A Moslem seeker after God

by Samuel Marinus Zwemer

VII. The Book of Good Intent and Sincerity.

VIII. The Book of Self-examination.

IX. The Book of Meditation.

X. The Book of the Remembrance of Death.

Especially the third and fourth parts of his great work show us Al-Ghazali as a mystic and a preacher of righteousness. His ten books on “Things that deliver the soul” furnish material from which it would not be difficult to collect a beautiful anthology or a daily calendar of spiritual thoughts. Such a rosary of pearls from Al-Ghazali’s works might well be used for devotion by Christians as well as by Moslems.

A facsimile page of the Ihya (Vol. II, page 180, Cairo Ed.). It gives a diagram of the prayer kibla and the rules to be observed in facing it correctly.

Another most interesting book is that on the names of God, entitled Al-Maksad ul-Asna Sharh-Asmaʾ-Allah ul Husna, “The Highest Aim: the Explanation of the Beautiful Names of God.” The book is divided into three parts of which the first deals philosophically with the meaning of the word “name” and its distinction from the naming of the thing and the thing named itself: also how it is possible for God to have many names and yet to be one essence. The second part of the book is the longest and treats of the ninety-nine names of God in order showing how they are comprehended in the seven attributes and the one essence. The third part is brief and shows that there are really more than ninety-nine names, but that this was the number fixed upon for good reasons. And finally there is a section telling how God may and may not be described.

Al-Ghazali teaches in this book that the imitation of God’s attributes is the highest happiness for the believer. There are three degrees in the knowledge of God, and in this respect he says: “The virtues of the righteous are the faults of the Saints”; by which he means that the nearer we approach to God the more perfect is our standard of character. The three degrees of knowledge are (1) intellectual, (2) that of admiration and attempted imitation, (3) that of actual acquirements of God’s attributes such as the angels. Nearness to God is by rank and degree, not in regard to position or place. He quotes with approval the famous saying of Junaid: “No one knows God save God Himself Most High, and therefore even to the best of His creatures He has only revealed His names, in which He hides Himself.” He says that two statements are true in regard to God and the believer. The true believer must say, “I know nothing but God,” and “I know nothing of God.”

The last book Al-Ghazali wrote was the Minhaj al-ʾAbidin or “Guide of True Worshippers.” It is said to have been written for those who could not understand the Ihya and deals with the creed and ritual of Islam from the standpoint of the mystic. Our illustration shows in facsimile the first page of this celebrated work from a recent Cairo edition. On the margin of the text we have the Beginner’s Guide, already spoken of. These two works of Al-Ghazali are very popular and have recently had an increasing circulation.