Part 1
=Transcriber’s Note:= The author’s transliteration of Arabic words into English is inconsistent, and often wrong in its usage of the ʾ and ʿ characters. They have been left as printed (except where such marks were missing entirely, in which case they have been supplied correctly).
On page 143 غزاّلي was changed to غزّالي.
A Moslem Seeker After God
By S. M. Zwemer, F. R. G. S.
_Mohammed or Christ._ Illustrated.
_Introduction by Rt. Rev. C. H. Stileman, M. A., sometime Bishop of Persia_
An account of the rapid spread of Islam in all parts of the globe, the methods employed to obtain proselytes, its immense press, its strongholds, and suggested means to be adopted to counteract the evil.
_The Disintegration of Islam._ Illustrated, 12mo, cloth
Dr. Zwemer traces the collapse of Islam as a political power in Europe, Asia and Africa, as well as the inevitable effect of the impact of Western civilization.
_Childhood in the Moslem World._ Illustrated, 8vo, cloth
Both in text and illustrations, Dr. Zwemer’s new book covers much ground hitherto lying untouched in Mohammedan literature.
_Arabia: The Cradle of Islam._ Maps and numerous Illustrations, cloth
“The comprehensive scope of the volume covers a wide range of interest, scientific and commercial, historical and literary, sociological, religious.”—_Outlook._
By A. E. and S. M. Zwemer
_Zigzag Journeys in the Camel Country._ Arabia in Picture and Story. Illustrated, 12mo, cloth
“Dr. and Mrs. Zwemer are charming guides. We commend the book highly for interest and information.”—_Missionary Review of the World._
_Topsy-Turvy Land._ Arabia Pictured for Children. Illustrated, 12mo, cloth
“A book of pictures and stories for big children and small grown-up folk, for all who love Sinbad the Sailor and his strange country.”—_Boston Globe._
[Illustration: The old ruined Mosque at Tus, Persia, probably dating from the Eleventh Century.]
[Illustration: The supposed grave of Abu Hamid Al Ghazali at Tus.]
A Moslem Seeker After God:
Showing Islam at its Best in the Life and Teaching of Al-Ghazali Mystic and Theologian of the Eleventh Century
By SAMUEL M. ZWEMER _Author of “The Disintegration of Islam,” “Childhood in the Moslem World,” etc._
_ILLUSTRATED_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK CHICAGO Fleming H. Revell Company LONDON AND EDINBURGH
Copyright, 1920, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street
_To the Faculties and Students of the Theological Seminary, New Brunswick, N. J. and the College of Missions, Indianapolis, Ind. where the several chapters of this book were given as lectures 1918-1920_
Introduction
By DR. J. RENDEL HARRIS
Al-Ghazali was a rare combination of scholar and saint, of the orthodox Moslem and the aberrant Sufi. This work is a real contribution to the history of religion, and will have a peculiar value which attaches to Sufism at the present time. On the one hand we have the anthropologists engaged in the task (and for the most part successfully engaged) of tracing all religions to a common root, or roots, in the constitution and the fears of primitive man; on the other hand we have the mystics, of whom the Sufi is a leading representative, who are occupied in demonstrating experimentally that all religions which start at the bottom find their way to the top.
William Penn said something in the same direction when he affirmed that all good men were of the same religion, and that they would know one another when the livery was off. But what did he mean by taking the livery off? The abstinence from rites, ceremonies and the like is a negative process which certainly would not satisfy the genuine Sufi. He would say with St. Paul, “Not that we would be unclothed, but rather clothed upon, that mortality may be swallowed up of life.” That is real mystic language, and suggests that we shall know one another, not so much by being denuded of tradition and superstition (however desirable the process may be in some points of view), as by putting on the robe of light and sitting down in the heavenly places with Jesus Christ, _and with any one else whom He calls into His companionship_.
Al-Ghazali tells us in his Confessions that he found the true way of life in Sufism, that is, in Pantheism, yet he remained an orthodox Moslem, that is, a Transcendentalist. At the present time, when the effects of a war of unheard and unequalled severity are still perplexing men, the Transcendent and the Immanent views of God are alike hard put to it. Sufism is on its back, Transcendentalism can scarcely keep its feet. It is a poor time of day for seeing God in all, almost as ill a time for believing Him to be over all. Where speculation fails, or limps along with lame feet or with broken wing, there must be some other way of taking us to God Himself, beyond reason and safer than imagination. Al-Ghazali found it, when he abandoned his lecture-room and went into the wilderness. While he still continued to recite the formulas, which affirm the Unity of God and the authority of His Apostle, he found his way into the Sufi inner sanctuary, where one understands that
“he who lies, Folded in favour on the Sultan’s breast, Needs not a letter nor a messenger.”
The book tells us something about this side of his experience in the Quest of Life, and when the story is finished we are reminded not to seek the Living among the dead, but to believe that the same Lord is rich unto all that call upon Him in truth.
J. R. H.
_Friends’ Settlement, Woodbrooke, England._
Preface
There are a score of lives of Mohammed, the great Arabian Prophet, in the English language, yet there is no popular biography of the greatest of all Moslems since his day, Al-Ghazali. Even the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ gives only scant information. Professor Duncan B. Macdonald prepared a life of Al-Ghazali with special reference to his religious experiences and influence in a paper published in the twentieth volume of “The Journal of the American Oriental Society” (1899), but now out of print. His scholarly investigations and conclusions, however, deal with Al-Ghazali’s inner experiences and his philosophy, rather than with his environment and the events of his life. We acknowledge our great indebtedness to his paper and to the original Arabic sources on which it was based, especially the introduction to the Commentary on the _Ihya_ by Sayyid Murtadha in ten volumes and entitled _Ithaf as-saʿada_. I have found additional material in Al-Ghazali’s writings and other books mentioned in the bibliography given in the appendix of this book, especially the _Tabaqat ash-shafaiʾya_ by As-Subqi, who wrote long before Murtadha and to whom Macdonald refers, but whose work he did not use.
The study of Al-Ghazali’s life and writings will, more than anything else, awaken a deeper sympathy for that which is highest and strongest in the religion of Islam; for the student of his works learns to appreciate Islam at its best. As Jalal-ud-din says:
“Fools buy false coins because they are like the true. If in the world no genuine minted coin Were current, how would forgers pass the false? Falsehood were nothing unless truth were there, To make it specious. ’Tis the love of right Lures men to wrong. Let poison but be mixed With sugar, they will cram it into their mouths. Oh, cry not that all creeds are vain! Some scent Of truth they have, else they would not beguile.”
There is a real sense in which Al-Ghazali may be used as a schoolmaster to lead Moslems to Christ. His books are full of references to the teaching of Christ. He was a true seeker after God.
Islam is the prodigal son, the Ishmael, among the non-Christian religions; this is a fact we may not forget. Now we read in Christ’s matchless parable of the prodigal how “When he was yet a great way off his father saw him and ran out to meet him and fell on his neck and kissed him.” Have missionaries always had this spirit? No one can read the story of Al-Ghazali’s life, so near and yet so far from the Kingdom of God, so eager to enter and yet always groping for the doorway, without fervently wishing that Al-Ghazali could have met a true ambassador of Christ. Then surely this great champion of the Moslem faith would have become an apostle of Christianity in his own day and generation. By striving to understand Al-Ghazali we may at least better fit ourselves to help those who, like him, are earnest seekers after God amid the twilight shadows of Islam. His life also has a lesson for us all in its devout Theism and in its call to the practice of the Presence of God.
S. M. Z.
_Cairo, Egypt._
Contents
I. THE ELEVENTH CENTURY 19
II. BIRTH AND EDUCATION 51
III. TEACHING, CONVERSION, AND RETIREMENT 81
IV. WANDERINGS, LATER YEARS AND DEATH 111
V. HIS CREED AND CREDULITY 145
VI. HIS WRITINGS 169
VII. HIS ETHICS 195
VIII. AL-GHAZALI AS A MYSTIC 219
IX. JESUS CHRIST IN AL-GHAZALI 255
APPENDIX:
A. Bibliography 295
B. Translations of Al-Ghazali’s Works 297
C. List of Al-Ghazali’s Works 299
D. Comparative Table of Events 303
Illustrations
The old ruined Mosque at Tus, Persia, probably dating from the Eleventh Century _Frontispiece_
The supposed grave of Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali at Tus ”
_Facing page_
The East Gate, Damascus 54
Interior of the Great Mosque at Damascus. In the center the _Mihrab_ showing the direction of prayer and to the right the Great Pulpit 106
The Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, as seen from the Lutheran Church 126
Pen-case of Al-Ghazali, made of brass inlaid with silver, preserved in the Arab Museum, Cairo 172
A facsimile page of the _Ihya_ (Vol. II, page 180, Cairo Ed.). It gives a diagram of the prayer _kibla_ and the rules to be observed in facing it correctly 180
Facsimile title page of the last book Al-Ghazali wrote, entitled “Minhaj Al-ʾAbidin.” On the margin this Cairo edition gives another of his celebrated works, “Badayat-al-Hadaya” 232
A _Mihrab_ or prayer-niche made of cedar wood and dating from the Eleventh Century. (Cairo Museum) 242
I
The Eleventh Century
“Between the civilizations of Christendom and Islam there is a gulf which no human genius, no concourse of events, can entirely bridge over. The most celebrated Orientals, whether in war or policy, in literature or learning, are little more than names for Europeans.”
—_“The Assemblies of Al-Hariri,” by Thomas Chenery._
“With the time came the man. He was Al-Ghazali, the greatest, certainly the most sympathetic figure in the history of Islam, and the only teacher of the after generations ever put by a Muslim on a level with the four great Imams. The equal of Augustine in philosophical and theological importance. By his side the Aristotelian philosophers of Islam, Ibn Rushd and all the rest, seem beggarly compilers and scholiasts. Only Al-Farabi, and that in virtue of his mysticism, approaches him. In his own person he took up the life of his time on all its sides and with it all its problems. He lived through them all and drew his theology from his experience.”
—_“Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence and Constitutional Theory,” by D. B. Macdonald._
I
THE ELEVENTH CENTURY
The great characters of history may be compared to mountain peaks that rise high above the plains and the lower foot-hills and are visible from great distances because they dominate the landscape. In the historical study of Islam four names stand out prominently. They are those of Mohammed himself; of Al-Bokhari, the most celebrated collector of the Traditions; of Al-Ashʾari, the great dogmatic theologian and the opponent of rationalism; and of Al-Ghazali, the reformer and mystic. The last named has left a larger imprint upon the history of Islam than any man save Mohammed himself. “If there had been a prophet after Mohammed,” said As-Suyuti, “it would have been Al-Ghazali.”
It is in his life, and more especially in his writings, that I believe we can see Islam at its best. In trying to escape the dead weight of Tradition and the formalism of its requirements, Moslems are more and more finding relief in the way of the mystic. Of all those who have found a deeper spiritual meaning in the teachings of the Koran and even in the multitudinous and puerile detail of the Moslem ritual, none can equal Al-Ghazali. “He was,” says Jamal-ud-Din, “the pivot of existence and the common pool of refreshing waters for all, the soul of the purest part of the people of the Faith, and the road for obtaining the satisfaction of the Merciful.... He became the unique one of his own day and for all time among the Moslem learned.” “Al-Ghazali,” said another writer, nearly contemporary, “is an _imam_ by whose name breasts are dilated and souls revived, in whose literary productions the ink horn exults and the paper quivers with joy, and at the hearing of whose message voices are hushed and heads are bowed.”
A celebrated saint, Ahmed As-Sayyed Al-Yamani Az-Zabîdi, also a contemporary of Al-Ghazali, said, “When I was sitting one day, lo, I perceived the gates of heaven opened, and a company of blessed angels descended, having with them a green robe and a precious steed. They stood by a certain grave and brought forth its tenant and clothed him in the green robe and set him on the steed and ascended with him from heaven to heaven, till he passed the seven heavens and rent after them sixty veils, and I know not whither at last he reached. Then I asked about him, and was answered, ‘This is the Imam Al-Ghazali.’ That was after his death; may God Most High have mercy on him!”
Another story is related of him as follows: “In our time there was a man in Egypt who disliked Al-Ghazali and abused him and slandered him. And he saw the Prophet (God bless him and give him peace!) in a dream; Abu Bakr and ʾOmar (may God be well pleased with both of them!) were at his side, and Al-Ghazali was sitting before him, saying, ‘O Apostle of God, this man speaks against me!’ Thereupon the Prophet said, ‘Bring the whips!’ So the man was beaten on account of Al-Ghazali. Then the man arose from sleep, and the marks of the whips remained on his back, and he was wont to weep and tell the story.”
And should this praise seem oriental and extravagant, we add the words of Professor Duncan B. Macdonald, who has made a more thorough study of Al-Ghazali’s life and writings than any other student of Islam:—“What rigidity of grasp the hand of Islam would have exercised but for the influence of Al-Ghazali might be hard to tell; he saved it from scholastic decrepitude, opened before the orthodox Moslem the possibility of a life hid in God, was persecuted in his life as a heretic, and now ranks as the greatest doctor of the Moslem Church.”
To understand the importance of Al-Ghazali and of his teaching we must transport ourselves to the time in which he lived. We cannot understand a man unless we know his environment. Biography is only a thread in the vast web of history, in which time is broad as well as long. Al-Ghazali belongs to the small company of torch bearers in the Dark Ages.
He was born at Tus, in Khorasan, Persia, in the year 1058 A. D., and died in 1111 A. D. When Al-Ghazali was born Togrul Bey had just taken Bagdad, Henry IV was Emperor, Nicholas II was Pope, the Norman conquest had just begun in the west, and Asia Minor was overrun by the Turks in the Near East. Among Al-Ghazali’s other contemporaries in the west were Hildebrand the Pope, Abelard, Bernard, Anselm, and Peter the Hermit. About the time he wrote his greatest work, Godfrey of Bouillon was King of Jerusalem. Al-Ghazali was struggling with the problem of Islam in its relation to the human heart thirsting for God, about two hundred years after Al-Kindi had written his remarkable apology for the Christian faith at the court of Haroun-ar-Rashîd and two hundred years before Raymond Lull laid down his life a martyr in North Africa.
The condition of the Moslem world had utterly changed since the days when Busrah with its rival city Kufa were dominated by the victorious Arabs of Omar’s Caliphate. The Abbasside Caliphs of the eleventh century were almost as much the shadows of former power as the Emperors of the East; they retained little more than their religious supremacy. Togrul Bey, the grandson of Seljuk, had been confirmed by the powerless Caliph Al-Qaʾim bi-amr Allah, in all his conquests, loaded with honours, saluted as King of the East and West, and endowed with the hand of the Caliph’s daughter. In the next reign, that of Al-Muqtadi, the Seljuk Turks captured Jerusalem.
“About the year 1000,” says Nöldeke,[1] “Islam was in a very bad way. The Abbasside Caliphate had long ceased to be of any importance, the power of the Arabs had long ago been broken. There was a multitude of Islamite States, great and small; but even the most powerful of these, that of the Fatimids, was very far from being able to give solidity to the whole, especially as it was Shiʾite.... These nomads (the Turks) caused dreadful devastation, trampled to the ground the flourishing civilization of vast territories, and contributed almost nothing to the culture of the human race; but they mightily strengthened the religion of Mohammed. The rude Turks took up with zeal the faith which was just within reach of their intellectual powers, and they became its true, often fanatical, champions against the outside world. They founded the powerful empire of the Seljuks, and conquered new regions for Islam in the northwest. After the downfall of the Seljuk empire they still continued to be the ruling people in all its older portions. Had not the warlike character of Islam been revived by the Turks, the Crusaders perhaps might have had some prospect of more enduring success.”
Togrul Bey was invested with the title of Sultan in the royal city of Nishapur, A. D. 1038. According to Gibbon, he was the “father of his soldiers and of his people. By a firm and equal administration Persia was relieved from the evils of anarchy; and the same hands which had been imbrued in blood became the guardians of justice and the public peace. The more rustic, perhaps the wisest, portion of the Turkmans continued to dwell in the tents of their ancestors; and, from the Oxus to the Euphrates, these military colonies were protected and propagated by their native princes. But the Turks of the court and city were refined by business and softened by pleasure: they imitated the dress, language, and manners of Persia; and the royal palaces of Nishapur and Rei displayed the order and magnificence of a great monarchy. The most deserving of the Arabians and Persians were promoted to the honours of the state; and the whole body of the Turkish nation embraced with fervour and sincerity the religion of Mahomet.”[2]
The first of the great Seljuk Sultans was conspicuous by his zeal for the Moslem faith. He spent much time in prayer, and in every city which he conquered built new mosques. By force of arms he delivered the Caliph of Bagdad at the head of an irresistible force and taught the people of Mosul and Bagdad the lesson of obedience. Rescued from his enemies, the alliance between the Caliph and the Sultan was cemented by the marriage of Togrul’s sister with the successor of the Prophet. In 1063 Togrul died and his nephew Alp Arslan succeeded him. His name, therefore, was pronounced after that of the Caliph in public prayer by all the Moslems of the Near East.
The character of his rule Gibbon gives us in a sentence: “The myriads of Turkish horse overspread a frontier of 600 miles from Taurus to Erzeroum, and the blood of 136,000 Christians was a grateful sacrifice to the Arabian prophet.” The “valiant lion,” for that is the significance of his name, displayed at once the fierceness and generosity of a typical Oriental ruler. Christians suffered dreadful persecution. Enemies were assassinated; but the learned, the rich, and the favoured were lavishly rewarded. Arslan was a valiant warrior of the faith and as eager for the battlefield as those whom Moore describes:—
“One of that saintly murderous brood To carnage and the Koran given, Who think through unbeliever’s blood Lies their directest path to heaven. One who will pause and kneel unshod In the warm blood his hand hath poured To mutter o’er some text of God Engraven on his reeking sword.”
Armenia was laid waste in the cruelest manner when the capital was taken on June 6, 1064. We are told that “human blood flowed in torrents, and so great was the carnage, that the streets were literally choked up with dead bodies; and the waters of the river were reddened from the quantity of bloody corpses.” The wealthy inhabitants were tortured, the churches pillaged, and the priests flayed alive. Al-Ghazali was then six years old.
In 1072 Alp Arslan was assassinated. His eldest son, Malek Shah, succeeded him. He extended the conquests of his father beyond the Oxus as far as Bokhara and Samarkand, until his name was inserted on the coins and in the prayers of the Tartar kingdom on the borders of China. “From the Chinese frontiers, he stretched his immediate jurisdiction or feudatory sway to the west and south, as far as the mountains of Georgia, the neighbourhood of Constantinople, the holy city of Jerusalem, and the spicy groves of Arabia Felix. Instead of resigning himself to the luxury of the harem, the shepherd king, both in peace and war, was in action in the field.”
Nizam Al-Mulk was his vizier, and it is largely due to his influence that the study of science and literature revived to such a remarkable degree. The calendar was reformed, schools and colleges erected, and the learned competed with each other for the favour of royalty. For thirty years Nizam Al-Mulk was honoured by the Caliph as the very oracle of religion and science. But at the age of ninety-three, the venerable statesman, to whom, as we shall see later, Al-Ghazali owed so much, was dismissed by his master, accused by his enemies, and murdered by a fanatic. The last words of Nizam attested his innocence, and the remainder of Malek’s life was short and inglorious.
The Arabic language had become dominant everywhere. Its vocabulary had leavened the whole lump of languages in the Near East. Every race with which the Arabs came in contact was more or less Arabized. “The extent of this influence,” says Chenery,[3] “may be perceived by comparing the Persian of Firdausi with that of Saʾdi. The language of the former, who flourished in the early part of our eleventh century, is tolerably pure, while the Gulistan, which was produced some two hundred and fifty years later, is in some places little more than a piecing together of Arabic words with a cement of the original tongue. It is to be noticed, also, that the latter author introduces continually Arabic verses, as the highest ornaments of his work, and assumes that his readers are acquainted with this classic and sacred tongue.”