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Other documents randomly have
different content
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Some religious
and moral teachings of Al-Ghazzali
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
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laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: Some religious and moral teachings of Al-Ghazzali

Being brief extracts from his Ihya-u-Ulum-id-din

Author: Ghazzali

Author of introduction, etc.: Alban G. Widgery

Translator: Syed Nawab Ali

Release date: March 11, 2024 [eBook #73140]

Language: English

Original publication: Baroda: A. G. Widgery, 1921

Credits: Fritz Ohrenschall and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME

RELIGIOUS AND MORAL TEACHINGS OF AL-GHAZZALI ***
The Gaekwad Studies
in
Religion and Philosophy: X

SOME RELIGIOUS AND MORAL

TEACHINGS OF AL-GHAZZALI

Printed by Mr. K. G. Patel at the Lakshmi Vilas P. Press

Co. Ltd. and published by A. G. Widgery, the College,
Baroda, 5-1-1921.
Other Works by Professor Nawab Ali
MAA’RIJ-UDDIN.
The Ladder of Religion. A Comparative Study of Religions.
TARIKHI-SOHAF.
History of the Holy Scriptures.
TAZKIRAL-UL-MUSTAFA.
Life of Prophet Mohammed.
May be had from
The Seminar, The College,
BARODA

SOME RELIGIOUS AND MORAL

TEACHINGS OF AL-GHAZZALI

Being brief extracts from his

Ihya-u-Ulum-id-din

Freely rendered into English by

SYED NAWAB ALI M. A.
Professor of Persian, the College, Baroda.

With an introduction by
 ALBAN G. WIDGERY M. A.
Professor of the Comparative Study of Religions,
The College, Baroda.

BARODA
 PREFACE
The perusal of the constructive treatises of the foremost leaders of
the different religions should help to promote at least more mutual
respect, if not, indeed, actual co-operation, among their devotees
than the study of the critical discussions of lesser minds. For this
reason the present small volume of extracts from the chief
constructive work of Al Ghazzali has been included in the Gaekwad
Studies in Religion and Philosophy. The purpose of that series is to
be constructive rather than critical, and further, it is meant to contain
volumes appealing to the general public as well as to the scholar.
For a wider and more correct understanding and appreciation of the
spirit of Islam, it is to be regretted that there are so few English
translations of Muslim works in Arabic and Persian. It is to be hoped
that in future more attention will be turned in this direction. In the
meantime the present volume may serve at least to arouse some
interest.
This work was undertaken at the request of Professor Widgery, to
whom I am indebted for several suggestions and for going through
the whole of the manuscript and the proofs.
NAWAB ALI
Baroda, 1920.
 CONTENTS
Preface Page 5
Introduction 9
List of Al Ghazzali’s works 30
I. The Nature of Man 41
II. Human Freedom and Responsibility 53
III. Pride and Vanity 78
IV. Friendship and Sincerity 95
V. The Nature of Love, and Man’s highest Happiness 116
VI. The Unity of God 138
VII. The Love of God and its Signs 145
VIII. Riza or Joyous Submission to His Will 164
 INTRODUCTION
The Comparative Study of Religions, interesting as a form of
intellectual research, has for many a further value in the influence it
may exert upon the widening and the deepening of the religious life.
The practical value may become more and more acknowledged, if,
as signs suggest, the reality of the religious experience is more
keenly felt and mankind recognise the place of religious goods in the
highest type of life. Though it is certainly premature to say that there
is much serious acknowledgement and recognition of these values
amongst the peoples of the world, there are reasons to think that
tendencies of thought and feeling in this direction are increasing in
power. One of the best means of aiding the Comparative Study of
Religions and promoting these tendencies is by the publication of
important books connected with the religions, representing the views
of leading thinkers and saints.
If we turn to Islam, we find that some Western writers describe it
as in a condition of progressive decay, while others would have us
believe that its onward march is a menace. It is well to be able to
avoid the obvious purpose which lies behind both contentions.
Nevertheless, to the present writer it appears true to say that there is
much stagnation in Islam (In which religion is there not?), and that its
spirit is often lost and its real teachings neglected owing to the
general use of Arabic in the recitation of the Quran by persons
entirely ignorant of that language, and also to the prevalent
mechanical conception of the character of the Quran as a form of
divine revelation. We believe that the Comparative Study of
Religions will help to turn the attention of Muslims away from these
to the emphasising of the essential spirit of Islam. This should be
central and normative in the rising movements of reform and
rejuvenescence. In this connection, as bringing out this spirit, it is
especially appropriate, both for the students of the religions and for
those directly interested in the spiritual revival in Islam, to publish in
an easily accessible form some of the religious and moral teachings
of Ghazzali. A Western scholar has written of him that he is “the
greatest, certainly the most sympathetic figure in the history of Islam
... the only teacher of the after generations ever put by Muslims on a
level with the four great Imams.”[1] And he goes on to remark further;
“In the renaissance of Islam which is now rising to view, his time will
come and the new life will proceed from a renewed study of his
works.”[2] But Dieterici says of him: “As a despairing sceptic he
springs suicidally into the all-God (i.e. all-pervading deity of the
Pantheists) to kill all scientific reflection.”[3] To justify such a
judgment would indeed be impossible if the whole course of
Ghazzali’s works is taken into consideration. The greatest eulogy is
perhaps that of Tholuck: “All that is good, worthy, and sublime, which
his great soul had compassed, he bestowed upon Muhammedanism,
and he adorned the doctrines of the Quran with so much piety and
learning that in the form given them by him they seem, in my opinion,
worthy of the assent of Christians. Whatsoever was most excellent in
the philosophy of Aristotle or in the Sufi mysticism, he discreetly
adapted to the Muhammedan theology. From every school he sought
the means of shedding light and honour upon religion, while his
sincere piety and lofty conscientiousness imparted to all his writings
a sacred majesty.”[4]
One feature of Ghazzali’s attitude has considerable significance in
looking to an increased study of his works as a factor towards the
revivification of Islam: his tolerance. Although regarding Al Hallaj’s
expressions, (for example, I am the truth, i.e. God) as incautious, he
helped to defend him and to save him from execution on a charge of
blasphemy. He wrote a treatise on tolerance: The Criterion of the
Difference between Islam and Heresy. In this teaching of tolerance
he felt himself to be pointing back to the policy of the earliest Muslim
times and to the greatest authorities of early Islam. He “strove to
attract the souls of his fellow Muslims to spiritual faith which unifies,
to worship at the altars which are in the hearts of men”.[5]
The influence of Ghazzali has been represented by Mr. Macdonald
as chiefly that he led men back from scholastic labours upon
theological dogmas to living contact with, study and exegesis of the
Quran and Traditions; gave Sufiism an assured position within the
Church of Islam; and brought philosophy and philosophical theology
within the range of the ordinary mind.[6]
Al Ghazzali has given some account of his own religious
development in a work entitled: Munqidh min-ad-dalal. This account
is significant, but as the Baron Carra de Vaux remarks, his eventual
explicit adoption of a Sufi mysticism was not merely a consequence
of the failure of his other attempts to find a solution to life’s
profoundest problems but a result of his early influences. For, soon
after his birth at Tus in Khorassan in 450 A.H. (1059 A.D.), his father
died and he was brought up by a Sufi. Nevertheless his mystical
leanings did not assert themselves vigorously till he was well on to
maturity. Up to that time he devoted himself to the usual studies of
canon law, the orthodox theology, the doctrines of the Mutazillites,
and a variety of other subjects including the works of the Sufis. For a
time he was a student of the Asharite Imam Al Haramayn at
Nysabur. He himself represents his attitude as at this time that of one
working and wishing for reputation and wealth. In 484 A.H. he was
honoured by appointment to the “University” or “Academy” of
Baghdad, where he soon acquired great renown as lawyer and
theologian.
On the threshold of maturity he was afflicted by doubts as to the
validity and worth of the theological and philosophical bases of his
religious belief. The strain of his reflection and the intensity of his
anxiety to reach a secure faith seem to have caused a breakdown of
health. With unexpected suddenness he left Baghdad. That was in
488 A.H. (1095 A.D.) He had examined in all details the traditional
orthodox scholastic system of the Kalam, the positions of the
Mutazilites and the philosophers, and in the light of his new doubts
and experiences turned again also to a closer study of the writings of
the leading mystics, such as Abu Talib, Al Muhasibi, and Al Junayd.
His early training had predisposed him to the acceptance of
mysticism, and this acceptance was led up to by the conclusions of
his reflection, in which it has been maintained he carried doubt as far
back as did Descartes.
 Thus he himself writes: “A thirst to comprehend the essential
natures of all things was, indeed, my idiosyncrasy and distinctive
characteristic from the beginning of my career and prime of my life: a
natural gift and temperament bestowed on me by God, and
implanted by Him in my nature by no choice or device of my own, till
at length the bond of blind conformity was loosed from me, and the
beliefs which I had inherited, were broken away when I was little
more than a boy.”[7]
Carra de Vaux[8] thus graphically describes the process in Al
Ghazzali’s mind, as he himself suggests it to us: “Religious beliefs,
he reflected, are transmitted by the authority of parents; but authority
is not proof. To arrive at certitude it was necessary for him to
reconstruct all his knowledge from the very foundation. With a vivid
feeling of this necessity, he aspired to certitude, defining it in a purely
psychological fashion as a state in which the mind is so bound up
with and so satisfied with a piece of knowledge that nothing might
henceforth deprive him of it. This curious definition, which is applied
to religious faith as well as to scientific knowledge, does not escape
from being purely subjective. As one might foresee, the great desire
for certitude only led him at first into a series of doubts. As he sought
this state of perfect assurance, step by step he saw it recede before
him. He looked for certitude in the perceptions of the senses, with
the result that he could no longer trust his senses. Sight, the most
powerful of the faculties of sense, for example, led him to the
perception of an immovable shadow on the sun and an hour
afterwards this shadow was gone. Sight showed him a star which is
very small, and geometry made him recognise it to be greater than
the earth. Then he turned to the first principles of reason; but the
perception of the senses took its revenge in saying to him:
‘Previously you believed in me and you abandoned me when this
judge reason presented itself. If this judge had remained hidden you
would have continued to believe in me. Who can tell you that beyond
the reason there is no other judge, which if it made itself evident,
would convict reason of falsehood?’. That is a movement of thought
which is dramatic enough, though perhaps a little artificial.—The
thinker continued his search for the certain. He halted and
concerned himself with the famous comparison of life with a dream
and death with an awakening. Perhaps after that awakening he
would see things in a different manner from that in which he then
saw them. Mysticism thus suggested itself to him: This actual dream
of death could be anticipated by the condition of ecstasy, by less
than ecstasy, by a light which God pours into the heart. In this light,
he saw not only the truth of the dogmas of the faith or the beauty of
the moral life, but he was assured of the truth of the first principles of
reason, the basis of all knowledge and all reasoning. He doubted no
longer; he was cured of his pains; he had found certitude and
peace.”
On leaving Baghdad, he retired to meditate in the mosques of
Damascus, and is further reported to have made pilgrimages to
Jerusalem, Hebron (the burial place of Abraham), Medina and
Mecca. In abandonment to his immediate religious experience of the
love of God he found more peace. In the course of time he
associated again more definitely with his family. Eventually in 499 A.
H. (1106 A.D.) he was ordered by the Sultan to teach in the
Academy at Nysabur. After a life in which he had written a large
number of independent treatises and indeed brought about a great
change in the tendencies of Islam, he died at his native town of Tus
in 505 (1111 A.D.).
If in his initial process of doubt Ghazzali resembled Descartes, in
his view of causality he reminds us of Hume; in his general attitude
he approaches Kant and Schleiermacher. On the one hand he insists
on the limitation of the efficiency of the theoretical reason, on the
other he finds in will, in the moral and the religious experience a
more immediate avenue to real knowledge. For the study of religion
in our day it is important to note that Ghazzali (here unlike Kant)
sees in religious experience a way to certitude. But in this he is led to
acknowledge that the advance of the human mind towards its goal of
real knowledge and peace is dependent upon an active influence of
God upon man. It may be maintained that he puts here in religious
terminology the central idea of the Aristotelian conception of
Scholastic times, the relation of the “Active Intelligence” to the minds
of men. His view enabled him to give a due position to the Prophet
and the Quran. For the knowledge of God is to be conceived as
coming not in immediate mystical intuition to all alike, but while in
some degree to all, to some in a special degree. These are the
prophets. The position which Maimonides presents in his Guide to
the Perplexed[9] with relation to religious knowledge and the
functions of the prophets is parallel with that of Ghazzali.
From the accompanying list and classification of the works of
Ghazzali, it will be seen that he was a writer on all sides of the theory
and practice of his religion. He was an authority on canon law and
jurisprudence, and a commentator of the Quran. He examined the
positions of the Scholastic theologians, and found that they
depended entirely on the acceptance of their initial dogmatic
assumptions. The disputes of the Scholastics amongst themselves
appeared to have little or no relation with religious life, rather if
anything they were a hindrance to true religion. And in face of the
philosophers the Scholastic theologians were almost helpless. But
the books which exerted the greatest influence both within and
beyond Muslim circles, and the books that still retain their interest
today are the Maqasid ul Falasafa (The Aim or Goal of the
Philosophers) the Tahafat ul Falasafa (the Refutation of the
Philosophers) and the Ihya-u-Ulum-id-Din (The Renovation of the
Sciences of Religion.) In the first of these he gives an account of the
different philosophical positions which were more or less prevalent.
In the second he critically examines those positions. In the third he
gives a general survey with a constructive purpose chiefly moral and
religious. It is due to this last work more than all others that Ghazzali
has been called “The Regenerator of Religion”, “The Proof of Islam”.
The Ihya “expounds theology and ethics from the moderate Sufi
school”. Though it was committed to the flames, chiefly in Spain,
probably by those holding opinions which Ghazzali had bitterly
attacked, it soon established its position in the Muslim world, in
which it has been widely studied up to today. From it the passages
translated in this book are taken. The following table of contents will
show the range of the subjects with which it deals.
THE RENOVATION OF THE SCIENCES OF RELIGION.
Part I.
1. On Knowledge. Articles of Faith.
2. On Purification.
3. Prayer and Its Meaning.
4. Zakat and Its Meaning.
5. Fasting and Its Meaning.
6. Pilgrimage and Its Meaning.
7. The Reading of the Quran.
8. Varieties of Orisons.
9. The Order of Praying, and Vigils.

Part II.

1. On Eating.
2. On Marriage.
3. On Business.
4. The Lawful and the Unlawful.
5. Social Relations and Etiquette.
6. On Retirement.
7. On Travel.
8. On Music.
9. On Enforcing Good and Checking Evil.
10. Good Living: Description of the Prophet’s Mode of Living.

Part III.

1. Psychological Description of the Nature of Man.

2. On Virtues and the Purification of the Heart.
3. On Appetite and Passion.
4. On the Tongue: Its Goods and Evils.
 5. On Anger: Enmity and Envy.
6. The Evils of the World.
7. Parsimony and the Evils of the Love of Wealth.
8. On the Evils of Reputation and Hypocrisy.
9. Pride and Vanity.
10. Self-deception.

Part IV.

1. Repentance.
2. Patience and Thanksgiving.
3. Hope and Fear.
4. The Poor and the Hermit,
5. Unity of God, and Dependence on Him.
6. On Love, Ecstasy, and Joyous Submission to His will.
7. On Intention, Sincerity and Truth.
8. Meditation.
9. Contemplation and taking a Warning.
10. On Death and the After-Life.

Against the philosophers he argued for the belief in the reality of

the divine attributes and against the view of the eternity of the world.
He contended against the theory that there would be no physical
punishments and rewards hereafter, maintaining, as he did, the
doctrine of the resurrection of the body. He virtually denied that there
is real causal connection in events as experienced by us: but only
sequence: in this he adumbrates the theory of Hume. For Ghazzali,
God is the only efficient cause. From the scepticism to which his
consideration of philosophy led him he turned to the acceptance of
revelation, this as found in the mystic experience and in the words of
saints and prophets, especially the Prophet Muhammed.
 The knowledge of moral principles Ghazzali conceived as coming
not through rational reflection but by immediate intuition of the divine
character revealing itself. Moral truths come especially through moral
and religious teachers, as the most fit persons for the transmission of
these revelations. He possessed great skill in psychological analysis
of moral conditions, and passages in illustration of this have been
included here, treating of pride and vanity, friendship and sincerity.
As almost all great practical moral and religious teachers, Ghazzali
makes considerable use of apt stories, and of striking sayings from
the saints and prophets. He continually harks back to the time of the
Prophet and his “Companions”.
Ghazzali’s abandonment of his academic position at Baghdad, his
retirement to mosques and journeyings on pilgrimage, are sufficient
evidence that he recognised that the truth of mysticism could not be
tested by theoretical reflection but only by an attempt at practice.
Only the experience itself could prove its own reality. He appears to
have held that for the attainment of the condition of ecstasy the
means of asceticism and meditation should be used. But it does not
seem quite correct to suggest as does Carra de Vaux that Ghazzali
did not recognise the fact of divine “grace”, though he did not use a
corresponding term. The beatific vision of the mystic certainly
depended in part, for Ghazzali, on God’s mercy in removing the veil.
How far he himself was successful in attaining the bliss of the mystic
vision it is impossible to tell: in this direction he gained no such
reputation as did several other Sufis. He taught that repentance, a
moral conversion, is a necessary preliminary to the mystic life, and
he fought against a common tendency of mystics towards
antinomianism. Similarly he tried to avoid the danger of interpreting
the union of the soul with God as its identification with God in a
pantheistic view of the universe. Goldzieher says he differed from
the Sufis generally in the rejection of their pantheistic aims and low
estimate of religious ordinances.[10]
 A LIST OF WORKS BY AL GHAZZALI[11]
A: CANON LAW.
Title. Subject. Place and date of publication.
K. Wajiz Canon Law. Cairo 1317 A. H.
(Compendium).
Risalat-ul- (Transcendence of
Qudsiyya. God) included in
Ihya as the 3rd
section of the
2nd Chapter of
its Book 1.
Anqud ul Mkhtasir. Summary of Jowim’s
Mukhtasar.
Ghait ul Ghor fi Divorce.
Masail il dor.
Gaur ul Durar.
Qanun ul Rasul. The Canon Law of
the Prophet.
B: JURISPRUDENCE.
Al Mustafa. Jurisprudence. Boulac 1322 A. H.
Al Manhul wal Doctrines falsely
Muntahal. attributed to
others and
falsely claimed
by some.
Jurisprudence.
Wajiz fil Furu. Jurisprudence. Egypt 1305 A. H.
Khulasat ul Fikh Jurisprudence.
(Quintessence
of
Jurisprudence).
Al-durr ul Manzum An Exposition of
fi sirr il Muktum Shafite
Wasit. Jurisprudence.
C: LOGIC.
Mizan ul Amal. Logic. Cairo 1328 A. H.
Mihakkul Nazar fil Logic. Cairo
Mantaq.
(Whetstone of
reflection).
Maayar ul Ilm. Logic.
Al Maarif ul Discourses on Logic.
Aqliyyah wal
Allahiyyah Al
Mutaqid.
Mayar ul Ilm Fannil On Logic. Cairo 1329 A. H.
Mantaq. (the
weighing scale
of the science).
D: PHILOSOPHY.
Ihya u-Ulum-id-Din. (The most important Cairo 1322, 1324 A. H.
book for his
philosophy).
Egypt 1282 ”
Lucknow 1281 ”
Meerut 1280 ”
Maqasid ul Cairo 1326 ”
Falasafa. (The
aims of the
philosophers).
Maznun bihi ala Exposition of ” 1328 ”
Ghairi Ahlihi. Ghazzali’s own
views.
Kitab-ul-Arbain. Abridgement of Ihya. ” 1328 ”
Risalat ul Knowledge (Ilham ” 1328 ”
Luduniyya. and Wahi)