death warrant. He was hung from a gibbet and his ashes strewn over the
Tigris.
7
Al Ghazali
Abu Hamid Muhammad al Ghazali (1058-1111) was born inTus, a town
in the northeastern Persian province of Khorasan.He studied theology (
kalam
)
under the greatest theologian of the age, al Juwayni, Imam al Haramayn, and
went on to be appointed by Nizam ul Mulk, the Seljuk vizier, to teach the
subject in the Nizamiya Madrasa of Baghdad. After teaching for four years,
he experienced an acute spiritual crisis and in 1095 resigned from his teaching
post. For the next twelve years he led the life of a wandering ascetic, turned
to Sufism and finally became a Sufi. In the end he returned to his hometown,
Tus, where he occupied himself with teaching up till the time of his death.
Al Ghazali wrote a number of works of which the most important are:
Deliverance from Error
(
al Munqidh min ad Dalal
), which speaks of different
classes of ‘seekers of knowledge’ and their practices, but is actually an
account of his personal journey towards spiritual awakening;
The Beginning
of Guidance
(
Bidayat al Hidayah
), which explains what true guidance is - ‘a
provision for the life to come’
8
;
The Incoherence of the Philosophers
(
Tahafut al
Falasifa
), a critique of philosophy; and his greatest work,
Revival of the Religious
Sciences
(
Ihya’ Ulum al Din
).
Al Ghazali’s turn to Sufism came about following a critical spiritual
dilemma and after many years of traditional studies, which had somehow
failed to give him personal satisfaction. He discovered this satisfaction in
7
Fariduddin Attar, The Conference of Birds.
8
al Ghazali, Bidayat al Hidayah and al Munqidh min ad-Dalal, tr.Watt,W.M. ,‘
The Faith and Practice of
Al-Ghazali
’
, revised edition, 1994, p. 97.
T owar d s Mys t i c i sm 38
