CHAPTER XI
AL GHAZZALI
(ad 1058—1111)
Al Ghazzali is one of the deepest thinkers, greatest theologians and profoundest moralists of Islam. In all Muhammadan 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 defence of Islam. As Browning says, "he made life consist of one idea." His full name was Abu Hamid Muhammad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Ahmed Algazzali, and he was born at Tus in Khorassan, 1058 a.d., where a generation earlier Firdausi, the author of the Shah-*nama, had died. Tus was already famous for learning and culture, and later on Ghazzali's own fame caused the town to become a centre of pilgrimage for pious Moslems, till it was laid in ruins by Genghis Khan, a century after Ghazzali's death.
His birth occurred at a time when the power of the Caliphs had been long on the wane, and the Turkish militia, like the Pretorian guards of the later Roman empire, were the real dispensers of power. While the political unity of Islam had been broken up into a number of mutually-opposed states, Islam itself was threatened by dangers from without. In Spain, Alphonso II. had begun to press the Moors hardly. Before Ghazzali was forty, Peter the Hermit was preaching the First Crusade, and during his lifetime Baldwin of Bouillon was proclaimed King in the Mosque of Omar at Jerusalem. But more serious than these outer foes was the great schism which had split Islam into the two great opposing parties of Shiahs and Sunnis—a schism which was embittered and complicated by the struggle of rival dynasties for power. While the Shiites prevailed in Egypt and Persia, the Turks and Seljuks were Sunnis. In Bagdad the seat of the Caliphate during the reign of Al Kasim, when Ghazzali was a youth, fatal encounters between the two contending factions were of daily occurrence. Ghazzali's native city was Shiite, and not till Khorassan had been conquered by the Ghaznevides and Seljuks did Sunni teaching prevail there. Yet, however bitterly Shiahs and Sunnis might be opposed to each other, they both counted as orthodox and were agreed as to the fundamental principles of Islam, nor did their strife endanger the religion itself. But besides the two great parties of Shiahs and Sunnis, a mass of heretical sects, classed under the common name of Mutazilites, had sprung up within Islam. These heretics had studied Aristotle and Greek philosophy in Arabic translations, and for a long time all that the orthodox could do was to thunder anathemas at them and denounce all speculation. But at last Al Asha'ari, himself formerly a Mutazilite, renounced his heresies, and sought to defend orthodoxy and confute the heretics on philosophical grounds.
The Mutazilites had cultivated the study of philosophy with especial zeal, and therefore the struggle with them was a fierce one, complicated as it was by political animosity. The most dangerous sect of all was that of the Ismailians and Assassins, with their doctrine of a hidden Imam or leader. In some of his works Ghazzali gives special attention to confuting these.
The whole aspect and condition of Islam during Ghazzali's lifetime was such as to cause a devout Moslem deep distress and anxiety. It is therefore natural that a man who, after long and earnest search, had found rest and peace in Islam, should have bent all the energies of his enthusiastic character to oppose these destructive forces to the utmost. Ghazzali is never weary of exhorting those who have no faith to study the Muhammadan revelation; he defends religion in a philosophical way against the philosophers, refutes the heretics, chides the laxity of the Shiites, defends the austere principles of the Schafiites, champions orthodoxy, and finally, by word and example, urges his readers towards the mysticism and asceticism of the Sufis. His numerous writings are all directed to one or another of these objects. As a recognition of his endeavours, the Muhammadan Church has conferred upon him the title of "Hujjat al Islam," "the witness of Islam."
It is a fact worthy of notice that when the power of the Caliphs was shattered and Muhammadanism, already in a state of decline, precisely at that period theology and all other sciences were flourishing.
The reason of this may be found in the fact that nearly all the Muhammadan dynasties, however much they might be opposed to each other, zealously favoured literature and science. Besides this, the more earnest spirits, weary of the political confusions of the time, devoted themselves all the more fervently to cultivating the inner life, in which they sought compensation and refuge from outward distractions. Ghazzali was the most striking figure among all these. Of his early history not much is known. His father is said to have died while he was a child, but he had a brother Abu'l Futuh Ahmed Alghazzali, who was in great favour with the Sultan Malik Shah, and owing to his zeal for Islam had won the title of "Glory of the Faith." From the similarity of their pursuits we gather that the relationship between the brothers must have been a close one. Ibn Khalliqan the historian informs us that later on Abu'l Futuh succeeded his brother as professor, and abridged his most important literary work, "The Revival of the religious sciences." While still a youth, Ghazzali studied theology at Jorjan under the Imam Abu Nasr Ismail. On his return journey from Jorjan to Tus, he is said to have fallen into the hands of robbers. They took from him all that he had, but at his earnest entreaty returned to him his note books, at the same time telling him that he could know nothing really, if he could be so easily deprived of his knowledge. This made him resolve for the future to learn everything by heart.