Part 6
“Coming seriously to consider my state, I found myself bound down on all sides by these trammels. Examining my actions, the most fair-seeming of which were my lecturing and professorial occupations, I found to my surprise that I was engrossed in several studies of little value, and profitless as regards my salvation. I probed the motives of my teaching and found that, in place of being sincerely consecrated to God, it was only actuated by a vain desire of honour and reputation. I perceived that I was on the edge of an abyss, and that without an immediate conversion I should be doomed to eternal fire. In these reflections I spent a long time. Still a prey to uncertainty, one day I decided to leave Bagdad and to give up everything; the next day I gave up my resolution. I advanced one step and immediately relapsed. In the morning I was sincerely resolved only to occupy myself with the future life; in the evening a crowd of carnal thoughts assailed and dispersed my resolutions. On the one side the world kept me bound to my post in the chains of covetousness, on the other side the voice of religion cried to me: ‘Up, Up, thy life is nearing its end, and thou hast a long journey to make. All thy pretended knowledge is nought but falsehood and fantasy. If thou dost not think now of thy salvation, when wilt thou think of it? If thou dost not break thy chains to-day, when wilt thou break them?’ Then my resolve was strengthened, I wished to give up all and flee; but the Tempter returning to the attack said: ‘You are suffering from a transitory feeling; don’t give way to it, for it will soon pass. If you obey it, if you give up this fine position, this honourable post exempt from trouble and rivalry, this seat of authority safe from attack you will regret it later on without being able to recover it.’
“Thus I remained, torn asunder by the opposite forces of earthly passions and religious aspirations, for about six months from the month Rajab of the year A. D. 1096. At the close of them my will yielded and I gave myself up to destiny. God caused an impediment to chain my tongue and prevented me from lecturing. Vainly I desired, in the interest of my pupils, to go on with my teaching, but my mouth became dumb.
“The enfeeblement of my physical powers was such that the doctors despairing of saving me, said: ‘The mischief is in the heart, and has communicated itself to the whole organism; there is no hope unless the cause of his grievous sadness be arrested.’
“Finally, conscious of my weakness and the prostration of my soul, I took refuge in God as a man at the end of himself and without resources. ‘He who hears the wretched when they cry’ (Koran, xxviii. 63) deigned to hear me; He made easy to me the sacrifice of honours, wealth, and family” (“The Confessions,” pp. 42-45).
That his _conversion_ did not mean ethically all that the word means in the Christian sense is evident from what immediately follows. He dissembled: “I gave out publicly that I intended to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, while I secretly resolved to go to Syria, not wishing that the Caliph (may God magnify him) or my friends should know my intention of settling in that country. I made all kinds of clever excuses for leaving Bagdad with the fixed intention of not returning thither. The Imams of Irak criticized me with one accord. Not one of them would admit that this sacrifice had a religious motive, because they considered my position as the highest attainable in the religious community. ‘Behold how far their knowledge goes’ (Koran, liii. 31). All kinds of explanations of my conduct were forthcoming. Those who were outside the limits of Irak attributed it to the fear with which the Government inspired me. Those who were on the spot and saw how the authorities wished to detain me, their displeasure at my resolution and my refusal of their request, said to themselves, ‘It is a calamity which one can only impute to a fate which has befallen the Faithful and Learning.’
“At last I left Bagdad, giving up all my fortune. Only, as lands and property in Irak can afford an endowment for pious purposes, I obtained a legal authorization to preserve as much as was necessary for my support and that of my children; for there is surely nothing more lawful in the world than that a learned man should provide sufficient to support his family. I then betook myself to Syria, where I remained for two years, which I devoted to retirement, meditation, and devout exercises. I only thought of self-improvement and discipline and of purification of the heart by prayer in going through the forms of devotion which the Sufis had taught me. I used to live a solitary life in the Mosque of Damascus, and was in the habit of spending my days on the minaret after closing the door behind me” (pp. 45-46).
When Al-Ghazali determined to abandon the world and set out as a pilgrim he was only following the custom of his time. Not only religious men but adventurers found in travel relief and recreation. The pious did it, as they asserted, in imitation of Jesus, the Messiah, whose name is often interpreted as meaning “one who travels constantly.” And the worldly-minded often donned the garb of religious fakirs to satisfy their desire for adventure and their ambition to see distant lands.
Because of facilities for travel by post and caravan routes, this period seemed one of _wanderlust_ second to none. A scholar was not satisfied unless he had seen the world of Islam. Of At-Tabrizi (A. D. 1030-1100), one of the contemporaries of Al-Ghazali, who was also professor at the Nizamiyya School, we read that when he desired to go on a journey for literary purposes “he had no money wherewith to hire a horse, so he put his book into a sack and started to walk the long journey from Persia to Syria. The sweat on his back oozed through the material of his sack and stained the precious manuscript, which was long preserved and shown to visitors in one of the libraries of Bagdad.” The Persian poet Saʾadi was left an orphan at an early age, went to Bagdad to attend the Nizamiyya University course, made the Mecca pilgrimage several times over, acted, out of charity, as a water-carrier in the markets of Jerusalem and the Syrian towns, was taken prisoner by the Franks, and forced to work with Jews at cleaning out the moats of Tripoli in Syria; he was ransomed by an Aleppan, who gave him his daughter in marriage. He himself mentions his visits to Kashgar in Turkestan, to Abyssinia, and Asia Minor. He even travelled about India, passing through Afghanistan on his way.
[Illustration: Interior of the Great Mosque at Damascus. In the center the _Mihrab_ showing the direction of prayer and to the right the Great Pulpit.]
We have a picture of such a dervish (a dishonest one, however) in Hamadhani’s forty-second _Maqamat_: “So I started wandering, as though I was the Messiah, and I journeyed over Khorasan, its deserted and populous parts, to Kirman, Sijistan, Jilan, Tabaristan, Oman, to Sind and Hind, to Nubia and Egypt, Yemen, Hijaz, Mecca and al Taʾif. I roamed over deserts and wastes, seeking warmth and the fire and taking shelter with the ass, till both my cheeks were blackened. And thus I collected of anecdotes and fables, witticisms and traditions, poems of the humorists, the diversions of the frivolous, the fabrications of the lovesick, the saws of the pseudo-philosophers, the tricks of the conjurors, the artifices of the artful, the rare sayings of convivial companions, the fraud of the astrologers, the finesse of quacks, the deception of the effeminate, the guile of the cheats, the devilry of the fiends, such that the legal decisions of al-Shaʿabi, the memory of al-Dabbi and the learning of al-Kalbi would have fallen short of. And I solicited gifts and asked for presents. I had recourse to influence and I begged. I eulogized and satirized, till I acquired much property, got possession of Indian swords and Yemen blades, fine coats of mail of Sabur and leathern shields of Thibet, spears of al-Khatt and javelins of Barbary, excellent fleet horses with short coats, Armenian mules, and Mirris asses, silk brocades of Rum and woolen stuffs of Sus.”[36]
To the _honest_ traveller, like Al-Ghazali, however, it was not so easy a life. Not only were there the hardships of travel and its loneliness, but the asceticism of the beggar and the wayfarer. “And to such a pass did we come,” says Hariri, “through assailing fortune and prostrating need,—that we were shod with soreness, and fed on choking, and filled our bellies with ache, and wrapped our entrails upon hunger, and anointed our eyes with watching, and made pits our home, and deemed thorns a smooth bed, and came to forget our saddles, and thought destroying death to be sweet and the ordained day to be tardy.”
We may believe that so keen an observer as Al-Ghazali carried his “_Baedeker_” with him on his travels. He was doubtless acquainted with the chief geographical works of that period, some of which contained maps and even illustrations. The most important work was that by Abu ʾAbdallah al-Maqdisi, who spent a great part of his life travelling all over the Moslem empire, with the possible exception of India and Spain. His book was entitled: “The Best Classification for the Knowledge of Climates.” It was written in A. D. 985. Another work of a contemporary of Al-Ghazali, Abu ʾUbaid al-Bakri of Cordova, was a general geography of all the roads and provinces of the Moslem world.
Although we have no details of Al-Ghazali’s wanderings we can at least follow him on his journeys and learn something of the places he visited and their condition in his day. The course of his travels seems to have been from Bagdad to Damascus, a journey of nearly five hundred miles, from Damascus to Jerusalem and Hebron, thence on to the birthplace of the Prophet at Mecca and his tomb at Medina and back over a thousand miles more of caravan travel.
All through this period of Al-Ghazali’s life Damascus was experiencing the storm and stress of war. Shortly before his time the city was taken by the Karmatians and much of it was destroyed by fire. There were frequent changes of governors, uprisings and riots. In 1068 the great Mosque was set on fire. In 1076 the Seljuk generals seized the city, built anew the citadel and other buildings, among them a famous hospital. This was about fifteen years before Al-Ghazali’s arrival there from Bagdad.
The great Ummayad Mosque of Damascus was said to be the grandest of all Mohammedan buildings. There was praying space for 20,000 men; and it is said to have taken the whole revenue of Syria for forty-seven years, not counting eighteen shiploads of gold and silver from Cyprus to complete the building. “When the wondrous work was finished, the Caliph would not look at the accounts brought to him on eighteen laden mules, but ordered that they should be burned and thus addressed the crowd: ‘Men of Damascus, you possess four glories above other people; you are proud of your water, your air, your fruits, your baths; your mosque shall be your fifth glory.’”
Like other famous places of Moslem worship, this mosque was once the site of a Christian church, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, to whom there is still an imposing shrine. For some years the building was shared between Christians and Mohammedans, but in A. D. 708 the Christians were driven out. To this day one of the three minarets is called by the name of _ʾIsa_ (Jesus), and above a gate, long since closed, is the Greek inscription, “THY KINGDOM, O CHRIST, IS AN EVERLASTING KINGDOM, AND THY DOMINION ENDURETH THROUGHOUT ALL GENERATIONS.”
Al-Ghazali spent many hours for many years under the shadow of this great building, and it was in the minaret of Jesus that he had long meditations. The minaret of Jesus, according to H. Saladin,[37] was built in the eleventh century, shortly before the time of Al-Ghazali’s visit. Did he ever find or understand the inscription on the gate and meditate on that Prophet whose kingdom has no end and no frontier?
IV
Wanderings, Later Years, and Death
“Then came the immediate breaking up of the Seljukian Empire into a number of independent principalities. Syria, Palestine, and all Asia Minor, were partitioned among a dozen different Turkish Emirs. Khorasan and Irak became the scene of a fierce civil war, extending over several years, between two sons of Malek Shah, Barkiaroc and Muhammed. Drought was added to the horrors of war; the people perished by thousands of famine; the incessant marching and counter-marching of the hostile armies destroyed the remnant of food which had survived the want of rain. To crown all, from the borders of Christendom a fresh scourge was beheld preparing for Islam. The hosts of the Red Cross passed the Bosphorus, and fought their way knee-deep in blood to the walls of Jerusalem. The capture of the Holy City struck like the point of a poisoned dagger to the heart of every true Moslem.”
—_“Islam under the Khalifs of Baghdad,” by Robert Durie Osborn._
IV
WANDERINGS, LATER YEARS, AND DEATH
The chronology of Al-Ghazali’s life was a puzzle even to those who wrote only a century after his death. There seems great uncertainty not only as to the time of his various journeyings but as to their order, and there is dispute even regarding the places he visited. We know that the date of his conversion was A. H. 488 (A. D. 1095), when he was thirty-eight years old, and that shortly after this he went into exile. In A. H. 498 (A. D. 1104) he is said to have returned to active life, and to have spent two years in retirement in Syria. The other dates are quite uncertain. Following the best authorities at our disposal, especially his own “Confessions,” we continue the story where we left off in the last chapter.[38]
“From Damascus,” says Al-Ghazali, “I proceeded to Jerusalem, and every day secluded myself in the Sanctuary of the Rock. After that I felt a desire to accomplish the Pilgrimage, and to receive a full effusion of grace by visiting Mecca, Medina, and the Tomb of the Prophet. After visiting the shrine of the Friend of God (Abraham), I went to the Hejaz. Finally, the longings of my heart and the prayers of my children brought me back to my country, although I was so firmly resolved at first never to revisit it. At any rate, I meant, if I did return, to live there solitary and in religious meditation; but events, family care, and vicissitudes of life changed my resolutions and troubled my meditative calm. However irregular the intervals which I could give to devotional ecstasy, my confidence in it did not diminish; and the more I was diverted by hindrances, the more steadfastly I returned to it. Ten years passed in this manner.”
According to this account his pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Hebron, to Medina and Mecca, was part of one itinerary; it also is the natural route of travel from Bagdad to the birthplace of Islam. The statement made by some authorities that he first remained ten years at Damascus is therefore probably inaccurate. If we are to believe al-Isnawi, the course of events was as follows: He set out in the year A. D. 1095 for the Hejaz. On his return from the pilgrimage, he journeyed to Damascus, and made his abode there for some years in the minaret of the Grand Mosque, composing several works of which the _Ihya_ is said to be one. Then after visiting Jerusalem and perhaps Cairo and Alexandria, he returned to his home at Tus.
According to one Arabic authority, when Al-Ghazali left Damascus in his wanderings, he was accompanied by a disciple, a certain Abu Tahir Ibrahim, who had been a pupil also at Nishapur under the great Imam; he returned afterwards to Jurjan, his native place, and died a martyr in A. H. 513. Other pupils of his at Damascus are also mentioned, but the authorities do not agree.
Among many shrines at Jerusalem, Al-Ghazali visited the Mosque of Omar, and the Dome of the Rock. In Sura xvii. 1, Mohammed is represented as having taken his flight from Mecca to Jerusalem.—“Celebrated be the praises of Him who by night took his servant from the _Masjidu ’l-Haram_ (the Sacred Mosque) to the _Masjidu ’l-Aqsa_ (the Remote Mosque), the precinct of which we have blessed.”
As-Suyuti says Jerusalem is specially honoured by Moslems as being the scene of the repentance of David and Solomon. “The place where God sent His angel to Solomon, announced glad tidings to Zacharias and John, showed David a plan of the Temple, and put all the beasts of the earth and fowls of the air in subjection to him. It was at Jerusalem that the prophets sacrificed; that Jesus was born and spoke in His cradle; and it was from Jerusalem that Jesus ascended to heaven; and it will be there that He will again descend. Gog and Magog shall subdue every place on the earth but Jerusalem, and it will be there that God Almighty will destroy them. It is in the holy land of Jerusalem that Adam and Abraham, and Isaac and Mary are buried. And in the last days there will be a general flight to Jerusalem, when the Ark and the Shechinah will be again restored to the Temple. There will all mankind be gathered at the Resurrection for judgment, and God will enter, surrounded by His angels, into the Holy Temple, when He comes to judge the earth.”
Here Al-Ghazali would see the sacred footprint of Mohammed made in the rock on his journey to heaven; the praying places of Abraham and Elijah would be pointed out to him; the round hole where the rock let Mohammed through when he ascended to heaven; the holy place in the roof of the cavern where it arose to allow him to stand erect and to pray; the tongue with which it spoke; and the marks of the Angel Gabriel’s finger where it had to be held down from following him in his ascension! The place is also pointed out by Moslems to-day where Solomon tormented the demons, and also near the eastern wall where the throne stood whereon he sat when dead, the corpse leaning on his staff to cheat the demons until the worms had gnawed it through and the body fell forward. All this is found in Moslem Tradition, and must have stirred the credulity or the scepticism of Al-Ghazali. He himself tells us in one of his books that on the last day Israfil, who, with Gabriel and Michael, has been restored to life, “standing on the rock of the temple of Jerusalem, will at the command of God call together the souls from all parts, those of believers from Paradise and the unbelievers from hell, and throw them into his trumpet. There they will be ranged in little holes, like bees in a hive, and will, on his giving the last sound, be thrust out and fly like bees, filling the whole space between earth and heaven. Then they will repair to their respective bodies. The earth will then be an immense plain without hills or villages, and the dead, after they have risen, will sit down each one on his tomb, anxiously waiting for what is to come.”[39]
A modern traveller describes other Moslem superstitions connected with this Mosque. “The little arcades at the top of the steps of the platform are called ‘Balances,’ because the scales of judgment are to be suspended there on the Great Day. The Dome of the Chain owes its name to the circumstance that there a golden chain hung at David’s place of judgment, which had to be grasped by witnesses and dropped a link when a lie was told. A place in the outer wall is shown from which a wire will be suspended on the Day of Judgment, whose other end will be made fast to the Mount of Olives. Christ will sit on the wall and Mohammed on the mount. Over this wire must all men find their way, but only the good will cross, the wicked falling into the valley beneath. In the Al-Aqsa Mosque a couple of pillars stand very near each other, so worn that they are perceptibly thinned. The space between them bulges, and a piece of spiked iron work is now inserted between them. These are another test for the final award—he who could squeeze himself between them, and he alone, had found the true ‘narrow way to heaven.’”
We have descriptions of Jerusalem by a Moslem who wrote at the end of the tenth, and by another of the middle of the eleventh century. The latter estimated the population at twenty thousand, and fancied that as many more Moslem pilgrims came to the city in the month of their pilgrimage; Christians and Jews then visited the city as they do to-day. Both these writers praise the place for its cleanliness, which they attribute to its geographical position and natural drainage. Yet the history of Jerusalem throughout this century is little more than the record of damage and repair to Christian and Moslem sanctuaries. In A. D. 1010 the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was destroyed by the mad Sultan Hakim. This was followed by other humiliations of the pilgrims and persecutions, until Peter the Hermit arose in protest and the Crusades began.
We have no information as to how Al-Ghazali spent his days during this visit at Jerusalem. It was a time of war and tumult throughout Syria, on the eve of the Crusades. One can imagine with what interest Al-Ghazali studied the whole situation and how this ardent champion of the Moslem faith was stirred by the coming events whose shadows were already resting on the Holy Land at the time of his visit there. We do know that he lived the life of a mystic, and devoted himself to prayer and fasting. Prayer occupies a large place in the life of every conscientious Moslem. Not only are there the five ritual prayers, but the night prayer which, according to Al-Ghazali himself, must be performed between midnight and the beginning of dawn. It has been calculated that a Moslem conscientiously performing his devotions recites the same form of prayer at least seventy-five times a day. In addition to these prayers, however, there are prayers called _witr_ to be performed after the night prayer; _dhuha_, the prayer used in the forenoon; and the prayer of night vigils, which take place between the last evening prayer and midnight. In addition to observing all the above mentioned prayers, those who would reach a high degree of perfection are recommended by Al-Ghazali, in accordance with his own practices at this period, to engage in certain additional devotional exercises called _wird_. We may best note the character of this mystical devotion, in which he spent whole days and nights, by quoting in substance from the _Ihya_ as follows: