teacher of mysticism.
Further Ghazali’s
own Gnosticism led him metaphorically to the veil beyond which God’s
light burning in its niche is blinding. Ghazali is
himself, in a mystical sense, blinded, causing him to fall back from the light
and for the rest of his life only able to write of other men who also see a
veil between themselves and God, but never about the unveiled God. In Mishkat seekers after mystical truths are divided
into four groups or classes ranging from those veiled in pure darkness
(Atheists) to the unveiled who attain past pure light.
Shah further suggests
that Ghazali was in the third grade which also
included Sufi philosophers ‘whose darkness originates in the
discursive intelligence’ or who are ‘veiled by pure light (35)’. But Shah’s opinion must though be
qualified as Ghazali was spiritually ‘purer’ than the philosophers whom he
denigrated in both Munqidh and Tahafut:
There are various schools of philosophers, I perceived,
and their sciences are divided into various branches; but throughout their
numerous schools they suffer from the defect of being infidels and irreligious
men, even although of the different groups of philosophers - older and most
ancient, earlier and more recent - some are much closer to the truth than
others (36).
Ghazali recognized his own spiritual
limitations in Mishkat, in the same way as he
had done in Munqidh, and effectively ends the
text with an apology although the translation cannot be fully relied upon to
correctly impart his actual words. Rather than being a mystic, it is submitted
that in Mishkat Ghazali
again shows himself instead to be a brilliant Muslim theologian who had sought
to answer within a purely Islamic context the reason for creation. Ghazali was not a Neoplatonist like
Avicenna and Averroes
because of his wish to give a Muslim explanation within the teachings of the Shari’a
for the existence of God, rather than to adapt Greek philosophy in order to
support Islamic reasoning, apologetics, and ethics. But in trying to explain
the nature of God Ghazali took on a task which,
through no lack of effort, he was not qualified. Further in Mishkat
Ghazali admits that for a total sight or appreciation
about the nature of Ultimate Reality he was not amongst those who:
(In) their upward Progress and Ascent...climb step by step
the stages we have described; neither did their ascension cost them any length
of time; but with their first flight they attained to the knowledge of the
Holiness and the confession that (God’s) sovereignty transcends everything that it
must be confessed to transcend. They were overcome at the very first by the
knowledge which overcame the rest at the very last. The onset of God's epiphany
came upon them with one rush (37).
Ghazali was clearly out of his spiritual
depth in Mishkat and the text ends not only
with Ghazali’s
apology but also in a metaphorical sense of drowning:
May not my suggestion be, then,
that you ask forgiveness for me for anything wherein my pen has erred, or my
foot has slipped? For ‘tis a hazardous thing to plunge into
the fathomless sea of the divine mysteries; and hard, hard it is to essay the
discovery of the Lights Supernal that are beyond the Veil (38).
But if my thesis is
correct that Ghazali failed in Miskat
to adequately define Muslim mysticism Smith felt, as I quoted at the beginning
of this chapter, that instead he was a teacher of a ‘reasoned type of mysticism’ which was:
(That) of a scholar, a philosopher and a theologian…able
to appeal to the intellectual type of among his readers, while his sincerity
and the use which he makes of familiar illustrations made it equally
comprehensible to the common folk (39).
Smith’s
opinions of Ghazali’s
teaching, which is quoted below, also appears to offer partial support for my
own view about the nature of Ihya, as a book
to be read at different levels. Also taking much the same line as Schact and Bosworth, Smith’s
views also seem to concur with my suggested second element of Ghazali’s
spirituality, the reconciliation of orthodox Islam with Sufism. Smith
essentially sought to clarify Ghazali’s theosophical teaching which, she argues,
emerges in Mishkat within the context of the
soul rising to the Godhead.
Smith, though, appears to
argue that Sufis have another approach to Islam’s inner meaning other than
ones found in the Qur’an. This is not true because Sufis
indisputably believe that only by the guidance of the Holy Scripture can they
attain to the path of true godliness. But she is, I submit, correct in stating
that:
It was (Ghazali’s) great aim to reconcile orthodox Islam with
the mystical teaching which was widespread in his time,
and to this he consecrated his life and his time, and he succeeded in giving
Sufism an assured place within orthodox Islam (40).
But I cannot agree with Smith
when she writes:
Professedly based upon orthodox Islamic doctrine, his
mysticism yet goes far beyond it and is permeated by another spirit than that
of the Qur’an
and the Sunna. So, too, he has passed far
beyond the ascetic quietism of the earlier Sufis
whose sayings he quotes (41)
I have found no evidence
to show that Ghazali’s
mysticism was other than that of an orthodox Muslim who held to the essentially
eschatological teachings of the Shari’a. This was also the
very reason as I have already written above why he sought a pure Islamic
meaning for the existence of God. Further, as I illustrate in Chapter Four when
discussing Ghazali’s
influence in the current age, anything other than the orthodox Muslim’s
lifestyle choice in obedience to the Sacred Law would have been complete
anathema to Ghazali. Second, while Smith is basically
correct in her assessment of Ghazali’s most important texts (42) she appears to
mistake their differing styles for something that Ghazali
never intended; that he was influenced by a spiritual force other than the Shari’a.
Ghazali in showing, as Smith correctly claims, ‘that it is the mystical element in religion which is the most vital
(42A)’
wrote, I submit, with the intention of making it clear to all, both orthodox
and Sufi, that the Islamic religious way of life was a reality. And this
reality was the living out of the Shari’a in his daily life.
Ghazali has certainly been an extremely
popular medieval scholar whose works have been enthusiastically studied both in
But more important for
proving my thesis, the re-discovery of the spiritual insight into the nature of
Ultimate Reality within a Eastern context, including the work of Ghazali, excited Western clergymen and other religious
workers who had chosen to work in the East. And they were later to be at the
forefront in translating Ghazali’s works, providing commentaries, and bringing
him to the attention of Western institutes of learning. As a result learned
associations such as The Royal Asiatic Society and The American Oriental
Society were founded and papers published by JRAS and JAOS are still required reading
by serious students of Ghazali’s
life and work.
Edwin Calverley’s Worship In Islam :
being a translation with commentary of Al-Ghazzali's
Book of The Ihya on the worship, and first
published by The Christian Literature Society for India in 1925, is a very good
example of the interest aroused by Christian missionaries who went to India and
elsewhere. Calverley’s
text, like JRAS and JAOS papers, continues to be included as a primary text for
studying Ghazali in a number of bibliographies. But
it was not because Calverley or, far more
significantly, D.B. Macdonald who wrote the seminal essay ‘The Life of al-Ghazzali, with especial
reference to his religious experiences and opinions’ were clergymen. Rather as undergraduates, together with the majority
of Western officials in the Indian Civil Service, they had been educated in the
traditional Oxbridge style which included classics. And possibly without having
initially fully comprehended the fundamental nature and influence of classics Calverley, Macdonald and others (44) could take forward
with fresh vigour subjects, such as metaphysics, which had once appeared turgid
and irrelevant.
I further argue that
Christian clergymen, coming into contact with Islam and its origins, through
the works of Ghazali and other Muslims, saw from a
different angle familiar philosophical arguments and principles. These possibly
also aroused in them the same stimulation felt by Aquinas, and St. Francis
Assisi (cf. Chapter One). Shah wrote:
In less than fifty years after their composition, (Ghazali’s)
books were exerting a tremendous influence upon...Christian scholasticism. He
not only anticipated in a remarkable fashion John Bunyan’s Holy War and Pilgrim’s
Progress but influenced Ramon Marti, Thomas Aquinas and Pascal, as well as
numerous more modern thinkers. (45).
Shah also suggested
another reason for Ghazali’s
influence throughout the ages and why Ghazali had
influenced the majority of Sunni Orthodox leaders:
Ghazali, by using the Sufi concept that
all religious and psychological activity is essentially of the same nature,
representing a continuing tradition which can be furthered by certain
individuals, arrived at the position where he could represent both the mystical
and the theological worlds perfectly within their own contexts. In so doing, he
was able to demonstrate the inner reality of religion and philosophy in such a
way as to appeal to followers of any creed (46).
In having gained a vast
amount of knowledge in spiritual matters Ghazali’s reconciliation of
orthodox Sunni with Sufism was, to many scholars, self-evident by the sheer
magnitude of original thought which he contributed to later generations of
Muslims (cf. Chapter Four).
Summarising the reasons
for the reconciliation, I submit that Ghazali was
able to accomplish it by way of his stature as an intellectual genius, although
it is very doubtful if it would have been possible without the benefits of his
experiential retreat into the Sufi way of life. Or put another way Ghazali’s
influence and character which I would argue played such an important role in
the reconciliation of orthodox Muslim and Sufi, was the outward manifestation
of his personal spirituality. By living the Sufi life Ghazali
gained a fuller, or holistic, knowledge of Islam which he could not have
received by solely remaining as a professor at Nizamiyya.
Ghazali’s
achievement was not historical in the strictest sense of the term because his
readers cannot contextualize him within a limited
period of time to appreciate all Ghazali achieved. He
investigated supposed truths, and came up with solutions, which need constant
re-evaluation in the light of ongoing research into all the subjects Ghazali covered. If this opinion is not correct then arguably
my dissertation could not link his name with such themes as ethics and the
importance of the ummah which are just as
valid for Islam today as in the eleventh and twelve centuries CE.
Further, Ghazali was not simply a religious man and teacher in
writing alone but also in action. He was especially honest in the way he dealt
with adversaries and those who did not agree with him, often drawing criticism
for this from his own orthodox coreligionists (47). An example is the open way
he dealt both with the Batinites (or Ta’limites),
and the Neoplantonic philosophers. Ghazali did not rush in to immediately demolish the
arguments of either but allowed each of the groups to clearly present their
case. Afterwards he spent considerable time in weighing the submitted
arguments. As McCarthy stated, Ghazali ‘was not the type of integrist who would shut
the adversary’s
mouth by denying him (the) freedom to speak on the pretext that error has no
rights (48)’.
But above all else Ghazali was a pious man in his observation of Islam’s
Five Pillars of Faith (Arkan) and in
encouraging others to do the same. I have advanced in this chapter an outer
reason for his spirituality (i.e. the reconciliation) but as an argued inner
reason I submit that Ghazali was also the authority
for the study of the batin dimension of Islam.
Together with the outer (zahir) aspect of
worship Ghazali’s
guidance for the observation of both dimensions is examined, with reference to
Arkan, in the following chapter.
Notes
48. ibid.
(The Winchester Al-Ghazali Site was originally called ‘Peter
Greenland’s Web Site’ published
on BT Internet in 1999)