One of the most important passages is that in which he speaks of the benefit of asking pardon. It reads as follows: “Said Mohammed the Prophet (upon him be peace): ‘Verily, I ask forgiveness of God and repent towards Him every day seventy times.’” He said this, so says Al-Ghazali, although God had already testified, “We have forgiven thee, thy former and thy latter sins.” “Said the Prophet of God, ‘Truly a faintness comes over my heart until I ask God forgiveness every day one hundred times.’ And said the Prophet (on him be peace), ‘Whosoever says when he goes to sleep, “I ask forgiveness of the Great God, than whom there is no other, the living, and I repent of my sins three times,” God will forgive him his sins even though they were as the foam of the seas or its sands piled up, or as the numbers of the leaves on the trees or the days of the world.’ And said the Prophet of God (upon him be peace), ‘Whosoever says that word I will forgive his sins though he deserts the army.’” Al-Ghazali relates a story of one Hudhifa, who said, “I was accustomed to speak sharply to my wife, and I said, ‘O, Apostle of God, I am afraid lest my tongue should cause me to enter the fire,’ and then the Prophet of God (upon whom be peace) said, ‘Where art thou in asking for forgiveness compared with me, for I ask forgiveness of God every day one hundred times.’ And ʾAyesha said (may God give her His favour), concerning the Prophet, ‘He said to me, “If you have committed a sin ask forgiveness of God and repent to Him, for true repentance for a sin is turning away from it and asking forgiveness.”’ And the Apostle of God (upon whom be peace) was accustomed to say when he asked for forgiveness: ‘O God, forgive my sin and my ignorance and my excess in what I have done, and what Thou knowest better than I do. O God, forgive me my trifling and my earnestness, my mistakes and my wrong intentions and all that I have done. O God, forgive me that which I have committed in the past and that which I will commit in the future, and what I have hidden and what I have revealed and what Thou knowest better than I do, Thou who art the first and the last and Thou art the Almighty.’”[80] How different all this is from the present day superficial teaching about the sinlessness of Mohammed which is current in popular Islam.
Since Al-Ghazali tells this about Mohammed and his need for forgiveness, he naturally deals with repentance in no superficial fashion but as one who has tasted the bitterness of remorse and has discovered his own inability to meet the demands of the Moral Law. His book on repentance has the following sections: (1) The reality of repentance. (2) The necessity for repentance. (3) True repentance expected by God. (4) Of what a man should repent, namely, the character of sin. (5) How small sins become great. (6) Perfect repentance, its conditions and its duration. (7) The degree of repentance. (8) How to become truly penitent.
One can only give a summary of his teaching. He rises far above the Koran. In fact in some cases his proof texts, when we consider the context, are a terrible indictment of the Prophet.[81]
He says the necessity of repentance always and for all men is evident because no one of the human race is free from sin. “For even though in some cases he is free from outward sin of his bodily members, he is not free from sin of the heart; though free from passion he is not free from the whisperings of Satan and forgetfulness of God, or of coming short of the knowledge of God and His attributes and His works.” All this is a failure of attainment and has its reasons; but if a man should forsake the causes of this forgetfulness and employ himself with the opposite virtues it would be a return to the right way; and the significance of repentance is the return. You cannot imagine that any one of us is free from this defect, for we only differ in degrees, but the root undoubtedly exists in us. Of course he ignores original sin, being a Moslem, but he makes a great deal of the effect that unrepented sin causes; but it enters deeper and deeper into the heart until the image of God on the mirror of the human soul is effaced.
Another illustration he uses is that of the heart as a goodly garment which has been dragged through filth and needs to be washed again with soap and water. “Using the heart in the exercise of our passions makes it filthy. We must therefore wash it in the water of tears and by the rubbing of repentance. It is for you to rub it clean and then God will accept it.” How near and yet how far from the teaching of David and Isaiah and St. Paul! Did Al-Ghazali ever hear some pious Jew quote Isaiah’s statement that “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags”?
True repentance has a twofold result according to this Moslem theologian. Although he does not touch the deeper problem of how God can be just and justify the sinner, he teaches that the result of the forgiveness of our sins is that “we stand before God as though we had none,” and that “we attain a higher degree of righteousness.” The cross of Christ is the missing link in Al-Ghazali’s creed. He comes very close to Christianity and yet always misses the heart of its teaching. He is groping towards the light but does not grasp the hand of a friend or find a Redeemer. It is all a righteousness by works and an attainment of the knowledge of God by meditation without justification through an atonement.
Yet Al-Ghazali’s teaching on “the Practice of the Presence of God” is very much like that of Brother Lawrence in his celebrated Essay. In his “Beginner’s Guide to Religion and Morals” (Al Badayet) he writes: “Know, therefore, that your companion who never deserts you at home or abroad, when you are asleep or when you are awake, whether you are dead or alive, is your Lord and Master, your Creator and Preserver, and whensoever you remember Him He is sitting beside you. For God Himself hath said, ‘I am the close companion of those who remember me.’ And whenever your heart is contrite with sorrow because of your neglect of religion He is your companion who keeps close to you, for God hath said, ‘I am with those who are broken-hearted on my account.’ And if you only knew Him as you ought to know Him you would take Him as a companion and forsake all men for His sake. But as you are unable to do this at all times, I warn you that you set aside a certain time by night and by day for communion with your Creator that you may delight yourself in Him and that He may deliver you from evil.”[82] At times, especially when he speaks of the veils that hide reality and God, we are reminded of the lines of Whitehead on “the Second Day of Creation”:
“I gaze aloof at the tissued roof
Where time and space are the warp and woof,
Which the King of Kings, like a curtain flings,