The Prussians continued pagans in a great measure throughout this century. We read that eighteen missionaries sent out to labour among them were massacred. They seemed to have been among the last of the European nations to submit to the yoke of Christ.
The noblest figure of the century in the West, in the annals of Christendom, was undoubtedly that of Anselm. He was born about the time of Al-Ghazali, and died in 1109. His life in many respects is a parallel to that of his contemporary. Both were theologians and both were mystics, seeking rest for their souls in withdrawing from the world and its allurements. Both were apologists for the Faith and opponents of infidelity and philosophy. Both exerted an immense influence by their writings as well as through teaching; and if Al-Ghazali sought the revival of religious life in Islam through his Ihya, Anselm gave employment to his active mind in writing his celebrated treatise “Cur Deus Homo?” Both of them refuted philosophers in their effort to establish the Faith.
It is interesting to note in this connection that Anselm’s famous book is now used in Arabic translation by missionaries to Moslems, and that Al-Ghazali’s “Confessions” have been put into the hands of the English reader as a testimony of his sincerity and devotion.
Both Anselm and Al-Ghazali lived and wrote under a deep consciousness of the world to come, the terrors of the judgment day, and the doom of the wicked. This also was characteristic of the times.
To understand the time in which Al-Ghazali lived we must also remember that it was one of great literary activity under the Abbasside Caliphs of Bagdad and the Seljuk sultans. We have seen how rulers rewarded literary genius, established schools, and furthered education on religious lines. Arabic literature affords a galaxy of names during the latter half of the eleventh century in almost every department of Moslem learning.
Among Ghazali’s celebrated contemporaries, men of literary fame, we may mention Abiwardi (d. 1113), the poet; Ibn Al-Khayyat, who was born at Damascus in 1058 and died in Persia in 1125; Al-Ghazi (b. 1049), who composed elegies and panegyrics at Nizamiyya College, was a college mate of Ghazali’s, and died in Khorasan; Al-Tarabalusi (b. 1080), a younger contemporary. But the most famous poet of all was Al-Hariri (1054-1122), whose “Assemblies” throw so much light on the manners and morals of this period. Among the men at the Nizamiyya University were Al-Khatîb (b. 1030), the great philologist; and Ibn Al-Arabi, born at Seville in 1076, who visited Bagdad to attend the teaching of Al-Ghazali. The greatest of all the Shafiʾite doctors, Al-Ruyani, was also a contemporary of Al-Ghazali. He taught at Nishapur and wrote the most voluminous book on jurisprudence in existence, called “The Sea of Doctrine.” In 1108, just as he had finished one of his lectures he was murdered by a fanatic of the Assassin sect, who were then holding the castle of Alamut in the mountains. We must also mention a schoolmate of Al-Ghazali, Al-Harrasi (1058-1110), who studied at Nishapur under the Imam Al-Haramain, was made his assistant, and then went to Bagdad, where he taught theology in the Nizamiyya University for the rest of his life. Nor must we forget Al-Baghawi, who wrote a famous commentary on the Koran, and other works of theology (1122); Al-Raghib Al-Ispahani, who died in 1108, and wrote a dictionary of the Koran, arranged in alphabetical order, called Mufradat alfaz Al-Koran, with quotations from the traditions and from the poets; he also wrote a treatise on morals, which Al-Ghazali always carried about with him (Kitab ad-dharia), and a commentary on the Koran. Among the early contemporaries of Al-Ghazali we must not forget to mention Ali bin ʾUthman Al-Jullabi Al-Hujwiri, the author of the oldest Persian treatise on Sufism extant. He was born in Ghazni, Afghanistan, and died in A. D. 1062, when Al-Ghazali was fourteen years old. Al-Hujwiri travelled far and wide through the Mohammedan Empire and his famous work Kashf al-Mahjub anticipates much of the teaching of Al-Ghazali, who must have been familiar with this author. And to complete this already long list of celebrities, we may mention Al-Maidani of Nishapur, who died in 1124, having written a great work on Arabic proverbs; Al-Zamakhshari, born in 1074, who wrote a famous commentary on the Koran; Ibn Tumart, the noted philosopher of the West who attended Al-Ghazali’s lectures at Nizamiyya; and ash-Shahristani who wrote on the various religions and sects—the standard work among all Moslems to-day on comparative religion. The period was in many respects the golden age of Islamic literature, and it is high praise indeed that, in the judgment of Moslem and Christian, Al-Ghazali surpassed all his literary contemporaries, if not in style and eloquence, at least in the scope and character of his writings—still more by the enduring and outreaching influence of his life. The story of that life and the character of his message we will now attempt to sketch for the reader.