IIITeaching, Conversion, and Retirement

“Al-Ghazali is one of the deepest thinkers, greatest theologians and profoundest moralists of Islam. In all Muhamadan lands he is celebrated both as an apologist of orthodoxy and a warm advocate of Sufi mysticism. Intimately acquainted with all the learning of his time, he was not only one of the numerous Oriental philosophers who traverse every sphere of intellectual activity, but one of those rarer minds whose originality is not crushed by their learning. He was imbued with a sacred enthusiasm for the triumph of his faith, and his whole life was dedicated to one purpose, the defense of Islam.”—“Mystics and Saints of Islam,” Claud Field.

—“Mystics and Saints of Islam,” Claud Field.

With the death of the Imam inA. H.478 a great change came into the life of Al-Ghazali. He left Nishapur to seek his fortune and it brought him to the camp court of the great Vizier Nizam Al-Mulk. Here Al-Ghazali sought advancement and the honours of learning.

The camp court was the travelling capital of the Seljuk Sultans. This imperial camp was laid out into squares and streets. We read how in a few hours a city, as if built by enchantment, would rise on the uninhabited plain. The camp exhibited a motley collection of tents and dwellings and palm-leaf huts. The only regular part of the encampment were the streets of shops, each of which was constructed in the manner of a booth at an English fair. Moore gives us the picture in these words:

“Whose are the gilded tents that crowd the way,Where all was waste and silent yesterday?This City of War, which, in a few short hours,Hath sprung up here, as if the magic powersOf him who, in the twinkling of a star,Built the high pillar’d halls of Chilminar,Had conjured up, far as the eye can see,This world of tents and domes and sun-bright armoury.—Princely pavilions, screen’d by many a foldOf crimson cloth, and topp’d with balls of gold;—Steeds, with their housings of rich silver spun,And camels, tufted o’er with Yemen’s shells,Shaking in every breeze their light-toned bells.”[31]

“Whose are the gilded tents that crowd the way,

Where all was waste and silent yesterday?

This City of War, which, in a few short hours,

Hath sprung up here, as if the magic powers

Of him who, in the twinkling of a star,

Built the high pillar’d halls of Chilminar,

Had conjured up, far as the eye can see,

This world of tents and domes and sun-bright armoury.—

Princely pavilions, screen’d by many a fold

Of crimson cloth, and topp’d with balls of gold;—

Steeds, with their housings of rich silver spun,

And camels, tufted o’er with Yemen’s shells,

Shaking in every breeze their light-toned bells.”[31]

As for Nizam Al-Mulk we have an interesting autobiography which he wrote and left as a memorial for future statesmen. (It is quoted in Mirkhond’s “History of the Assassins.”) “One of the greatest of the wise men of Khorasan,” says he, “was the Imam Mowaffak of Nishapur, a man highly honoured and reverenced,—may God rejoice his soul; his illustrious years exceeded eighty-five, and it was the universal belief that every boy who read the Koran or studied the traditions in his presence would assuredly attain to honour and happiness. For this cause did my father send me from Tus to Nishapur with Abd-us-Samad, the doctor of law, that I might employ myself in study and learning under the guidance of that illustrious teacher. Towards me he ever turned an eye of favour and kindness, and as his pupil I felt for him extreme affection and devotion, so that I passed four years in his service. When I first came there,I found two other pupils of mine own age newly arrived—Hakim Omar Khayyam, and the ill-fated Ibn Sabbah, founder of the sect of the Assassins. Both were endowed with sharpness of wit and the highest natural powers; and we three formed a close friendship together. When the Imam rose from his lectures, they used to join me, and we repeated to each other the lessons we had heard. Now Omar was a native of Nishapur, while Hasan Ibn Sabbah’s father was one Ali, a man of austere life and practice but heretical in his creed and doctrine. One day Hasan said to me and to Khayyam: ‘It is a universal belief that the pupils of the Imam Mowaffak will attain to fortune. Now, even if we all do not attain thereto, without doubt one of us will; what then shall be our mutual pledge and bond?’ We answered: ‘Be it what you please.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘let us make a vow, that to whomsoever this fortune falls, he shall share it equally with the rest, and reserve no preëminence for himself.’ ‘Be it so,’ we both replied, and on these terms we mutually pledged our words. Years rolled on, and I went from Khorasan to Transoxiana, and wandered to Ghazni and Kabul; and when I returned I was invested with office, and rose to be administrator of affairs during the Sultanate of Sultan Alp Arslan.”

After his education at Nishapur Nizam Al-Mulk served Alp Arslan, the successor of Togrul Bey, and for more than twenty years the burden of theempire of the Seljuks rested on his shoulders. When Alp Arslan died in 465 Malek Shah succeeded him and from that time until his assassination, on the tenth of Ramadan, 485, Nizam Al-Mulk was the greatest man in the empire and its real ruler. He was a friend of learning and letters and established colleges in many centres.

InA. H.484, Al-Ghazali gained high fame at court and was appointed by Nizam Al-Mulk to teach in theMadrasaat Bagdad, the capital of the whole of Eastern Islam.

We have an interesting picture of the city of Bagdad about this time from the pen of Rabbi Benjamin, of Tudela, who visited the city some years after Al-Ghazali’s death (1160). He says: “The circumference of the city of Bagdad measures three miles; the country in which it is situated is rich in palm-trees, gardens and orchards, so that nothing equals it in Mesopotamia; merchants of all countries resort thither for purposes of trade, and it contains many wise philosophers well skilled in sciences, and magicians proficient in all sorts of witchcraft. The palace of the Caliph at Bagdad is three miles in extent. It contains a large park of all sorts of trees, both useful and ornamental, and all sorts of beasts, as well as a pond of water led thither from the river Tigris; and whenever the Caliph desires to enjoy himself and to sport and to carouse, birds, beasts and fishes are prepared for him and for his councillors, whomhe invites to his palace.” He gives us a glimpse of what went on behind the walls of these royal palaces when he says: “All the brothers and other members of the Caliph’s family are accustomed to kiss his garments, and every one of them possesses a palace within that of the Caliph; but they are all fettered by chains of iron, and a special officer is appointed over every household to prevent their rising in rebellion against the great king. These measures are enacted in consequence of an occurrence which took place some time ago, and upon which occasion the brothers rebelled and elected a king among themselves. To prevent this in future, it was decreed that all the members of the Caliph’s family should be chained, in order to prevent their rebellious intentions. Every one of them, however, resides in his palace, is there much honoured, and they possess villages and towns, the rents of which are collected for them by their stewards; they eat and drink, and lead a merry life.

“The palace of the great king contains large buildings, pillars of gold and silver, and treasures of precious stones. The Caliph leaves his palace but once every year, viz., at the time of the feast called Ramadan. Upon this occasion many visitors assemble from distant parts, in order to have an opportunity of beholding his countenance. He then bestrides the royal mule, dressed in kingly robes, which are composed of gold and silver cloth. On his head he wears a turban, ornamented withprecious stones of inestimable value; but over this turban is thrown a black veil, as a sign of humility, and as much as to say: ‘See, all this worldly honour will be converted into darkness on the day of death.’ He is accompanied by a numerous retinue of Mohammedan nobles, arrayed in rich dresses, and riding upon horses; princes of Arabia, of Media, of Persia, and even of Thibet, a country distant three months’ journey from Arabia. This procession goes from the Palace to the Mosque at the Basra gate, which is the Metropolitan Mosque. All those who walk in procession are dressed in silk and purple, both men and women. The streets and squares are enlivened by singing, rejoicings, and by parties who dance before the great king, called Caliph. He is loudly saluted by the assembled crowd, who cry, ‘Blessed art thou, our lord and king.’ He thereupon kisses his garment, and by holding it in his hand, acknowledges and returns the compliment. The procession moves on into the court of the Mosque, where the Caliph mounts a wooden pulpit, and expounds their law unto them. The learned Mohammedans rise, pray for him, and praise his great kindness and piety; upon which the whole assembly answer, ‘Amen.’ He then pronounces his blessing and kills a camel, which is led thither for that purpose, and this is their offering, which is distributed to the nobles. These send portions of it to their friends, who are eager to taste of the meat killed by the hands oftheir holy king, and are much rejoiced therewith. He then leaves the Mosque, and returns alone to his Palace along the banks of the Tigris, the noble Mohammedans accompanying him in boats until he enters his buildings. He never returns by the way he came, and the path on the bank of the river is carefully guarded all the year around, so as to prevent any one treading in his footsteps. The Caliph never leaves his palace again for a whole year.

“He is a pious and benevolent man, and has erected buildings on the other side of the river, on the banks of an arm of the Euphrates which runs on one side of the city. These buildings include many large houses, streets, and hostelries for the sick poor, who resort thither in order to be cured. There are about sixty medical warehouses here, all well provided from the king’s stores with spices and other necessaries; and every patient who claims assistance is fed at the king’s expense until his cure is completed. There is further the large building called Dar-ul-Marastan (the abode of the insane), in which are locked up all those insane persons who are met with, particularly during the hot season, every one of whom is secured by iron chains until his reason returns, when he is allowed to return to his home.”

We may add what the poet, Al-Hamadhani, a contemporary, tells us of the luxuries of the table at Bagdad: “We found ourselves among a company who were passing their time amid bunches ofmyrtle twigs, and bouquets of roses, broached wine vats and the sound of the flute and the lute. We approached them and they advanced to receive us. Then we clave to a table whose vessels were filled, whose gardens were in flower, and whose dishes were arranged in rows with viands of various hues; opposite a dish of something intensely black was something exceedingly white, and against something very red was arranged something very yellow.” And in another place: “I was in Bagdad in a famine year, and so I approached a company, united like the Pleiades, in order to ask something of them. Now there was among them a youth with a lisp in his tongue and a space between his front teeth. He asked: ‘What is thy affair?’ I replied: ‘Two conditions in which a man prospers not: that of a beggar harassed by hunger, and that of an exile to whom return is impossible.’ The boy then said: ‘Which of the two breaches dost thou wish stopped first?’ I answered: ‘Hunger, for it has become extreme with me.’ He said: ‘What sayest thou to a white cake on a clean table, picked herbs with very sour vinegar, fine date wine with pungent mustard, roast meat ranged on a skewer with a little salt, placed now before thee by one who will not put thee off with a promise nor torture thee with delay, and who will afterwards follow it up with golden goblets of the juice of grape? Is that preferable to thee, or a large company, full cups, variety of dessert, spreadcarpets, brilliant lights, and a skilful minstrel with the eye and neck of a gazelle?’”

From all this we can imagine what Al-Ghazali enjoyed when he went to dine with the Nizam Al-Mulk or other men of wealth and there wasnofamine in Bagdad!

The Nizamiyya College which Al-Ghazali attended and in which he was one of the leading lecturers at two periods of his life, was built on the eastern river bank of the Tigris, near the Bridge of Boats and close to the wharf and the large market-place. The college was founded inA. D.1065, being especially established for the teaching of Shafiʾite law. Close to the college was another college called the Bahaiyah and the hospital Maristan Tutushi.

The traveller, Ibn Jubayr, attended prayers in the Nizamiyya on the first Friday after his arrival in Bagdad, in the year 581 (A. D.1185), and he describes it as the most splendid of the thirty and odd colleges which then adorned the City of East Bagdad.... Ibn Jubayr further reports that in his day the endowments derived from domains and rents belonging to the college amply sufficed both to pay the stipends of professors and to keep the building in good order, besides supplying an extra fund for the sustenance of poor scholars. TheSuk, or market of the Nizamiyya, was one of the great thoroughfares of this quarter, and it is described as lying adjacent to the “Mashraʾah” orwharf, which proves that the college must have stood near the Tigris bank.[32]... Writing a dozen years later than Ibn Batuta, Hamd-Allah, the Persian historian, briefly alludes to the Nizamiyya, which he calls “the mother of the Madrasahs” in Bagdad. This proves that down to the middle of the fourteenth centuryA. D.the college was still standing, though at the present time all vestiges of it have disappeared, as indeed appears already to have been the case in the middle of the last century, for Niebuhr found no traces of the Nizamiyya to describe in his painstaking account of the ruins in the city of Caliphs, as these still existed in the time of his visit.

It was here, at the Nizamiyya School, that Al-Ghazali first embarked on his career as an independent teacher. His lectures drew crowds. He gavefatwas, or legal opinions, on matters of the law,[33]he wrote books, he preached in the mosque, and was a leader of the people. Then suddenly in the midst of all this prosperity a great change came over him. He seemed to be attacked by a mysterious disease. His speech became hampered, his appetite failed, and his physicians said the malady was due to mental unrest. He suddenly left Bagdad in the month of Dhu-l-Qada, 488, appointed his brother Ahmed to teach in his place, and abandonedall his property, except so much as was necessary for his own support and that of his children.

This sudden retirement from active life and academic honour was unintelligible to the theologians of his days. They looked upon it as a calamity for Islam. Some interpreted it as fear of the Government, a flight from responsibility, but the real reason of his renunciation he himself tells us in his “Confessions.” This book reveals the story of his spiritual experiences from his youth up to his fiftieth year.

He says: “Know then, my brother (may God direct you in the right way), that the diversity in beliefs and religions, and the variety of doctrines and sects which divide men, are like a deep ocean strewn with shipwrecks, from which very few escape safe and sound. Each sect, it is true, believes itself in possession of the truth and of salvation; ‘each party,’ as the Koran saith, ‘rejoices in its own creed’; but as the chief of apostles, whose word is always truthful, has told us, ‘My people will be divided into more than seventy sects of whom only one will be saved.’ This prediction, like all others of the Prophet, must be fulfilled.

“From the period of adolescence, that is to say, previous to reaching my twentieth year to the present time when I have passed my fiftieth, I have ventured into this vast ocean; I have interrogated the beliefs of each sect and scrutinized the mysteries of each doctrine, in order to disentangle truthfrom error and orthodoxy from heresy. I have never met one who maintained the hidden meaning of the Koran without investigating the nature of his belief, nor a partisan of its exterior sense without inquiring into the results of his doctrine. There is no philosopher whose system I have not fathomed, nor theologian the intricacies of whose doctrine I have not followed out.

“Sufism has no secrets into which I have not penetrated; the devout adorer of Deity has revealed to me the aim of his austerities; the atheist has not been able to conceal from me the real reason of his unbelief. The thirst for knowledge was innate in me from my early age; it was like a second nature implanted by God, without any will on my part. No sooner had I emerged from boyhood than I had already broken the fetters of tradition and freed myself from hereditary beliefs.

“Having noticed how easily the children of Christians become Christians, and the children of Moslems embrace Islam, and remembering also the traditional saying ascribed to the Prophet: ‘Every child has in him the germ of Islam, then his parents make him Jew, Christian, or Zoroastrian,’ I was moved by a keen desire to learn what was this innate disposition in the child, the nature of the accidental beliefs imposed on him by the authority of his parents and his masters, and finally the unreasoned convictions which he derives from their instructions.”

Again he is full of doubts when he says: “Perhaps also Death is that state [he is speaking of a possible state of being which will bear the same relation to our present state as this does to the condition when asleep], according to a saying of the Prince of Prophets: ‘Men are asleep; when they die, they wake.’ Our present life in relation to the future is perhaps only a dream, and man, once dead, will see things in direct opposition to those now before his eyes.

“Such thoughts as these threatened to shake my reason, and I sought to find an escape from them. But how? In order to disentangle the knot of this difficulty, a proof was necessary. Now a proof must be based on primary assumptions, and it was precisely these of which I was in doubt. This unhappy state lasted about two months, during which I was not, it is true, explicitly or by profession,but morally and essentially a thoroughgoing sceptic.”

That Al-Ghazali was driven to scepticism must not surprise us. Schools of free thinkers had been established fifty years earlier at Bagdad and Busrah. Every Friday they gathered together. Some were rationalists, some downright materialists. Not only philosophers but poets were the leaders of these circles. Among them we must mention Abu’l ʾAla Al-Maʾarri, born in 973A. D.This blind poet is said to have written a Koran in imitation of Mohammed, and when some one complained to him that although the book was well written it didnot make the same impression as the true Koran, he replied: “Let it be read from the pulpit of the mosques for four hundred years and then you will all be delighted with it.” His quatrains rival those of Omar Al-Khayyam in their utter pessimism and rank infidelity from the orthodox Moslem standpoint. For example, he writes:

“Lo: there are many ways and many trapsAnd many guides and which of them is Lord?For verily Mohammed has the swordAnd he may have the truth—perhaps?perhaps?Nowthisreligion happens to prevailUntil bythatone it is overthrown,—Because men dare not live with men alone,But always with another fairy-tale.Religion is a charming girl, I say;But over this poor threshold will not pass,Because I can’t unveil her, and alas;The bridal gift I can’t afford to pay.”

“Lo: there are many ways and many trapsAnd many guides and which of them is Lord?For verily Mohammed has the swordAnd he may have the truth—perhaps?perhaps?

“Lo: there are many ways and many traps

And many guides and which of them is Lord?

For verily Mohammed has the sword

And he may have the truth—perhaps?perhaps?

Nowthisreligion happens to prevailUntil bythatone it is overthrown,—Because men dare not live with men alone,But always with another fairy-tale.

Nowthisreligion happens to prevail

Until bythatone it is overthrown,—

Because men dare not live with men alone,

But always with another fairy-tale.

Religion is a charming girl, I say;But over this poor threshold will not pass,Because I can’t unveil her, and alas;The bridal gift I can’t afford to pay.”

Religion is a charming girl, I say;

But over this poor threshold will not pass,

Because I can’t unveil her, and alas;

The bridal gift I can’t afford to pay.”

Nor could this poet have had much reverence for the religion of Islam when he wrote:

“Where is the valiance of the folk who singThese valiant stories of the world to come?Which they describe, forsooth, as if it swungIn air and anchored with a yard of string.”...“Two merchantmen decided they would battle,To prove at last who sold the finest wares;And while Mohammed shrieked his call to prayers,The true Messiah waved his wooden rattle.”

“Where is the valiance of the folk who singThese valiant stories of the world to come?Which they describe, forsooth, as if it swungIn air and anchored with a yard of string.”

“Where is the valiance of the folk who sing

These valiant stories of the world to come?

Which they describe, forsooth, as if it swung

In air and anchored with a yard of string.”

...

“Two merchantmen decided they would battle,To prove at last who sold the finest wares;And while Mohammed shrieked his call to prayers,The true Messiah waved his wooden rattle.”

“Two merchantmen decided they would battle,

To prove at last who sold the finest wares;

And while Mohammed shrieked his call to prayers,

The true Messiah waved his wooden rattle.”

As in the nineteenth century for Christianity, so in the eleventh century for Islam, the struggle between science and orthodoxy waged fiercely. The rationalistic school of the Muʾtazilites still exercised great influence while the literalists and the blind followers of traditional Islam were often more distinguished for Pharisaism than piety.

We need only turn to the “Maqamat” of Al-Hamadhani to know what the sceptic of that day thought of the public religious services.

“So I slipped away from my companions,” says his hero, “taking advantage of the opportunity of joining in public prayers, and dreading, at the same time, the loss of the caravan I was leaving. But I sought aid against the difficulty of the desert through the blessing of prayer, and, therefore, I went to the front row and stood up. The Imam went up to the niche and recited the opening chapter of the Quran according to the intonation ofHamza, in regard to using ‘Madda’ and ‘Hamza,’ while I experienced disquieting grief at the thought of missing the caravan, and of separation from the mount. Then he followed up the Surat Al-Fatiha with Surat Al-Waqʾia while I suffered the fire of impatience and tasked myself severely. I wasroasting and grilling on the live coal of rage. But, from what I knew of the savage fanaticism of the people of that place, if prayers were cut short of the final salutation, there was no alternative but silence and endurance, or speech and the grave! So I remained standing thus on the foot of necessity till the end of the chapter. I had now despaired of the caravan and given up all hope of the supplies and the mount. He next bent his back for the two prostrations with such humility and emotion, the like of which I had never seen before. Then he raised his hands and his head and said: ‘May God accept the praise of him who praises Him,’ and remained standing till I doubted not but that he had fallen asleep. Then he placed his right hand on the ground, put his forehead on the earth and pressed his face thereto. I raised my head to look for an opportunity to slip away, but I perceived no opening in the rows, so I re-addressed myself to prayer until he repeated theTakbirfor the sitting posture. Then he stood up for the second prostration, recited the Suras of Al-Fatiha and Al-Qaria with an intonation which occupied the duration of the Last Day and well-nigh exhausted the spirits of the congregation. Now, when he had finished his two prostrations and proceeded to wag his jaws to pronounce the testimony to God’s unity, and to turn his face to the right and to the left for the final salutation, I said: ‘Now God has made escape easy, and deliverance is nigh’; but aman stood up and said: ‘Whosoever of you loves the companions of the Moslem community let him lend me his ears for a moment.’”—Such was the impression made by the formalities of orthodoxy!

Al-Ghazali found no help for his doubts among these scholastic theologians nor has any Moslem since his day. Professor Macdonald tells us why. “Grant the theologians their premises, and they could argue; deny them, and there was no common ground on which to meet. Their science had been founded by Al-Ashʾari to meet the Muʾtazilites; it had done that victoriously, but could do no more. They could hold the faith against heretics, expose their inconsistencies and weaknesses; but against the sceptic they could do nothing. It is true that they had attempted to go further back and meet the students of philosophy on their own ground, to deal with substances and attributes and first principles generally; but their efforts had been fruitless. They lacked the necessary knowledge of the subject, had no scientific basis, and were constrained eventually to fall back on authority.”[34]

“Nor did he find light in philosophy, although he thoroughly studied the various systems of his day and refuted them. Religion is not merely of the mind but of the heart; philosophy had its place but could satisfy only the intellect and left the deepest longings of the soul unsatisfied. Next he examined the teachings of the Taʾlimites, the contemporarysect of the Ishmaelites founded by Hassan Ibn as Sabbah. Theirs was the doctrine of an Imam or infallible spiritual guide and the sect found large following. But Al-Ghazali, so far from being attracted by them, wrote several books against them.”[35]No other path remained open for the perplexed and sceptical seeker after God than the way of the mystics. It was a return to the early teaching he received at Tus and Nishapur and to the atmosphere of his native land which was for centuries steeped in mysticism. Of this period of his life he was wont to say:

“When I wished to plunge into following the people and to drink of their drink, I looked at my soul and I saw how much it was curtained in, so I retired into solitude and busied myself with religious exercises for forty days, and there was doled to me of knowledge I had not had purer and finer than what I had known. Then I looked upon it, and lo, in it was a legal element. So I returned to solitude and busied myself with religious exercises for forty days, and there was doled to me other knowledge, purer and finer than what had befallen me at first, and I rejoiced in it. Then I looked upon it, and lo, in it was a speculative element. So I returned to solitude a third time for forty days, and there was doled to me other knowledge that is known (i. e., not simply perceived, felt), and I did not attain to the people of the inwardsciences. So I know that writing on a surface from which something has been erased is not like writing on a surface in its first purity and cleanness, and I never separated myself from speculation except in a few things.”

Who can read this and doubt his utter sincerity in the search for God and for Truth?

He tells the rest of the story in his “Confessions”: “I saw that Sufism consists in experiences rather than in definitions, and that what I was lacking belonged to the domain, not of instruction but of ecstasy and initiation.

“The researches to which I had devoted myself, the path which I had traversed in studying religious and speculative branches of knowledge, had given me a firm faith in three things—God, inspiration, and the Last Judgment. These three fundamental articles of belief were confirmed in me, not merely by definite arguments, but by a chain of causes, circumstances, and proofs which it is impossible to recount. I saw that one can only hope for salvation by devotion and the conquest of one’s passions, a procedure which presupposes renouncement and detachment from this world of falsehood in order to turn towards eternity and meditation on God. Finally, I saw that the only condition of success was to sacrifice honours and riches and to sever the ties and attachments of worldly life.

“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 giveway 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 yearA. 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 hisconversiondid 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, whereI 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 ofwanderlustsecond 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 hisback 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.

Interior of the Great Mosque at Damascus. In the center theMihrabshowing 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-secondMaqamat: “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 ofthe 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 thehonesttraveller, 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 inA. 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 inA. D.708 the Christians were driven out. To this day one of the three minarets is called by the name ofʾIsa(Jesus), and above a gate, long since closed, is the Greek inscription, “Thy kingdom, O Christ, is an everlastingkingdom, 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?

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