“The states of ecstasy into which the Sufis fall vary according to the emotions which predominate in them—love, fear, desire, repentance, etc. These states, as we have mentioned above, are often the result not only of hearing verses of the Koran, but erotic poetry. Some have objected to the reciting of poetry, as well as of the Koran, on these occasions; but it should be remembered that all the verses of the Koran are not adapted to stir the emotions—such, for instance, as that which commands that a man should leave his mother the sixth part of his property and his sister the half, or that which orders that a widow must wait four months after the death of her husband before becoming espoused to another man. The natures which can be thrown into religious ecstasy by the recital of such verses are peculiarly sensitive and very rare.” They certainly are! The inconsistencies and contradictions in Al-Ghazali’s theory of conduct surprise us when we peruse his works. Sometimes he leads us to high mountain ranges whose summits are gilded with the light of heaven, the great truths of Theism, the ideals of eternity; and again he plunges us into the sloughs of sensuous and worldly discussion—themes unworthy of his pen. Let us get back to the mountain tops where the air is healthier. Al-Ghazali, whatever may have been his failure in other respects, had high ideals for the attainment of morals from the Moslem standpoint. In his “The Alchemy of Happiness” he says, “When in the crucible of abstinence the soul is purged from carnal passions it attains to the highest, and in place of being a slave to lust and anger becomes endued with angelic qualities. Attaining that state, man finds his heaven in the contemplation of Eternal Beauty, and no longer in fleshly delights. The spiritual alchemy which operates this change in him, like that which transmutes base metals into gold, is not easily discovered, nor to be found in the house of every old woman.”