Mystics and Saints of Islam Part 7

"It descended upon thee from the lofty station (heaven); a dove rare and uncaptured, curtained from the eyes of every knower yet which is manifest and never wore a veil.[42] It came to thee unwillingly and it may perhaps be unwilling to abandon thee although it complain of its sufferings. It resisted at first, and would not become familiar, but when it was in friendly union with the body, it grew accustomed to the desert waste (the world). Methinks it then forgot the recollections of the protected park (heaven), and of those abodes which it left with regret; but when in its spiral descent it arrived at the centre of its circle in the terrestrial world, it was united to the infirmity of the material body and remained among the monuments and prostrate ruins. It now remembers the protected park and weepeth with tears which flow and cease not till the time for setting out towards the protected park approacheth; till the instant of departure for the vast plain (the spiritual world) draweth nigh. It then cooeth on the top of a lofty pinnacle (for knowledge can exalt all who were not exalted) and it has come to the knowledge of every mystery in the universe, while yet its tattered vest hath not been mended.[43]

"Its descent was predestined so that it might hear what it had not heard, else why did it descend from the high and lofty heaven to the depth of the low and humble earth? If G.o.d sent it down by a decision of His will, His motive is concealed from the intelligence of man. Why did it descend to be withheld from the exalted summit of heaven by the coa.r.s.e net of the body, and to be detained in a cage? It is like a flash of lightning shining over the meadow, and disappearing as if it had never gleamed."

Although Avicenna's reputation in the Muhammedan world has always been high, his mystical treatises have generally been regarded as heretical, and many have only been preserved in Hebrew translations. He himself says explicitly that he only intended them for his most intimate disciples, and forbade them to be communicated to the mult.i.tude. For his own part, he conformed to the religious law and customs. The celebrated contemporary Sufi Abou Said Abi'l Khair having asked his opinion regarding the custom of praying for the dead, and visiting their tombs, he answers thus:

"G.o.d the Unique Being and Source of all that exists--angels, intelligences exempt from connection with matter, souls united to matter, elements in all their varied developments--animal, vegetable and mineral, inspires His whole creation, and His omniscience embraces all.

His influence in the first place acts immediately on the Active Intelligences and angels, who in their turn act on souls which in their turn act on our sublunary world. If there were not h.o.m.ogeneity of substance between celestial and terrestrial souls and likeness between the macrocosm of the universe, and the microcosm of man, the knowledge of G.o.d would be impossible for us, as the Prophet himself hath said, 'He who knows himself, knows G.o.d.' All creation, whose parts are linked together, is subject to influences which all derive from a single source--G.o.d. Terrestrial souls differ widely in rank; the highest are endowed with gifts of prophecy, and perfected so far that they attain the sphere of pure intelligence. A soul of this kind entering after death into eternal beat.i.tude, shared with its peers, continues along with them to exercise a certain influence on terrestrial souls. The object of prayer for the dead and visiting their tombs is to beg for the help of those pure souls, a help which is realised sometimes in a material, sometimes in a spiritual way. The former kind of help may be compared with the direction which the body receives from the brain; spiritual a.s.sistance is realised by the purification of the mind from every thought but that of G.o.d."

Avicenna, after his liberation from imprisonment by Ala-ed-Dowla, being anxious to quit Hamadan, left the city secretly with his brother, his disciple Joujani and two servants, all five disguised as Sufis. After a painful journey they reached Ispahan, where they were received in a friendly manner by Ala-ed-Dowla. Avicenna here continued to hold philosophical discussions as he had done at Hamadan. At Ispahan he also composed two of his most important works, the "Shifa" and the "Najat,"

treating of medicine. Later on he followed Ala-ed-Dowla to Bagdad, but on the way was seized with a gastric malady, accompanied by an attack of apoplexy. He recovered at the time, but not long afterwards the sickness returned, and he died at the age of 57, A.D. 1037.

In his Literary History of Persia (vo. II., p. 108) Professor Browne points out that one of the most celebrated stanzas in Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam was really composed by Avicenna:--

"Up from earth's centre through the Seventh Gate I rose, and on the throne of Saturn sate, And many a knot unravelled by the road, But not the master-knot of human fate."

Another interesting link between the two philosophers is supplied by the fact, mentioned by Professor Browne, that a few days before his death Omar Khayyam was reading in the "Shifa" of Avicenna the chapter treating of the One and of the Many.

[35] The bad companions of man which hinder his intellectual progress are unregulated imagination, irascibility and carnal concupiscence. Death alone delivers him and transports him to the celestial country of true repose.

[36] The flowing waters signify logic and metaphysics, which help man to attain to the unknown. Because they provoke argument and discussion, they are called "flowing." The stagnant pool signifies positive science, which is the basis of philosophy. The man who is refreshed by the flowing waters of philosophy will grasp the scheme of the universe without losing himself in the confusion of details; he will scale the heights of science (the encircling mountain of Kaf) without being held back by worldly entanglements.

[37] The pole surrounded by darkness signifies the soul of man which, though intended to govern the body, is without any power to attain truth unless guided by divine grace, but then it will emerge into the full light and attain the end for which it was created.

[38] Koran, c. 18, v. 84. The "miry sea" indicates _Matter_ stirred into life by the setting sun (Form), entering at every moment into union with some new form, birth and death and ebb and flow proceeding in ceaseless change.

[39] In the kingdom of _Form_ at first nothing is found but the four elements mingled with each other, developed successively through mineral, vegetable and animal stages. After the last is found pure intellect struggling with powerful opponents, that is to say, the various human faculties. "The flying horn" signifies imaginitive faculties; "the marching horn" the pa.s.sions, the fierce animal representing irascibility, and the gross one, concupiscence. "The flying horn," irregulated imagination, is in need of constant supervision by the human soul. The watchman is the perceptive faculty, which, gathering the various impressions of the five senses, conveys them to the King, the human soul.

[40] c.f. the Logos of Philo.

[41] c.f. Lowell

"Perhaps the _longing_ to be so, Helps make the soul immortal."

[42] The existence of the soul, though not manifest to the senses, is yet too manifest to leave any doubt.

[43] The tattered vest of the soul or the body destroyed by death is not mended till the day of resurrection; and yet the soul is in heaven and in the enjoyment of all knowledge.

CHAPTER XI

AL GHAZZALI (AD 1058--1111)

Al Ghazzali is one of the deepest thinkers, greatest theologians and profoundest moralists of Islam. In all Muhammadan lands he is celebrated both as an apologist of orthodoxy and a warm advocate of Sufi mysticism.

Intimately acquainted with all the learning of his time, he was not only one of the numerous oriental philosophers who traverse every sphere of intellectual activity, but one of those rarer minds whose originality is not crushed by their learning. He was imbued with a sacred enthusiasm for the triumph of his faith, and his whole life was dedicated to one purpose--the defence of Islam. As Browning says, "he made life consist of one idea." His full name was Abu Hamid Muhammad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Ahmed Algazzali, and he was born at Tus in Khora.s.san, 1058 A.D., where a generation earlier Firdausi, the author of the Shahnama, had died. Tus was already famous for learning and culture, and later on Ghazzali's own fame caused the town to become a centre of pilgrimage for pious Moslems, till it was laid in ruins by Genghis Khan, a century after Ghazzali's death.

His birth occurred at a time when the power of the Caliphs had been long on the wane, and the Turkish militia, like the Pretorian guards of the later Roman empire, were the real dispensers of power. While the political unity of Islam had been broken up into a number of mutually-opposed states, Islam itself was threatened by dangers from without. In Spain, Alphonso II. had begun to press the Moors hardly.

Before Ghazzali was forty, Peter the Hermit was preaching the First Crusade, and during his lifetime Baldwin of Bouillon was proclaimed King in the Mosque of Omar at Jerusalem. But more serious than these outer foes was the great schism which had split Islam into the two great opposing parties of Shiahs and Sunnis--a schism which was embittered and complicated by the struggle of rival dynasties for power. While the Shiites prevailed in Egypt and Persia, the Turks and Seljuks were Sunnis. In Bagdad the seat of the Caliphate during the reign of Al Kasim, when Ghazzali was a youth, fatal encounters between the two contending factions were of daily occurrence. Ghazzali's native city was Shiite, and not till Khora.s.san had been conquered by the Ghaznevides and Seljuks did Sunni teaching prevail there. Yet, however bitterly Shiahs and Sunnis might be opposed to each other, they both counted as orthodox and were agreed as to the fundamental principles of Islam, nor did their strife endanger the religion itself. But besides the two great parties of Shiahs and Sunnis, a ma.s.s of heretical sects, cla.s.sed under the common name of Mutazilites, had sprung up within Islam. These heretics had studied Aristotle and Greek philosophy in Arabic translations, and for a long time all that the orthodox could do was to thunder anathemas at them and denounce all speculation. But at last Al Asha'ari, himself formerly a Mutazilite, renounced his heresies, and sought to defend orthodoxy and confute the heretics on philosophical grounds.

The Mutazilites had cultivated the study of philosophy with especial zeal, and therefore the struggle with them was a fierce one, complicated as it was by political animosity. The most dangerous sect of all was that of the Ismailians and a.s.sa.s.sins, with their doctrine of a hidden Imam or leader. In some of his works Ghazzali gives special attention to confuting these.

The whole aspect and condition of Islam during Ghazzali's lifetime was such as to cause a devout Moslem deep distress and anxiety. It is therefore natural that a man who, after long and earnest search, had found rest and peace in Islam, should have bent all the energies of his enthusiastic character to oppose these destructive forces to the utmost.

Ghazzali is never weary of exhorting those who have no faith to study the Muhammadan revelation; he defends religion in a philosophical way against the philosophers, refutes the heretics, chides the laxity of the Shiites, defends the austere principles of the Schafiites, champions orthodoxy, and finally, by word and example, urges his readers towards the mysticism and asceticism of the Sufis. His numerous writings are all directed to one or another of these objects. As a recognition of his endeavours, the Muhammadan Church has conferred upon him the t.i.tle of "Hujjat al Islam," "the witness of Islam."

It is a fact worthy of notice that when the power of the Caliphs was shattered and Muhammadanism, already in a state of decline, precisely at that period theology and all other sciences were flourishing.

The reason of this may be found in the fact that nearly all the Muhammadan dynasties, however much they might be opposed to each other, zealously favoured literature and science. Besides this, the more earnest spirits, weary of the political confusions of the time, devoted themselves all the more fervently to cultivating the inner life, in which they sought compensation and refuge from outward distractions.

Ghazzali was the most striking figure among all these. Of his early history not much is known. His father is said to have died while he was a child, but he had a brother Abu'l Futuh Ahmed Alghazzali, who was in great favour with the Sultan Malik Shah, and owing to his zeal for Islam had won the t.i.tle of "Glory of the Faith." From the similarity of their pursuits we gather that the relationship between the brothers must have been a close one. Ibn Khalliqan the historian informs us that later on Abu'l Futuh succeeded his brother as professor, and abridged his most important literary work, "The Revival of the religious sciences." While still a youth, Ghazzali studied theology at Jorjan under the Imam Abu Nasr Ismail. On his return journey from Jorjan to Tus, he is said to have fallen into the hands of robbers. They took from him all that he had, but at his earnest entreaty returned to him his note books, at the same time telling him that he could know nothing really, if he could be so easily deprived of his knowledge. This made him resolve for the future to learn everything by heart.

Later on Ghazzali studied at Nishapur under the celebrated Abu'l-Maali.

Here also at the court of the Vizier Nizam-ul-mulk (the school-fellow of Omar Khayyam) he took a distinguished part in those discussions on poetry and philosophy which were so popular in the East. In 1091 Nizam-ul-mulk appointed him to the professorship of Jurisprudence in the Nizamiya College at Bagdad, which he had founded twenty-four years previously. Here Ghazzali lectured to a cla.s.s of 300 students. In his leisure hours, as he informs us in his brief autobiography, "Al munkidh min uddallal" ("The Deliverance from error") he busied himself with the study of philosophy. He also received a commission from the Caliph to refute the doctrine of the Ismailians.

In the first chapter it has been mentioned how a deep-seated unrest and thirst for peace led him, after many mental struggles, to throw up his appointment and betake himself to religious seclusion at Damascus and Jerusalem. This, together with his pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, lasted nearly ten years. Ibn Khalliqan informs us that he also went to Egypt and stayed some time in Alexandria. Here the fame of the Almoravide leader in Spain, Yusuf ibn Tashifin, is said to have reached Ghazzali, and to have made him think of journeying thither. This prince had begun those campaigns in Spain against the Cid and other Christian leaders which were destined to add Andalusia to his Moroccan dominions.

By these victories in the West he had to some extent retrieved the decline of Islam in the East. It is natural to suppose that the enthusiastic Ghazzali would gladly have met with this champion of Muhammadanism. The news of Yusuf ibn Tashifin's death in 1106 seems to have made him renounce his intention of proceeding to Spain.

The realisation of Ghazzali's wish to withdraw from public affairs and give himself to a contemplative life was now interrupted. The requests of his children and other family affairs, of which we have no exact information, caused him to return home. Besides this, the continued progress of the Ismailians, the spread of irreligious doctrines, and the increasing religious indifference of the ma.s.ses not only filled Ghazzali and his Sufi friends with profound grief but determined them to stem the evil with the whole force of their philosophy, the ardour of vital conviction, and the authority of n.o.ble example.

In addition, the governor of Nishapur, Muhammad Ibn Malikshah, had asked Ghazzali to proceed thither in order to help to bring about a religious revival. Thus, after an absence of ten years, he returned to Nishapur to resume his post as teacher. But his activity at this period was directed to a different aim than that of the former one. Regarding the contrast he speaks like a Muhammadan Thomas a Kempis. Formerly, he says, he taught a knowledge which won him fame and glory, but now he taught a knowledge which brought just the opposite. Inspired with an earnest desire for the spiritual progress of his co-religionists and himself, and convinced that he was called to this task by G.o.d, he prays the Almighty to lead and enlighten him, so that he may do the same for others.

How long Ghazzali occupied his professorship at Nishapur the second time is not precisely clear. Only five or six years of his life remained, and towards the close he again resigned his post to give himself up to a life of contemplation to which he felt irresistibly drawn, in his native city of Tus. Here he spent the rest of days in devotional exercises in friendly intercourses with other Sufis and in religious instruction of the young. He died, devout as he lived, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, A.D. 1111. He founded a convent for Sufis and a professorship of jurisprudence.

Ghazzali's activity as an author during his relatively short life was enormous. According to the literary historians, he is the author of ninety-nine different works. These are not all known to us, but there are existing in the West a considerable quant.i.ty of them, some in Latin and Hebrew translations, as he was much studied by the Jews in the Middle Ages. A writer in the Jewish Encyclopaedia says (_sub. voc._), "From his 'Makasid-al-Falasifah' in which he expounded logic, physics and metaphysics according to Aristotle, many a Jewish student of philosophy derived much accurate information. It was not, however, through his attacks on philosophy that Ghazzali's authority was established among Jewish thinkers of the middle ages, but through the ethical teachings in his theological works. He approached the ethical idea of Judaism to such an extent that some supposed him to be actually drifting in that direction."

Although Ghazzali was a Persian, both by race and birthplace, most of his works are composed in Arabic, that language being as familiar to Muhammadan theologians as Latin to those of Europe in the Middle Ages.

One of his most important works is the "Tahafut al falasifah,"

"Destruction of the Philosophers," which the great Averroes endeavoured to refute. Somewhat in the style of Mr. Balfour's "Defence of philosophic doubt," Ghazzali attempts to erect his religious system on a basis of scepticism. He denies causation as thoroughly as Hume, but a.s.serts that the divine mind has ordained that certain phenomena shall always occur in a certain order, and that philosophy without faith is powerless to discover G.o.d. Although chiefly famous in the West as a philosopher, he himself would probably have repudiated the t.i.tle. He tells us that his object in studying philosophy was to confute the philosophers. His true element was not philosophy but religion, with which his whole being was penetrated, and which met all his spiritual needs. Even in his most heterogeneous studies he always kept before him one aim--the confirmation, spread, and glorification of Islam.

It is true that more than one of his contemporaries accused him of hypocrisy, saying that he had an esoteric doctrine for himself and his private circle of friends, and an exoteric for the vulgar. His Sufistic leanings might lend some colour to this accusation, it being a well-known Sufi habit to cloak their teaching under a metaphorical veil, wine representing the love of G.o.d, etc., as in Hafiz and Omar Khayyam.

Against this must be set the fact that in his autobiography written near the close of his life, he constantly refers to his former works, which he would hardly have done had he been conscious of any striking discrepancy between his earlier and his later teaching. There is no reason to doubt his previously-quoted statement that he "studied philosophy in order to refute the philosophers."

He was, at any rate, intensely indignant at having his orthodoxy impugned, as appears from a striking story narrated by the Arabic historian Abu'l Feda. He tells us that Ghazzali's most important work, "The revival of the religious sciences" had created a great sensation when it reached Cordova. The Muhammadan theologians of Spain were rigidly orthodox, and accused the work of being tainted by heresy. They represented to the Caliph Ali Ibn Yusuf that not only this but all Ghazzali's other works which circulated in Andalusia should be collected and burnt, which was accordingly done. Not long after, a young Berber from North Africa named Ibn Tumart wandered to Bagdad, where he attended Ghazzali's lectures. Ghazzali noticing the foreigner, accosted him, and inquired regarding religious affairs in the West, and how his works had been received there. To his horror he learned that they had been condemned as heretical and committed to the flames by order of the Almoravide Caliph Ali. Upon this, Ghazzali, raising his hands towards heaven, exclaimed in a voice shaken with emotion, "O G.o.d, destroy his kingdom as he has destroyed my books, and take all power from him." Ibn Tumart, in sympathy with his teacher, said, "O Imam[44] Ghazzali, pray that thy wish may be accomplished by my means." And so it happened. Ibn Tumart returned to his North African, proclaimed himself a Mahdi, gained a large following among the Berbers, and overthrew Ali and the dynasty of the Almoravides. This story is not entirely beyond doubt, but shows the importance attached by Ghazzali's contemporaries to his influence and teaching.

As an example of Ghazzali's ethical earnestness, we may quote the following from his Ihya-ul-ulum ("Revival of the religious sciences").

He refers to the habit common to all Muhammadans of ejaculating, "We take refuge in G.o.d." "By the fear of G.o.d," he says, "I do not mean a fear like that of women when their eyes swim and their hearts beat at hearing some eloquent religious discourse, which they quickly forget and turn again to frivolity. There 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 the fear that forbids sinning against G.o.d 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 G.o.d,' and at the same time continue in the very sins which will destroy them. Satan laughs at such pious e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns. 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 exclaiming, 'I take refuge in that fortress,' without moving a step towards it. What will such an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n profit him? In the same way, merely e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. 'I take refuge in G.o.d' will not protect thee from the terrors of His judgment unless thou really take refuge in Him."

Ghazzali's moral earnestness is equally apparent in the following extract from his work "Munqidh min uddallal" "The Deliverance from error," in which he sets himself to combat the general laxity and heretical tendencies of his time:--

"Man is composed of a body and a heart; by the word 'heart' I understand that spiritual part of him which is the seat of the knowledge of G.o.d, and not the material organ of flesh and blood which he possesses in common with the animals. Just as the body flourishes in health and decays in disease, so the heart is either spiritually sound or the prey of a malady which ends in death.

"Now ignorance of G.o.d is a deadly poison, and the revolt of the pa.s.sions is a disease for which the knowledge of G.o.d and obedience to Him, manifested in self-control, are the only antidote and remedy. Just as remedies for the body are only known to physicians who have studied their secret properties, so the remedies for the soul are devotional practices as defined by the prophets, the effects of which transcend reason.

"The proper work of reason is to confess the truth of inspiration and its own impotence to grasp what is only revealed to the prophets; reason takes us by the hand and hands us over to the prophets, as blind men commit themselves to their guides, or as the desperately sick to their physicians. Such are the range and limits of reason; beyond prophetic truth it cannot take a step.

"The causes of the general religious languor and decay of faith in our time are chiefly to be traced to four cla.s.ses of people: (1) Philosophers, (2) Sufis, (3) Ismailians[45], (4) the Ulema or scholastic theologians. I have specially interrogated those who were lax in their religion; I have questioned them concerning their doubts, and spoken to them in these terms: 'Why are you so lukewarm in your religion? If you really believe in a future life, and instead of preparing for it sell it in exchange for the goods of this world, you must be mad. You would not give two things for one of the same quality; how can you barter eternity for days which are numbered? If you do not believe, you are infidels, and should seek to obtain faith.'

"In answer to such appeals, I have heard men say, 'If the observance of religious practices is obligatory, it is certainly obligatory on the Ulema or theologians. And what do we find amongst the most conspicuous of these? One does not pray, another drinks wine, a third devours the orphans' inheritance, and a fourth lets himself be bribed into giving wrong decisions, and so forth.'