by Robert Irwin
Al-Ghazzali (also frequently spelt Ghazali), one of the most famous of all Sufis, made his reputation as an academic teaching in a madrasa before pursing a more spiritual path as a Sufi. Abu Hamid Muhammad al-GHAZZALI (1058–1111) was born the son of a poor wool-spinner in eastern Persia. The boy’s obvious intellect secured him influential patronage, which allowed him to pursue studies in theology and religious law. At the age of thirty-three he started teaching as a professor in the Nizamiyya madrasa in Baghdad (founded by Nizam al-Mulk, the famous vizier of the Seljuks). According to Ghazzali’s spiritual autobiography, it was while teaching at the Nizamiyya that he fell victim to an intellectual and spiritual crisis. He was unable to speak and hardly able to eat, and he went into seclusion. He doubted not only his religious faith, but also the reality of the world and the evidence of his senses. Ghazzali’s doubts prefigure those of Rene Descartes, though the answer ultimately discovered by the twelfth-century Sufi bears little resemblance to that worked out by the seventeenth-century French philosopher.
In 1095 Ghazzali absconded from academic life and set out to travel in the Near East. He spent time meditating as an ascetic in Mecca, Alexandria, Jerusalem and Damascus, and his meditations brought him to acknowledge the ultimate truth of Sufism and its superiority over rival spiritual philosophies that were popular at the time. Only then did he return to lecturing, this time at a madrasa in Nishapur in eastern Iran, but he soon retired and a few years later he died in his native Tus. That, at any rate, is the version of Ghazzali’s life presented for public consumption. However, the spiritual crisis leading to all-encompassing doubt, the travel to holy cities in search of enlightenment, and the ultimate resolution of the crisis through the full understanding of the truths of mysticism, all feature so frequently in Sufi biographies that one may suspect that this pattern of ‘biography’ was a cliche of devotional writing – merely a conventional way of packaging mystical and pietistical treatises. Ghazzali’s account of his spiritual journey bears a suspicious resemblance to that of an earlier Sufi writer, al-Muhasibi. Indeed there are good grounds for believing that Ghazzali was already a Sufi before he abandoned his first teaching post.
Whatever the truth of the matter, Ghazzali’s writings did a great deal to popularize Sufi doctrines and make them respectable. For example, he spent a great deal of time and ink in trying to explain how Hallaj’s vainglorious and apparently blasphemous statement ‘I am the Truth’ could be interpreted in some way that could be accepted by more conventional Muslims. Ghazzali was not a systematic thinker and his books are jackdaw collections of bits of past wisdom. Much of what he wrote is visionary; he described God moving among the 70,000 veils, as well as the ceaseless movement of prophets and saints up and down through the heavens. He drew on ancient doctrines and images of ‘light’ mysticism. However, even more of what he wrote is moralistic and world-hating; the world is ‘a prison’, ‘a fiery torment’, ‘a deceitful prostitute’.
He wrote copiously in both Persian and Arabic. Mishkat al-Anwar, ‘The Niche of Lights’, is an esoteric treatise with Platonic elements; ‘this visible world is a trace of the invisible one and the former follows the latter like a shadow’. Tahafut al-Falasifa, ‘The Incoherence of Philosophers’, as its title suggests is a denunciation of philosophy, particularly philosophizing developed under the influence of the ancient Greeks. The philosophers’ alleged denial of the reality of the resurrection of the body was particularly impious. Ghazzali insisted that there must be limits to the authority of reason and that reason could not direct faith. Ihya al-‘Ulum al-Din, ‘The Revival of Religious Sciences’, is a kind of spiritual encyclopedia, a reference work on dogma which is still consulted today. (Kimiya-yi Sa’dat, ‘The Alchemy of Happiness’, is an abridgement in Persian.) In the stylishly written Al-Munqidh min al-Dalal, ‘The Deliverance from Error’, Ghazzali describes how he investigated the competing claims of philosophers, conventional theologians and Shi’i illuminationists before he decided to become a Sufi. In the following passage he describes a crisis of doubt:
Thereupon I investigated the various kinds of knowledge I had, and found myself destitute of all knowledge with this characteristic of infallibility except in the case of sense-perception and necessary truths. So I said: ‘Now that despair has come over me, there is no point in studying any problems except on the basis of what is self-evident, namely, necessary truths and the affirmations of the senses. I must first verify these in order that I may be certain on this matter. Is my reliance on sense-perception and my trust in the soundness of necessary truths of the same kind as my previous trust in the beliefs I had merely taken over from others and as the trust most men have in the results of thinking? Or is it a justified trust that is in no danger of being betrayed or destroyed?’
I proceeded therefore with extreme earnestness to reflect on sense-perception and on necessary truths, to see whether I could make myself doubt them. The outcome of this protracted effort to induce doubt was that I could no longer trust sense-perception either. Doubt began to spread here and say: ‘From where does this reliance on sense-perception come? The most powerful sense is that of sight. Yet when it looks at the shadow [of a stick or the gnomon of a sundial], it sees it standing still, and judges that there is no motion. Then by experiment and observation after an hour it knows that the shadow is moving and, moreover, that it is moving not by fits and starts but gradually and steadily by infinitely small distances in such a way that it is never in a state of rest. Again, it looks at the heavenly body [the sun] and sees it small, the size of a shilling, yet geometrical computations show that it is greater than the earth in size.’
In this and similar cases of sense-perception the sense as judge forms his judgements, but another judge, the intellect, shows him repeatedly to be wrong; and the charge of falsity cannot be rebutted.
To this I said: ‘My reliance on sense-perception also has been destroyed. Perhaps only those intellectual truths which are first principles (or derived from first principles) are to be relied upon, such as the assertion that ten are more than three, that the same thing cannot be both affirmed and denied at one time, that one thing is not both generated in time and eternal, nor both existent and non-existent, nor both necessary and impossible.’
Sense-perception replied: ‘Do you not expect that your reliance on intellectual truths will fare like your reliance on sense-perception? You used to trust in me; then along came the intellect-judge and proved me wrong; if it were not for the intellect-judge you would have continued to regard me as true. Perhaps behind intellectual apprehension there is another judge who, if he manifests himself, will show the falsity of intellect in its judging, just as, when intellect manifested itself, it showed the falsity of sense in its judging. The fact that such a supra-intellectual apprehension has not manifested itself is no proof that it is impossible.’
My ego hesitated a little about the reply to that, and sense-perception heightened the difficulty by referring to dreams. ‘Do you not see,’ it said, ‘how, when you are asleep, you believe things and imagine circumstances, holding them to be stable and enduring, and, so long as you are in that dream-condition, have no doubts about them? And is it not the case that when you awake you know that all you have imagined and believed is unfounded and ineffectual? Why then are you confident that all your waking beliefs, whether from sense or intellect, are genuine? They are true in respect of your present state, but it is possible that a state will come upon you whose relation to your waking consciousness is analogous to the relation of the latter to dreaming. In comparison with this state your waking consciousness would be like dreaming! When you have entered into this state, you will be certain that all the suppositions of your intellect are empty imaginings. It may be that state is what the Sufis claim as their special hal [i.e. mystic union or ecstasy], for they consider that in their ‘states’ (or ecstasies), which occur when they have withdrawn into themselves and are absent from their senses, they witness states (or circumstances) which do not tally
with these principles of the intellect. Perhaps that ‘state’ is death; for the Messenger of God (God bless and preserve him) says: ‘The people are dreaming; when they die, they become awake.’ So perhaps life in this world is a dream by comparison with the world to come; and when a man dies, things come to appear differently to him from what he now beholds, and at the same time the words are addressed to him: ‘We have taken off thee thy covering, and thy sight today is sharp’ (Qur’an 50:21).
When these thoughts had occurred to me and penetrated my being, I tried to find some way of treating my unhealthy condition; but it was not easy. Such ideas can only be repelled by demonstration; but a demonstration requires a combining of first principles; since this is not admitted, however, it is impossible to make the demonstration. The disease was baffling, and lasted almost two months, during which I was a sceptic in fact though not in theory nor in outward expression. At length God cured me of the malady; my being was restored to health and an even balance; the necessary truths of the intellect became once more accepted, as I regained confidence in their certain and trustworthy character.
This did not come about by systematic demonstration or marshalled argument, but by a light which God most high cast into my breast. That light is the key to the greater part of knowledge. Whoever thinks that the understanding of things Divine rests upon strict proofs has in his thought narrowed down the wideness of God’s mercy. When the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) was asked about ‘enlarging’ and its meaning in the verse, ‘Whenever God wills to guide a man, He enlarges his breast for islam [i.e. surrender to God]’ (Qur’an 6:125), he said, ‘It is a light which God most high casts into the heart.’ When asked, ‘What is the sign of it?’, he said, ‘Withdrawal from the mansion of deception and return to the mansion of eternity.’ It was about this light that Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, ‘God created the creatures in darkness, and then sprinkled upon them some of His light.’
From that light must be sought an intuitive understanding of things Divine.
W. Montgomery Watt, The Faith and Practice of
al-Ghazali (new edn., Oxford, 1990), pp. 21–4
COMMENTARY
Hal in everyday parlance means ‘state’, ‘situation’, ‘position’. However, in the vocabulary of the Sufis it refers to a mystical state, usually ecstasy. A hal is a state which has been temporarily reached by the mystic, as opposed to a maqam, which is a permanent station.
Sharaf al-Din ‘Umar ibn ‘Ali IBN AL-FARID (1181–1235), ‘the Sultan of the Lovers’, was an older contemporary of the Andalusian Sufi, Ibn al-‘Arabi. Ibn al-Farid was born in Egypt. His father was a professional allocator of shares in inheritances. (That is what farid means.) Ibn al-Farid seems to have led a quiet and solitary life, much of it as an ascetic hermit living on the rubbish tips of Mount Muqattam on the edge of Cairo. However, he also spent some years in Arabia and underwent a particularly intense mystical experience in Mecca. His poetry was reported to have been composed in trances that often lasted several days. His Nazm al-Suluk (‘Poem of the Way’) is 761 verses long and instructs his disciples about a series of mystical experiences. His other poems are much shorter and his Diwan is small, though highly esteemed. Ibn al-Farid, like Ibn al-‘Arabi, redirected the conventional imagery of the deserted campsite and of the ‘wine poem’ to divine ends. Not only did he imitate old poems, he stole directly from them. Thus his poems recycled snatches of Mutanabbi, Buhturi and others, though of course the old verses acquired new meanings in a mystical context. (The practice of stealing or quoting from earlier poems, tadmin, was widely accepted and practised in the medieval Arab literary world.) Ibn al-Farid may have composed his verses in a state of mystical ecstasy, but those verses are ornate, highly intellectual and make great play with conventional courtly forms.
More controversial were the dangerous doctrines which Ibn al-Farid had clothed in conventional poetical imagery. A leading religious thinker of the early fourteenth century, Ibn Taymiyya, denounced Ibn al-Farid for espousing the heresy of monism and of claiming that the mystic could attain full unity with God. One of Ibn Taymiyya’s followers, al-Dhahabi, observed of Ibn al-Farid that his ‘Diwan is famous, and it is of great beauty and subtlety, perfection and burning desire. Except that he adulterated it with explicit monism, in the sweetness of expressions and subtlest metaphors, like pastry laced with venom!’
Pass round the remembrance of her I desire, though it be to
reproach me – for tales of the Beloved are my wine –
That mine ear may witness the one I love, afar if she be, in the
fantasy of a reproach, not the fantasy of a dream.
For the mention of her is sweet, in whatever form it be, even
though my upbraiders mingle it with contention:
‘Tis as if my upbraider came with good tidings of attainment,
though I had not hoped for any responsive greeting.
My soul be her ransom, for love of whom I have spent my soul!
And indeed the time of my doom is ripe, ere the day of my doom;
And on her account I rejoice that I am exposed to shame, yea,
delightful is my rejection and humbling, after the proud high
station that once was mine;
And for her sake is my self-dishonouring sweet, and that after
once I was godly, yea, the casting off of my shame, and the
commission of my sins.
I say my prayers, chanting right well as I make mention of her in
my recitation, and I rejoice in the prayer-niche, she being there to
lead me.
And when in my pure white robes I go to the pilgrimage, here is
the name I cry Labbaika; and breaking my ritual fast I hold to be
my withholding from her.
And my tear-ducts flow apace because of the case I am in,
running upon what has passed with me; and my wailing expresses
my distraction.
In the evening my heart is distraught with ardent passion, and in
the morning mine eye pours forth the tears of sorrow:
And lo, my heart and mine eye – the former is sorely burdened
by her most spiritual beauty, while the latter is deeply attached to
the delicate grace of her stature.
My sleep is all lost, and my morning – thine be continuing life! –
and ever my wakefulness is with me, and still my yearning
increaseth.
My bond and my compact – the one is loosed not, the other
unchanging: my passion of old is still my passion, my ardour is yet
true ardour.
So wasted my body is, ‘tis transparent to all my secrets; my
bones shrunk to thinness, reveal therein a most inward meaning.
Struck down by the violent impact of love, my ribs sore
wounded, lacerated mine eyelids, that stream unceasing with
blood,
Single-minded in passion, I emulate in my ethereality the air,
even the air of dawn, and the breaths of the morning breeze are my
rare visitors;
Sound, and yet ailing – seek me then from the zephyr of morn,
for there, as my wasting willed, is now my lodging.
I have vanished of wasting even from wasting itself; yea, I have
vanished from the cure of my sickness, and the cool waters that
would assuage my burning thirst;
And I know not any, except it be passion, that knows where I
dwell, and how I have hidden my secrets, and guarded faithfully
my covenant.
Love hath left naught surviving of me save a broken heart, and
sorrow, and sore distress, and sickness exceeding;
And as for the flaming of passion, my patience, my consolation –
of these not a thing remains to me, save the names of them.
Let him who is free of my desire escape with his soul safe fr
om
all harm; and, O my soul, now depart in peace.
‘Forget her!’ declared my chider, himself being passionate to
chide me on her account. ‘Forget thou to chide me!’ I answered.
To whom should I look for guidance, alas! if I sought to forget
her? Seeing that every leader in love looks to follow my
footsteps;
In my every member severally is the whole fire of yearning, all
after her, and longing tugging my reins to pursue her.
She swayed as she moved; and I imagined each side, as she
swung it, a twig on a sandhill, and, above it, a moon at the full;
And my every member had, as it were, its several heart, the
which, as she glanced, was pierced by its shower of arrows.
And had she laid bare my body, she would have beheld every
essence there, therein every heart contained, possessing all yearning
love.
And when I attain her, a year to me is but as a moment; and an
hour of my banishment seemeth for me a year.
And when we did meet at evening, drawn together by the paths
running straight, the one to her dwelling, the other to my tent,
And we swerved thus a little away from the tribe, where neither
was Watcher to spy, nor Slanderer with his lying talk,
I laid down my cheek upon the soil for her to tread on; and she
cried, ‘Good tidings to thee! Thou mayest kiss my veil.’
But to that my spirit would not consent, out of jealous zeal to
guard my honour and the high object of my desire:
So we passed the night as my choice willed and my heart
aspired, and I saw the world my kingdom, and Time itself my
slave.
A. J. Arberry, The Mystical Poems of lbn al-Farid
(Dublin, 1956), pp. 90–92
COMMENTARY
‘Labbaika!’, meaning ‘I am here!’, is the cry of pilgrims as they stand on the plain of ‘Arafat, outside Mecca, during the hajj.