- 1. On Eating.
- 2. On Marriage.
- 3. On Business.
- 4. The Lawful and the Unlawful.
- 5. Social Relations and Etiquette.
- 6. On Retirement.
- 7. On Travel.
- 8. On Music.
- 9. On Enforcing Good and Checking Evil.
- 10. Good Living: Description of the Prophet’s Mode of Living.
Part III.
- 1. Psychological Description of the Nature of Man.
- 2. On Virtues and the Purification of the Heart.
- 3. On Appetite and Passion.
- 4. On the Tongue: Its Goods and Evils.
- 5. On Anger: Enmity and Envy.
- 6. The Evils of the World.
- 7. Parsimony and the Evils of the Love of Wealth.
- 8. On the Evils of Reputation and Hypocrisy.
- 9. Pride and Vanity.
- 10. Self-deception.
Part IV.
- 1. Repentance.
- 2. Patience and Thanksgiving.
- 3. Hope and Fear.
- 4. The Poor and the Hermit,
- 5. Unity of God, and Dependence on Him.
- 6. On Love, Ecstasy, and Joyous Submission to His will.
- 7. On Intention, Sincerity and Truth.
- 8. Meditation.
- 9. Contemplation and taking a Warning.
- 10. On Death and the After-Life.
Against the philosophers he argued for the belief in the reality of the divine attributes and against the view of the eternity of the world. He contended against the theory that there would be no physical punishments and rewards hereafter, maintaining, as he did, the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. He virtually denied that there is real causal connection in events as experienced by us: but only sequence: in this he adumbrates the theory of Hume. For Ghazzali, God is the only efficient cause. From the scepticism to which his consideration of philosophy led him he turned to the acceptance of revelation, this as found in the mystic experience and in the words of saints and prophets, especially the Prophet Muhammed.
The knowledge of moral principles Ghazzali conceived as coming not through rational reflection but by immediate intuition of the divine character revealing itself. Moral truths come especially through moral and religious teachers, as the most fit persons for the transmission of these revelations. He possessed great skill in psychological analysis of moral conditions, and passages in illustration of this have been included here, treating of pride and vanity, friendship and sincerity. As almost all great practical moral and religious teachers, Ghazzali makes considerable use of apt stories, and of striking sayings from the saints and prophets. He continually harks back to the time of the Prophet and his “Companions”.
Ghazzali’s abandonment of his academic position at Baghdad, his retirement to mosques and journeyings on pilgrimage, are sufficient evidence that he recognised that the truth of mysticism could not be tested by theoretical reflection but only by an attempt at practice. Only the experience itself could prove its own reality. He appears to have held that for the attainment of the condition of ecstasy the means of asceticism and meditation should be used. But it does not seem quite correct to suggest as does Carra de Vaux that Ghazzali did not recognise the fact of divine “grace”, though he did not use a corresponding term. The beatific vision of the mystic certainly depended in part, for Ghazzali, on God’s mercy in removing the veil. How far he himself was successful in attaining the bliss of the mystic vision it is impossible to tell: in this direction he gained no such reputation as did several other Sufis. He taught that repentance, a moral conversion, is a necessary preliminary to the mystic life, and he fought against a common tendency of mystics towards antinomianism. Similarly he tried to avoid the danger of interpreting the union of the soul with God as its identification with God in a pantheistic view of the universe. Goldzieher says he differed from the Sufis generally in the rejection of their pantheistic aims and low estimate of religious ordinances.[10]