Another story is related of him as follows: “In our time there was a man in Egypt who disliked Al-Ghazali and abused him and slandered him. And he saw the Prophet (God bless him and give him peace!) in a dream; Abu Bakr and ʾOmar (may God be well pleased with both of them!) were at his side, and Al-Ghazali was sitting before him, saying, ‘O Apostle of God, this man speaks against me!’ Thereupon the Prophet said, ‘Bring the whips!’ So the man was beaten on account of Al-Ghazali. Then the man arose from sleep, and the marks of the whips remained on his back, and he was wont to weep and tell the story.”
And should this praise seem oriental and extravagant, we add the words of Professor Duncan B. Macdonald, who has made a more thorough study of Al-Ghazali’s life and writings than any other student of Islam:—“What rigidity of grasp the hand of Islam would have exercised but for the influence of Al-Ghazali might be hard to tell; he saved it from scholastic decrepitude, opened before the orthodox Moslem the possibility of a life hid in God, was persecuted in his life as a heretic, and now ranks as the greatest doctor of the Moslem Church.”
To understand the importance of Al-Ghazali and of his teaching we must transport ourselves to the time in which he lived. We cannot understand a man unless we know his environment. Biography is only a thread in the vast web of history, in which time is broad as well as long. Al-Ghazali belongs to the small company of torch bearers in the Dark Ages.
He was born at Tus, in Khorasan, Persia, in the year 1058 A. D., and died in 1111 A. D. When Al-Ghazali was born Togrul Bey had just taken Bagdad, Henry IV was Emperor, Nicholas II was Pope, the Norman conquest had just begun in the west, and Asia Minor was overrun by the Turks in the Near East. Among Al-Ghazali’s other contemporaries in the west were Hildebrand the Pope, Abelard, Bernard, Anselm, and Peter the Hermit. About the time he wrote his greatest work, Godfrey of Bouillon was King of Jerusalem. Al-Ghazali was struggling with the problem of Islam in its relation to the human heart thirsting for God, about two hundred years after Al-Kindi had written his remarkable apology for the Christian faith at the court of Haroun-ar-Rashîd and two hundred years before Raymond Lull laid down his life a martyr in North Africa.
The condition of the Moslem world had utterly changed since the days when Busrah with its rival city Kufa were dominated by the victorious Arabs of Omar’s Caliphate. The Abbasside Caliphs of the eleventh century were almost as much the shadows of former power as the Emperors of the East; they retained little more than their religious supremacy. Togrul Bey, the grandson of Seljuk, had been confirmed by the powerless Caliph Al-Qaʾim bi-amr Allah, in all his conquests, loaded with honours, saluted as King of the East and West, and endowed with the hand of the Caliph’s daughter. In the next reign, that of Al-Muqtadi, the Seljuk Turks captured Jerusalem.
“About the year 1000,” says Nöldeke,[1] “Islam was in a very bad way. The Abbasside Caliphate had long ceased to be of any importance, the power of the Arabs had long ago been broken. There was a multitude of Islamite States, great and small; but even the most powerful of these, that of the Fatimids, was very far from being able to give solidity to the whole, especially as it was Shiʾite.... These nomads (the Turks) caused dreadful devastation, trampled to the ground the flourishing civilization of vast territories, and contributed almost nothing to the culture of the human race; but they mightily strengthened the religion of Mohammed. The rude Turks took up with zeal the faith which was just within reach of their intellectual powers, and they became its true, often fanatical, champions against the outside world. They founded the powerful empire of the Seljuks, and conquered new regions for Islam in the northwest. After the downfall of the Seljuk empire they still continued to be the ruling people in all its older portions. Had not the warlike character of Islam been revived by the Turks, the Crusaders perhaps might have had some prospect of more enduring success.”
Togrul Bey was invested with the title of Sultan in the royal city of Nishapur, A. D. 1038. According to Gibbon, he was the “father of his soldiers and of his people. By a firm and equal administration Persia was relieved from the evils of anarchy; and the same hands which had been imbrued in blood became the guardians of justice and the public peace. The more rustic, perhaps the wisest, portion of the Turkmans continued to dwell in the tents of their ancestors; and, from the Oxus to the Euphrates, these military colonies were protected and propagated by their native princes. But the Turks of the court and city were refined by business and softened by pleasure: they imitated the dress, language, and manners of Persia; and the royal palaces of Nishapur and Rei displayed the order and magnificence of a great monarchy. The most deserving of the Arabians and Persians were promoted to the honours of the state; and the whole body of the Turkish nation embraced with fervour and sincerity the religion of Mahomet.”[2]
The first of the great Seljuk Sultans was conspicuous by his zeal for the Moslem faith. He spent much time in prayer, and in every city which he conquered built new mosques. By force of arms he delivered the Caliph of Bagdad at the head of an irresistible force and taught the people of Mosul and Bagdad the lesson of obedience. Rescued from his enemies, the alliance between the Caliph and the Sultan was cemented by the marriage of Togrul’s sister with the successor of the Prophet. In 1063 Togrul died and his nephew Alp Arslan succeeded him. His name, therefore, was pronounced after that of the Caliph in public prayer by all the Moslems of the Near East.
The character of his rule Gibbon gives us in a sentence: “The myriads of Turkish horse overspread a frontier of 600 miles from Taurus to Erzeroum, and the blood of 136,000 Christians was a grateful sacrifice to the Arabian prophet.” The “valiant lion,” for that is the significance of his name, displayed at once the fierceness and generosity of a typical Oriental ruler. Christians suffered dreadful persecution. Enemies were assassinated; but the learned, the rich, and the favoured were lavishly rewarded. Arslan was a valiant warrior of the faith and as eager for the battlefield as those whom Moore describes:—
“One of that saintly murderous brood