Part 8
Later biographers were not satisfied with the bare facts of his decease. Murtadha gives a far more interesting story. “When death drew near to the Imam Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, he commanded his servant, an excellent and religious man, to dig his grave in the middle of his house, and to summon the people of the neighbouring villages to attend his funeral; that they should not touch him, but that a company of three men unknown in the region of Al-ʾIraq would come out of the desert, that two of them would wash him, and the third would undertake the prayer over him without the advice or command of any one. Then, when he died, the servant did according to all that he had commanded, and required the presence of the people. And when the people gathered to attend the funeral, they saw three men who had come out of the desert. Two of them began to wash the corpse, while the third vanished and did not appear. But when they had washed him and arranged him in the grave-clothes, and carried his bier and laid it on the edge of the grave, the third appeared wrapped in his robe with a black border on both sides, turbaned with wool, and he prayed for him and the people prayed with him. Then he gave the benediction and departed and hid from the people. And some of the excellent of the people of Al-ʾIraq who were present at the funeral had noticed him carefully, but did not know him until some of them heard a _Hatif_ in the night saying to them, ‘The man who led the people in prayer is Abu ʾAbd Allah Mohammed b. Ishaq Amghar, the Sharif. He came from the farthest Maghrib, from ʾAyn al-Qatr, and those who washed the corpse are his comrades Abu Shuʾayb Ayyub b. Saʾid and Abu ʾIsa Wajih.’ And when they heard that they journeyed from Al-ʾIraq to Sanhaja of the farthest Maghrib, and when they had reached them and asked of them their prayers, they returned to Al-ʾIraq and related it to the Sufis and published their miracle (_karama_). Then a company of them, when they heard that, went to visit them and found them to be those whom they noticed carefully, and they asked of them their prayers. And this is a strange story.”[52]
An equally remarkable story is told of the death of Al-Ghazali’s younger brother in the books of the Persian mystics.[53] The verses given might well apply to Al-Ghazali himself and his views of life and death. “Moghith related, on the authority of Kadiri tradition, how the famous Ahmed-Al-Ghazali, native of Tus in Persia, said one day to his disciples, ‘Go and bring me new and white garments.’ They went; and on returning with the objects required, found their master dead; by his side was a paper on which were written the following stanzas:
“‘Tell my friends, who behold me dead, Weeping and mourning my loss a while, Think not this corpse before you myself: That corpse is mine, but it is not I. I am an undying life, and this is not my body, Many years my house and my garment of change; I am the bird, and this body was my cage, I have wing’d my flight elsewhere, and left it for a token. I am the pearl, and this my shell, Broken open and abandon’d to worthlessness; I am the treasure, and this was a spell Thrown over me, till the treasure was released in truth. Thanks be to God, who has delivered me, And has assign’d me a lasting abode in the highest. There am I now the day conversing with the happy, And beholding face to face unveiled Deity; Contemplating the Mirror wherein I see and read Past and present, and whatever remains to be. Food and drink too are mine, yet both are one; Mystery known to him who is worthy to know. It is not “wine sweet of taste” that I drink; No, nor “water,” but the pure milk of a mother. Understand my meaning aright, for the secret Is signified by words of symbol and figure,— I have journey’d on, and left you behind; How could I make an abode of your halting-stage? Ruin then my house and break my cage in pieces, And let the shell go perish with kindred illusions; Tear my garment, the veil once thrown over me; Then bury all these, and leave them alike for I go. Deem not death death, for it is in truth Life of lives, the goal of all our longings. Think lovingly of a God whose Name is love, Who joys in rewarding, and come on secure of fear. Whence I am, I behold you undying spirits like myself, And see that our lot is one, and you as I.’”
We are indebted to the Rev. Dwight M. Donaldson of Mashad, Persia, for the interesting photographs of the ruins of Tus and of the supposed tomb of Al-Ghazali. The mosque is very old and probably dates from the time of Al-Ghazali. The grave shown in the picture, however, _may_ not be the grave of Al-Ghazali the mystic but of another celebrated Ghazali. For we read in As-Subqi (Vol. III, p. 36) that there was one called Ahmed ibn Mohammed Abu Hamed Al-Ghazali, the older and earlier one. He says that people have thrown doubt upon his very existence, but that after careful inquiry he has found mention of this man in several books, including the _Kitab Al Ansab_ of Ibn As-Samʾani. He mentions the fact that this man also lived in Khorasan, was celebrated for his learning, wrote books on theological questions, and was buried at Tus, where his grave was well known; and because of this people called him the Old Ghazali, and used to come to his grave in order to obtain answers to their prayers. He thinks that this Ghazali was either the uncle or the grand-uncle of Al-Ghazali, whose biography we have written. Incidentally we may conclude from this statement of As-Subqi that the name of Al-Ghazali was not given to him because his _father_ was a spinner of wool! It must have been an old family name.
Mr. Donaldson gives this interesting information: “The walls of the old city of Tus still stand. It is one _farsakh_ around them, three and a third miles. There are many fragments of towers and in nine places there are remains of gates. The wall was originally five yards wide. In the largest cemetery the tombstone of Ahmad Ghazali may still be seen. This cemetery lies southwest from the city and while the bulk of it is now under cultivation, the more distant part that lies on the higher ground beyond the waterway has been kept a cemetery.
“The picture I have enclosed of Ghazali’s tomb is not as satisfactory as I would have liked. It shows that a large chip has been taken from one corner of the grave. The stone is about two yards long, one-third yard wide, and one-third yard high. There are positive indications of an effort having been made to cut off the portion on which the name of Ahmed Al-Ghazali appears. It is the part that is chipped in the picture. About at the point where the chipping appears to begin there is a straight line cut about one inch deep across the top of the stone.
“On the road that runs through the city from the southwest gate the old mosque is imposing even in its ruined condition. It stands eighteen yards high and the inner measurements show it to consist of a square base, five yards high, then an octagonal structure eight yards high. (See illustration.)
“Outside the southwest gate an ancient bridge is still in use, as caravans from Mashad come through the old city of Tus. This bridge has eight arches, each four and one-half yards wide. The name of the stream is the _Kashf Rud_.
“The fortress itself is interesting; it is surrounded by a moat and a wall, within which lies a large courtyard and the high approach to the fort itself. At present we could walk around the wall and approach the fort by a passage in the rear. In the courtyard they are now raising the best water-melons we have eaten in Persia. Four gigantic corner fragments of the fort are now standing. In the midst of the débris of bricks within these old walls we found interesting fragments of pottery.”
In another letter from Mashad, Persia, dated January 17, 1917, the Rev. Dwight M. Donaldson writes: “This week I made another trip to Tus, carefully examining again the tombstone of Ghazali. As I wrote you before, the stone has been badly worn and in addition to that has been mutilated. However, on the point of doubt as to whether the stone photographed was really the one marking Mohammed Al-Ghazali’s tomb, or the tomb of another Ahmad Al-Ghazali, I can now say that I believe it is the tomb of Abu Hamed ibn Mohammed ibn Mohammed ibn Mohammed Al-Ghazali, for the reason that we can clearly read on the corner of the top of the stone, the end which some one in times past attempted to cut off, the name غزّالي and بوحا. And as one studies the stone he is almost willing to declare that the name is fully intelligible with the exception of the initial _aleph_. The whole top is badly worn indeed, but the word that my _mirza_ first read as Ahmad is clearly not Ahmad, but what it is we cannot tell. The damage is too complete.
“You will notice that Ghazzali appears in the stone to have been spelled with a _tashdeed_ and yet the mark we have considered a tashdeed is not the usual form (v instead of w).”
This investigation, therefore, would seem to settle two points: that we have at Tus the neglected and mutilated grave of the great mystic and theologian, Al-Ghazali; and that on this grave the middle letter of the name is double. In view of the common usage, however, and in deference to the authorities of Moslems themselves, we have uniformly written Ghazali.
V
His Creed and Credulity
“This man, (Al-Ghazali) if ever any have deserved the name, was truly a ‘divine,’ and he may be justly placed on a level with Origen, so remarkable was he for learning and ingenuity, and gifted with such a rare faculty for the skilful and worthy exposition of doctrine. All that is good, noble, and sublime that his great soul had compassed he bestowed upon Mohammedanism, and he adorned the doctrines of the Koran with so much piety and learning that, in the form given them by him, they seem, in my opinion, worthy the assent of Christians. Whatsoever was most excellent in the philosophy of Aristotle or in the Sufic mysticism he discreetly adapted to the Mohammedan 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. He was the first of Mohammedan divines.”
—_Dr. August Tholuck._
V
HIS CREED AND CREDULITY
Although, according to his own testimony in his “Confessions,” Al-Ghazali was troubled from his earliest years with doubt and scepticism, he was not willing to yield to it, and his faith rose triumphant above all his doubts. This is one of the outstanding facts in his biography. He could say with the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews that “faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” Not only did he find God in nature and in his own conscience and consciousness, but he was a firm believer in revelation. Naturally the only revelation to which Al-Ghazali turned as the basis, the very bed-rock of religious faith, was the Koran, the eternal, uncreated word of God according to Moslem teaching; and also to the life of the Prophet Mohammed, his practices and his precepts handed down in orthodox Tradition—this also was a revelation from God.
Whether he ever read the Old and New Testament is a question we consider unanswered. He did not draw his creed from this source.
Al-Ghazali gives the distinction very clearly, almost as clearly as the Epistle of James, between faith and works. He was a dogmatic theologian and laid down, as we shall see in this chapter, with punctilious care every point of dogma; but he was also a moralist and a man of high ideals which he sought to attain through prayer and fasting and pilgrimage, and a life of utter devotion to the will of God. His faith was living and practical, not theoretical and scholastic. In his great work, the _Ihya_, he discusses the whole subject of faith, and enumerates the following classes of believers:
“He who combines inner belief with outward confession and good works is a true believer and enters Paradise.
“He who combines inner belief with outward confession and some good works but commits one or more great sins, does not thereby cease to be a believer, though his faith is not of the highest degree. The Muʾtazila deny that such a one can be considered a believer, but that nevertheless by committing deadly sins he does not become an unbeliever but is in an intermediate state between a believer and an infidel. An infidel is an impious person and goes into everlasting hell-fire.”
The opinions with regard to the person who combines inner belief with outward confession, but has no good works are divided. Abu Talibu’l Makki says: “Good works are part of the faith, and faith cannot exist without them.” The Sunni doctors of Islam, however, reject this opinion as absolutely false, for they say that it is a truth accepted by general agreement, that a man who believes and confesses and dies before he has done any good work, is a true believer and enters Paradise; that good works cannot consequently be considered as a necessary part of faith, and that faith can exist without them.
“He who believes in his heart, but dies before he has either confessed or performed good works, is nevertheless a true believer and enters into Paradise. Those who consider confession a necessary part of faith naturally consider that such a one has died without faith, an opinion absolutely contrary to the Sunni dogma.
“He who believes in his heart, and has time and opportunity of confessing, and knows that it is the duty of the Moslem to do so, and does not confess his faith, is nevertheless a believer in the sight of God, and will not be cast into everlasting hell-fire, for faith is the mere belief, intellectual conviction and assent, and this belief does not cease to exist through the want of outward confession. Such a man is a believer in the sight of God, but an unbeliever in this world before the court of justice and with regard to the rights of Moslems. In case of an impediment of the tongue, a sign with the hand is as good as confession with the tongue. The sect of the Murjiʾa go too far by saying that a believer, even if he act wickedly, will never enter hell-fire. _The orthodox doctrine on this subject is that every one, even the most perfect believer, will enter hell-fire, for no one is free from committing some sins, for which he must enter fire; only infidels, however, will remain in it forever._”
“He who confesses with the tongue saying: ‘There is no God but God, and Mohammed is His apostle,’ but does not believe it in his heart is an infidel in the sight of God, and will be cast into eternal hell-fire. In this world, however, he is to be considered and treated as a believer and a Moslem, for man cannot penetrate into the secrets of the heart, and the confession of the mouth must be taken to be the interpreter of the thoughts of the heart. In order, however, to make a man a Moslem in this world, before the law, in the sight of the Qadi, confession is necessary.”
Not only does he classify believers in this careful way, but he also discusses the question, in the first book of his _Ihya_, whether Islam is the same thing as _iman_ (faith) or not, and if these two are not the same thing, can they exist separately or must they necessarily be combined? “Some say that Islam and _Iman_ are synonymous terms and that consequently every believer is a Moslem and every Moslem a believer.” This is the opinion held by the orthodox school. Others say that they are distinct things but joined together. Al-Ghazali answers this difficult question in this way: _Iman_ (Faith), from the linguistic point of view, means belief, intellectual conviction and assent; Islam means submission, subjection, obedience. The seat of _Iman_ is the heart or mind, and the tongue is its interpreter. Islam comprises belief with the heart and confession with the tongue, and good works by the members of the body, and is consequently a more comprehensive term than _Iman_. _Iman_ is one of the component parts of Islam, and Islam, therefore, includes it; but _Iman_, being a more restricted term, does not include Islam. From a linguistic point of view the two terms are therefore not synonymous. From the point of view of the law and religion, and in a theological sense the two terms are sometimes used as being synonymous, and sometimes as having different meanings and as being intermingled, comprised in each other. _Iman_ and Islam are found in the individual who believes in his heart and outwardly observes the precepts of Islam; Islam exists separately in the individual, who only believes in his heart; but neither confesses, nor does good works, and Islam exists separately in him who outwardly observes the precepts of Islam, without inner belief.
What the faith of Islam meant to Al-Ghazali we know from all his works, especially from the _Ihya_, which besides other topics gives a full exposition of Moslem belief in regard to the six articles of their creed and the five pillars of practice. The reader may judge for himself both the contents and omissions of Al-Ghazali’s _credo_ from the following brief exposition which he wrote for his pupils:
HIS CREED[54]
“We say—and in God is our trust—Praise belongeth unto God, the Beginner, the Bringer-back, the Doer of what He willeth, the Lord of the Glorious Throne and of Mighty Grasp, the Guider of His chosen creatures to the right path and to the true way, the Granter of benefits to them after the witness to the Unity (_tawhid_) by guarding their articles of belief from obscurities of doubt and opposition. He that bringeth them to follow His Apostle, the Chosen one (_Al-Mustafa_) and to imitate the traces of His Companions, the most honoured, through His aid and right guidance revealed to them in His essence and His works by His beautiful qualities which none perceives, save he who inclines his ear. He is the witness who maketh known to them that He in His essence is One without any partner (_sharik_). Single without any similar, Eternal without any opposite, Separate without any like. He is One, Prior (_qadim_) with nothing before Him, from eternity (_azali_) without any beginning, abiding in existence with none after Him, to eternity (_abadi_) without any end, substituting without ending, abiding without termination. He hath not ceased and He will not cease to be described with glorious epithets; finishing and ending, though the cutting off of the ages and the terminating of allotted times have no rule over Him, but He is the First and Last, the External and the Internal, and He knoweth everything.
“We witness that He is not a body possessing form, nor a substance possessing bounds and limits; He does not resemble bodies, either in limitation or in accepting division. He is not a substance and substances do not exist in Him; and He is not an accident and accidents do not exist in Him, nay He does not resemble an entity, and no entity resembles Him; nothing is like Him and He is not like anything; measure does not bound Him and boundaries do not contain Him; the directions do not surround Him and neither the earth nor the Heavens are on different sides of Him. Lo, He is seated firmly upon His throne (_ʿarsh_), after the manner which He has said, and in the sense in which He willed a being-seated firmly (_istawa_), which is far removed from contact and fixity of location and being established and being enveloped and being removed. The Throne does not carry Him, but the Throne and those that carry it are carried by the grace of His power and mastered by His grasp. He is above the Throne and the Heavens and above everything unto the limit of the Pleiades, with an aboveness which does not bring Him nearer to the Throne and the Heavens, just as it does not make Him further from the earth and the Pleiades. Nay, He is exalted by degrees from the Throne and the Heavens, just as He is exalted by degrees from the earth and the Pleiades; and He, in spite of that, is near to every entity and is ‘nearer to a creature than the artery of his neck’ (Koran 50, 15), and He witnesseth everything, since His nearness does not resemble the nearness of bodies, just as His essence does not resemble the essence of bodies. He does not exist in anything, just as nothing exists in Him; He has exalted Himself far therefrom that a place should contain Him, just as He has sanctified Himself far therefrom that time should limit Him. Nay, He was before He had created Time and Place and He is now above that which He was above, and distinct from His creatures through His qualities. There is not in His essence His equal, nor in His equal His essence. He is far removed from change of state or of place. Events have no place in Him, and mishaps do not befall Him. Nay, He does not cease, through His glorious epithets, to be far removed from changing, and through His perfect qualities to be independent of perfecting increase. The existence of His essence is known by reason; His essence is seen with the eyes, a benefit from Him and a grace to the pious, in the Abiding Abode and a completion in beatitude from Him, through gazing upon His gracious face.
“We witness that He is living, powerful, commanding, conquering; inadequacy and weakness befall Him not; slumber seizes Him not, nor sleep. Passing away does not happen to Him, nor death. He is Lord of the Worlds, the Visible and the Invisible, that of Force and that of Might; He possesses Rule and Conquest and Creation and Command; the heavens are rolled in His right hand and the created things are overcome in His grasp; He is separate in creating and inventing; He is one in bringing into existence and innovating; He created the creation and their works and decreed their sustenance and their terms of life; not a decreed thing escapes His grasp and the mutations of things are not distant from His power; the things which He hath decreed cannot be reckoned and the things which He knoweth have no end.