The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 73

Mathematics comprises the knowledge of calculation, geometry, and cosmography: it has no connection with the religious sciences, and proves nothing for or against religion; it rests on a foundation of proofs which, once known and understood, cannot be refuted. Mathematics tend, however, to produce two bad results.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 165

We now come to deal with doubts relative to the inspiration of a particular prophet. We shall not arrive at certitude on this point except by ascertaining, either by ocular evidence or by reliable tradition, the facts relating to that prophet. When we have ascertained the real nature of inspiration and proceed to the serious study of the Koran and the traditions, we shall then know certainly that Muhammed is the greatest of prophets.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 48

“The truth,” I said to myself, “must be found among these three classes of men who devote themselves to the search for it. If it escapes them, one must give up all hope of attaining it. Having once surrendered blind belief, it is impossible to return to it, for the essence of such belief is to be unconscious of itself. As soon as this unconsciousness ceases it is shattered like a glass whose fragments cannot be again reunited except by being cast again into the furnace and refashioned.” Determined to follow these paths and to search out these systems to the bottom, I proceeded with my investigations in the following order: Scholastic theology; philosophical systems; and, finally Sufism.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 42

On another occasion he said: “God has created His creatures in darkness, and then has shed upon them His light.” It is by the help of this light that the search for truth must be carried on. As by His mercy this light descends from time to time among men, we must ceaselessly be on the watch for it. This is also corroborated by another saying of the Apostle: “God sends upon you, at certain times, breathings of His grace; be prepared for them.”

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 105

Once in possession of the truth he examines the basis of various doctrines which come before him, and when he has found them true, he accepts them without troubling himself whether the person who teaches them is sincere or a deceiver. Much rather, remembering how gold is buried in the bowels of the earth, he endeavours to disengage the truth from the mass of errors in which it is engulfed.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 41

Some one asked the Prophet the explanation of this passage in the Divine Book: “God opens to Islam the heart of him whom He chooses to direct.” “That is spoken,” replied the Prophet, “of the light which God sheds in the heart.” “And how can man recognise that light?” he was asked. “By his detachment from this world of illusion and by a secret drawing towards the eternal world,” the Prophet replied.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 3

Concerning the Philosophical Sects and the Stigma of Infidelity which attaches to them all 25

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 66

And certainly no one can study anatomy and the wonderful mechanism of living things without being obliged to confess the profound wisdom of Him Who has framed the bodies of animals and especially of man. But carried away by their natural researches they believed that the existence of a being absolutely depended upon the proper equilibrium of its organism.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 125

The researches to which I had devoted myself, the path which I had traversed in studying religious and speculative branches of knowledge, had given me a firm faith in three things—God, Inspiration, and the Last Judgment. These three fundamental articles of belief were confirmed in me, not merely by definite arguments, but by a chain of causes, circumstances, and proofs which it is impossible to recount. I saw that one can only hope for salvation by devotion and the conquest of one’s passions, a procedure which presupposes renouncement and detachment from this world of falsehood in order to turn towards eternity and meditation on God. Finally, I saw that the only condition of success was to sacrifice honours and riches and to sever the ties and attachments of worldly life.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 88

Religion having no fault to find with medical science cannot justly do so with physical, except on some special matters which we have mentioned in the work entitled _The Destruction of the Philosophers_. Besides these primary questions, there are some subordinate ones depending on them, on which physical science is open to objection.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 109

But even if they were borrowed exclusively from the doctrines of the philosophers, is it right to reject an opinion when it is reasonable in itself, supported by solid proofs, and contradicting neither the Koran nor the traditions? If we adopt this method and reject every truth which has chanced to have been proclaimed by an impostor, how many truths we should have to reject!

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 112

Honey does not become impure because it may happen to have been placed in the glass which the surgeon uses for cupping purposes. The impurity of blood is due, not to its contact with this glass, but to a peculiarity inherent in its own nature; this peculiarity, not existing in honey, cannot be communicated to it by its being placed in the cupping glass; it is therefore wrong to regard it as impure. Such is, however, the whimsical way of looking at things found in nearly all men.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 119

It should be proved to him that the contact of the good coins with the bad does not injure the former and does not improve the latter. In the same way the contact of truth with falsehood does not change truth into falsehood, any more than it changes falsehood into truth.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 95

Besides this, they deny that God has attributes, and maintain that He knows by His essence only and not by means of any attribute accessory to His essence. In this point they approach the doctrine of the Mutazilites, doctrines which we are not obliged to condemn as irreligious. On the contrary, in our work entitled _Criteria of the differences which divide Islam from Atheism_, we have proved the wrongness of those who accuse of irreligion everything which is opposed to their way of looking at things.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 56

PHILOSOPHY.—How far it is open to censure or not—On what points its adherents may be considered believers or unbelievers, orthodox or heretical—What they have borrowed from the true doctrine to render their chimerical theories acceptable—Why the minds of men swerve from the truth—What criteria are available wherewith to separate the pure gold from the alloy in their systems.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 22

Know then, my brothers (may God direct you in the right way), that the diversity in beliefs and religions, and the variety of doctrines and sects which divide men, are like a deep ocean strewn with shipwrecks, from which very few escape safe and sound. Each sect, it is true, believes itself in possession of the truth and of salvation, “each party,” as the Koran saith, “rejoices in its own creed”; but as the chief of the apostles, whose word is always truthful, has told us, “My people will be divided into more than seventy sects, of whom only one will be saved.” This prediction, like all others of the Prophet, must be fulfilled.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 32

I then set myself earnestly to examine the notions we derive from the evidence of the senses and from sight in order to see if they could be called in question. The result of a careful examination was that my confidence in them was shaken. Our sight for instance, perhaps the best practised of all our senses, observes a shadow, and finding it apparently stationary pronounces it devoid of movement. Observation and experience, however, show subsequently that a shadow moves not suddenly, it is true, but gradually and imperceptibly, so that it is never really motionless.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 65

(2) _The Naturalists._ These devote themselves to the study of nature and of the marvellous phenomena of the animal and vegetable world. Having carefully analysed animal organs with the help of anatomy, struck with the wonders of God’s work and with the wisdom therein revealed, they are forced to admit the existence of a wise Creator Who knows the end and purpose of everything.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 7

Aboû Hâmid Muhammed Ibn Muhammad Al Ghazzali was born in the city of Tus in Khorassan, A.D. 1058, one year after the great poet and freethinker Abu’ l’ Alā died. He was the son of a dealer in cotton thread (Gazzâl), whence his name. Losing his father in early life, he was confided to the care of a Sufi, whose influence extended through his subsequent career. On finishing his studies he was appointed professor of theology at Bagdad.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 83

(2) _Logic._ This science, in the same manner, contains nothing for or against religion. Its object is the study of different kinds of proofs and syllogisms, the conditions which should hold between the premises of a proposition, the way to combine them, the rules of a good definition, and the art of formulating it. For knowledge consists of conceptions which spring from a definition or of convictions which arise from proofs. There is therefore nothing censurable in this science, and it is laid under contribution by theologians as well as by philosophers. The only difference is that the latter use a particular set of technical formulæ and that they push their divisions and subdivisions further.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 26

Having noticed how easily the children of Christians become Christians, and the children of Moslems embrace Islam, and remembering also the traditional saying ascribed to the Prophet, “Every child has in him the germ of Islam, then his parents make him Jew, Christian, or Zoroastrian,” I was moved by a keen desire to learn what was this innate disposition in the child, the nature of the accidental beliefs imposed on him by the authority of his parents and his masters, and finally the unreasoned convictions which he derives from their instructions.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 193

The Teachings of Zoroaster and the Philosophy of the Parsi Religion

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 155

He then passes to another phase and receives reason, by which he discerns things necessary, possible, and impossible; in a word, all the notions which he could not combine in the former stages of his existence.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 96

(5) _Political Science._ The professors of this confine themselves to drawing up the rules which regulate temporal matters and the royal power. They have borrowed their theories on this point from the books which God has revealed to His prophets and from the sentences of ancient sages, gathered by tradition.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 223

=Irish Times.=—“The volumes are charming in form, low in price, and excellent in matter.”

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 196

A new Translation of the greater part of the Confucian Analects, with Introduction and Notes by LIONEL GILES, M.A. (Oxon.), Assistant in the Department of Oriental Books and Manuscripts of the British Museum. 2/- net.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 44

When God in the abundance of His mercy had healed me of this malady, I ascertained that those who are engaged in the search for truth may be divided into three groups.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 216

=Literary Guide.=—“We wish success to this little series of books.”

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 70

Aristotle also contended with success against the theories of Plato, Socrates, and the theists who had preceded him, and separated himself entirely from them; but he could not eliminate from his doctrine the stains of infidelity and heresy which disfigure the teaching of his predecessors. We should therefore consider them all as unbelievers, as well as the so-called Mussulman philosophers, such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Farabi, who have adopted their systems.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 206

From the Chinese. Translated with Introduction by LIONEL GILES, of the British Museum. 1/- net.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 71

Let us, however, acknowledge that among Mussulman philosophers none have better interpreted the doctrine of Aristotle than the latter. What others have handed down as his teaching is full of error, confusion, and obscurity adapted to disconcert the reader. The unintelligible can neither be accepted nor rejected. The philosophy of Aristotle, all serious knowledge of which we owe to the translation of these two learned men, may be divided into three portions: the first contains matter justly chargeable with impiety, the second is tainted with heresy, and the third we are obliged to reject absolutely. We proceed to details:

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 140

At any rate I meant, if I did return, to live there solitary and in religious meditation; but events, family cares, and vicissitudes of life changed my resolutions and troubled my meditative calm. However irregular the intervals which I could give to devotional ecstasy, my confidence in it did not diminish; and the more I was diverted by hindrances, the more steadfastly I returned to it.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 78

This is a serious evil, and for this reason those who study mathematics should be checked from going too far in their researches. For though far removed as it may be from the things of religion, this study, serving as it does as an introduction to the philosophic systems, casts over religion its malign influence. It is rarely that a man devotes himself to it without robbing himself of his faith and casting off the restraints of religion.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 177

If, on the contrary, he admits its existence, he recognises at the same time that there are in that sphere things which reason cannot grasp; nay, which reason rejects as false and absurd. Suppose, for instance, that the fact of dreams occurring in sleep were not so common and notorious as it is, our wise men would not fail to repudiate the assertion that the secrets of the invisible world can be revealed while the senses are, so to speak, suspended.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 15

He returned for a short time to Nishapur, the birthplace of Omar Khayyām, his elder contemporary, whom, as Professor Browne tells us in his _History of Persian Literature_, he met and disliked. He finally went back to Tus, his native place, where he died, A.D. 1111. Professor D. B. Macdonald, in an article on Ghazzali in the _Journal of the American Oriental Society_, quotes the following account of his death as related by his brother Ahmad: “On Monday at dawn my brother performed the ablution and prayed. Then he said, ‘Bring me my grave-clothes,’ and he took them and kissed them, and laid them on his eyes and said, ‘I hear and obey the command to go into the King.’ And he stretched out his feet and went to meet Him and was taken to the good-will of God Most High.”

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 159

If, however, one was to say to a person who had never himself experienced these dreams that, in a state of lethargy resembling death and during the complete suspension of sight, hearing, and all the senses, a man can see the things of the invisible world, this person would exclaim, and seek to prove the impossibility of these visions by some such argument as the following: “The sensitive faculties are the causes of perception.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 220

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The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 171

We should rather resemble a person who, learning a fact from a group of people, cannot point to this or that particular man as his informant, and who, not distinguishing between them, cannot explain precisely how his conviction regarding the fact has been formed.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 38

This possible condition is, perhaps, that which the Sufis call “ecstasy” (“hāl”), that is to say, according to them, a state in which, absorbed in themselves and in the suspension of sense-perceptions, they have visions beyond the reach of intellect. Perhaps also Death is that state, according to that saying of the Prince of prophets: “Men are asleep; when they die, they wake.” Our present life in relation to the future is perhaps only a dream, and man, once dead, will see things in direct opposition to those now before his eyes; he will then understand that word of the Koran, “To-day we have removed the veil from thine eyes and thy sight is keen.”

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 14

After mastering the first two systems and still finding the great problem unsolved, he was forced to pronounce philosophy incompetent, and to seek in some higher faculty than reason the solution of his doubts. The intuition or ecstasy (“wajd”) of the Sufis was to him a sort of revelation. His search for truth occupied several years, in the course of which he renounced his professorship of theology at Bagdad and went into devotional retirement at Jerusalem and Damascus, and also performed the pilgrimage to Mecca.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 151

THE REALITY OF INSPIRATION: ITS IMPORTANCE FOR THE HUMAN RACE

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 46

II. The Philosophers, who profess to rely upon formal logic.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 146

In short, he who does not arrive at the intuition of these truths by means of ecstasy, knows only the _name_ of inspiration. The miracles wrought by the saints are, in fact, merely the earliest forms of prophetic manifestation. Such was the state of the Apostle of God when, before receiving his commission, he retired to Mount Hira to give himself up to such intensity of prayer and meditation that the Arabs said: “Muhammed is become enamoured of God.”

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 6

They are confident that a deeper knowledge of the great ideals and lofty philosophy of Oriental thought may help to a revival of that true spirit of Charity which neither despises nor fears the nations of another creed and colour. Finally, in thanking press and public for the very cordial reception given to the “Wisdom of the East” Series, they wish to state that no pains have been spared to secure the best specialists for the treatment of the various subjects at hand.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 118

Such should be the conduct of the learned man. If the patient feels a certain dislike of the antidote because he knows that it is taken from a snake whose body is the receptacle of poison, he should be disabused of his fallacy. If a beggar hesitates to take a piece of gold which he knows comes from the purse of a false coiner, he should be told that his hesitation is a pure mistake which would deprive him of the advantage which he seeks.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 124

In the same way there is a considerable difference between knowing renouncement, comprehending its conditions and causes, and practising renouncement and detachment from the things of this world. I saw that Sufism consists in experiences rather than in definitions, and that what I was lacking belonged to the domain, not of instruction, but of ecstasy and initiation.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 69

(3) Next come the _Theists_. Among them should be reckoned Socrates, who was the teacher of Plato as Plato was of Aristotle. This latter drew up for his disciples the rules of logic, organised the sciences, elucidated what was formerly obscure, and expounded what had not been understood. This school refuted the systems of the two others, i.e. the Materialists and Naturalists; but in exposing their mistaken and perverse beliefs, they made use of arguments which they should not. “God suffices to protect the faithful in war” (_Koran_, xxxiii. 25).

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 21

You ask me why, after resigning at Bagdad a teaching post which attracted a number of hearers, I have, long afterwards, accepted a similar one at Nishapur. Convinced as I am of the sincerity which prompts your inquiries, I proceed to answer them, invoking the help and protection of God.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 75

Next, when he becomes aware of the unbelief and rejection of religion on the part of these learned men, he concludes that to reject religion is reasonable. How many of such men gone astray I have met whose sole argument was that just mentioned. And supposing one puts to them the following objection: “It does not follow that a man who excels in one branch of knowledge excels in all others, nor that he should be equally versed in jurisprudence, theology, and medicine.

The Confessions of Al Ghazzali, passage 45

I. Scholastic theologians, who profess to follow theory and speculation.