Included with his fear of God there was always a fear of death which can best be described as mediæval or early Moslem. Towards the close of his life he composed a short work on eschatology called “The Precious Pearl.” It is no less lurid in its terrible pictures of death and the judgment than some of his older works. In it he says: “When you watch a dead man and see that the saliva has run from his mouth, that his lips are contracted, his face black, the whites of his eyes showing, know that he is damned, and that the fact of his damnation in the other world has just been revealed to him. But if you see the dead with a smile on his lips, a serene countenance, his eyes half-closed, know that he has just received the good news of the happiness which awaits him in the other world....
“On the day of Judgment, when all men are gathered before the throne of God, their accounts are all cast up, and their good and evil deeds weighed. During all this time each man believes he is the only one with whom God is dealing. Though peradventure at the same moment God is taking account of countless multitudes whose number is known to Him only. Men do not see each other or hear each other speak.”
In summing up the character of the Mystic Claud Field says: “As St. Augustine found deliverance from doubt and error in his inward experience of God, and Descartes in self-consciousness, so Ghazali, unsatisfied with speculation and troubled by scepticism, surrenders himself to the will of God. Leaving others to demonstrate the existence of God from the external world, he finds God revealed in the depths of his own consciousness and the mystery of his own free will.... He is a unique and lonely figure in Islam, and has to this day been only partially understood. In the Middle Ages his fame was eclipsed by that of Averroes, whose commentary on Aristotle is alluded to by Dante, and was studied by Thomas Aquinas and the schoolman. Averroes’ system was rounded and complete, but Ghazali was one of those ‘whose reach exceeds their grasp’; he was always striking after something he had not attained, and stands in many respects nearer to modern mind than Averroes. Renan, though far from sympathizing with his religious earnestness, calls him ‘the most original mind among Arabian philosophers.’”
The disciple of Al-Ghazali is perhaps of all Moslems the nearest to the Gospel, and we may hope that when his works are carefully studied and compared with the teaching of Christianity many may find in him a schoolmaster to lead them to Christ. Educated Moslems of to-day may well heed the warning with which Al-Ghazali closes his “Confessions”: “The knowledge of which we speak is not derived from sources accessible to human diligence, and that is why progress in mere worldly knowledge renders the sinner more hardened in his revolt against God. True knowledge, on the contrary, inspires in him who is initiated in it more fear and more reverence, and raises a barrier of defense between him and sin. He may slip and stumble, it is true, as is inevitable with one encompassed by human infirmity, but these slips and stumbles will not weaken his faith. The true Moslem succumbs occasionally to temptation but he repents and will not persevere obstinately in the path of error. I pray God the Omnipotent to place us in the ranks of His chosen, among the number of those whom He directs in the path of safety, in whom He inspires fervour lest they forget Him; whom He cleanses from all defilement, that nothing may remain in them except Himself; yea of those whom He indwells completely, that they may adore none beside Him.”
Being a Moslem, Al-Ghazali was either too proud to search for the true historical facts of the Christian religion, or perhaps it would be more charitable to say that he had no adequate opportunity, in spite of his quotations and misquotations from the “Gospels.” Otherwise he could have found there what would have met his heart-hunger and satisfied his soul—the manifestation of God not in some intangible principle, but in a living person, in Jesus Christ, who “is the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature. For by Him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; in Him are all things, and by Him all things consist.” (Colossians 1: 15-17.) Those who dwell in Christ and in whom He dwells are a part of His spiritual body. They are the branches of the living Vine. They are one in life and purpose, although they remain conscious evermore of their own individual existence; they are fitted progressively for a deeper communion with God. To such a conception the Sufi never attained. Al-Ghazali admits that no man has seen God at any time, but he failed to realize that “the Only Begotten, Who is in the bosom of the Father, hath declared Him.” The artificial glory of Mohammed in his case, as for centuries afterwards, hid the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Yet not altogether, as the next chapter will make clear.
IX
Jesus Christ in Al-Ghazali
Jesus, the very thought of Thee
With sweetness fills my breast;