“Between the civilizations of Christendom and Islam there is a gulf which no human genius, no concourse of events, can entirely bridge over. The most celebrated Orientals, whether in war or policy, in literature or learning, are little more than names for Europeans.”
—“The Assemblies of Al-Hariri,” by Thomas Chenery.
“With the time came the man. He was Al-Ghazali, the greatest, certainly the most sympathetic figure in the history of Islam, and the only teacher of the after generations ever put by a Muslim on a level with the four great Imams. The equal of Augustine in philosophical and theological importance. By his side the Aristotelian philosophers of Islam, Ibn Rushd and all the rest, seem beggarly compilers and scholiasts. Only Al-Farabi, and that in virtue of his mysticism, approaches him. In his own person he took up the life of his time on all its sides and with it all its problems. He lived through them all and drew his theology from his experience.”
—“Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence and Constitutional
Theory,” by D. B. Macdonald.
I
THE ELEVENTH CENTURY
The great characters of history may be compared to mountain peaks that rise high above the plains and the lower foot-hills and are visible from great distances because they dominate the landscape. In the historical study of Islam four names stand out prominently. They are those of Mohammed himself; of Al-Bokhari, the most celebrated collector of the Traditions; of Al-Ashʾari, the great dogmatic theologian and the opponent of rationalism; and of Al-Ghazali, the reformer and mystic. The last named has left a larger imprint upon the history of Islam than any man save Mohammed himself. “If there had been a prophet after Mohammed,” said As-Suyuti, “it would have been Al-Ghazali.”
It is in his life, and more especially in his writings, that I believe we can see Islam at its best. In trying to escape the dead weight of Tradition and the formalism of its requirements, Moslems are more and more finding relief in the way of the mystic. Of all those who have found a deeper spiritual meaning in the teachings of the Koran and even in the multitudinous and puerile detail of the Moslem ritual, none can equal Al-Ghazali. “He was,” says Jamal-ud-Din, “the pivot of existence and the common pool of refreshing waters for all, the soul of the purest part of the people of the Faith, and the road for obtaining the satisfaction of the Merciful.... He became the unique one of his own day and for all time among the Moslem learned.” “Al-Ghazali,” said another writer, nearly contemporary, “is an imam by whose name breasts are dilated and souls revived, in whose literary productions the ink horn exults and the paper quivers with joy, and at the hearing of whose message voices are hushed and heads are bowed.”
A celebrated saint, Ahmed As-Sayyed Al-Yamani Az-Zabîdi, also a contemporary of Al-Ghazali, said, “When I was sitting one day, lo, I perceived the gates of heaven opened, and a company of blessed angels descended, having with them a green robe and a precious steed. They stood by a certain grave and brought forth its tenant and clothed him in the green robe and set him on the steed and ascended with him from heaven to heaven, till he passed the seven heavens and rent after them sixty veils, and I know not whither at last he reached. Then I asked about him, and was answered, ‘This is the Imam Al-Ghazali.’ That was after his death; may God Most High have mercy on him!”