IMAM al-Ghazzali belongs to such a rarified community like Socrates, Aristotle, Plato or the great Muslim sages of the East. Knowing him at the deeper level is important not only for the Muslim Community, but for the whole world. He speaks across centuries and influenced the western civilization and Christianity, as much as he impacted Islam. His transformation was so complete that he had become a greatest person honored by the Kings and holding the chair of Nazamia Academy in Baghdad. Ibn ‘Arabi went to meet Imam al-Ghazzali in Iraq. This is the man, who is the master of the Islamic sciences and he says, “When I entered into the room, the sun rose before my eyes and all darkness was dispelled for me and the truth became manifest to me.”
People who have been in the presence of sanctified being would know and feel such presence. Have you ever been in the presence of someone who had emptied himself? Egyptians when they want to say watch out they say KhaleBalak min Nafsak. It actually means empty your mind of yourself. The people of Tassawuf call it Taklaya that precedes the imitation of God in which we take on the qualities, which God loves and has described himself, the quality of mercy, generosity, forbearance, patience and gratitude. These are the things which emptying of the self enables. When you have people on the religious path committed to this, a different type of religion emerges.
Imam Ghazzali is speaking to the world. His voice is the voice of the sage. He talks of three elements of the soul that are in every human being, the pig, the dog and the sage. “The pig is squealing, the dog is barking, but we are not hearing the sage.” He is the voice of the sage. He is challenging us to take control of the pig and the dog. While they are there for a reason, the concupiscent soul, the lustful or the irascible soul, but the rational soul (the spiritual component) is so sorely missing. His life is a proof of the transformative power of the spiritual teachings. All the knowledge, the outward knowledge in the end mattered nothing after he saw Allah Subahanwa Tallah in his heart. He is saying set out on this journey and even if you do not arrive, the setting out is arrival. If you are knocking at the door, the knocking is opening.
The journey. He talks how he was putting off the journey and “then God forced it upon me. He took away my ability to speak and that was my livelihood.” His lectures were listened by people of all religion far and wide and one day once he sat on the pulpit to speak he couldn’t. He left his seat at Nazamia College to his brother Ahmed Ghazzali and went on a long journey. He left Baghdad in November 1095, ostensibly on a pilgrimage to Mecca; actually, he went into seclusion to practice the ascetic and religious discipline of the Sufis in order to secure certainty for his mind and peace for his soul. He gave away all his fortune except some ‘trust funds’ to maintain his family and proceeded to Syria.
A janitor sweeping the mosque. For the next 10 to 12 years, he wandered all over the Muslim world roaming, meditating and doing spiritual practices. It appears he went to Damascus and stayed in the famous Omayyad mosque. He spends 2 years sweeping a mosque as a Janitor in Damascus. Here is a man whose stature is so great intellectually, like head of Harvard becoming a Janitor in The National Cathedral and telling no body. Then he goes to Jerusalem. This is the time when he is engaged in ‘rayada’ (spiritual conditioning of the soul). People do not really know what he did and where he was for 12 years and after those 11 or 12 years, when he returned, he was a changed man.
Direct experience of the truth. His long journey, both inwardly and outwardly was to discover true knowledge through mysticism. It is this turning point, which makes al-Ghazzali, what we know him today. He returned to the world in 1106 to his old seat, a fully dedicated Sufi and experienced which the previous mystics had talked and felt these were true. His return was not for same reasons. He says, “Before this I taught knowledge, which was calculated to bring honour, wealth and position, by words and by acts, I led men to this direction. Now I want to teach men the knowledge that renounces wealth and position and God knows well that this is my intention and my desire is that my present efforts should lead to the purification of my soul and the souls of the people.“
He hated imitative mind and did not like blind imitation. A sectarian mind focuses on one aspect and grabs on to that. Churchill described a fanatic as someone who would not change his mind and would not change the subject. As a Philosopher, he would take the subject to its utmost. He was challenging people to think for yourself. “It can’t be true because your father told you, it’s true, it can’t be true because your society tells you it’s true and the only way it can be true for you is if you take it seriously enough to think about it.” Extracts of book ‘Islamic Spirituality and Mysticism (Sufism) -The Path and Destination.’ — To be continued
—The writer is author of various books based in Rawalpindi.
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