O’er the dreadfulness of eternal things.
But if I could see, as in truth they be,
The glories that encircle me,
I should lightly hold this tissued fold
With its marvellous curtain of blue and gold;
For soon the whole, like a parched scroll,
Shall before my amazèd eyes unroll,
And without a screen at one burst be seen
The Presence in which I have always been.”
But Al-Ghazali did not know God’s nearness through the Incarnation of Christ. The hoped-for Vision of God was always full of fear and dread of judgment. The fear of God was the beginning and end of wisdom. What he understood by the fear of God is clear from the following passage taken from the “Revival of Religious Sciences”: “By the fear of God I do not mean a fear like that of women when their eyes swim and their hearts beat at hearing some eloquent religious discourse, which they quickly forget and turn again to frivolity. That is no real fear at all. He who fears a thing flees from it, and he who hopes for a thing strives for it, and the only fear that will save thee is that fear that forbids sinning against God and instils obedience to Him. Beware of the shallow fear of women and fools, who, when they hear of the terrors of the Lord, say lightly, ‘We take refuge in God,’ and at the same time continue in the very sins which will destroy them. Satan laughs at such pious ejaculations. They are like a man who should meet a lion in a desert, while there is a fortress at no great distance away, and when he sees the ravenous beast, should stand exclaiming, ‘I take refuge in God.’ God will not protect thee from the terrors of His judgment unless thou really take refuge in Him.”