A Moslem seeker after God : $b showing Islam at its best in the life and teaching of al-Ghazali, mystic and theologian of the eleventh centuryZwemer, Samuel Marinus
Philosophy
A Moslem seeker after God : $b showing Islam at its best in the life and teaching of al-Ghazali, mystic and theologian of the eleventh century
Zwemer, Samuel Marinus
Ghazzali, 1058-1111
Here Al-Ghazali would see the sacred footprint of Mohammed made in the
rock on his journey to heaven; the praying places of Abraham and Elijah
would be pointed out to him; the round hole where the rock let Mohammed
through when he ascended to heaven; the holy place in the roof of the
cavern where it arose to allow him to stand erect and to pray; the tongue
with which it spoke; and the marks of the Angel Gabriel’s finger where
it had to be held down from following him in his ascension! The place is
also pointed out by Moslems to-day where Solomon tormented the demons,
and also near the eastern wall where the throne stood whereon he sat when
dead, the corpse leaning on his staff to cheat the demons until the worms
had gnawed it through and the body fell forward. All this is found in
Moslem Tradition, and must have stirred the credulity or the scepticism
of Al-Ghazali. He himself tells us in one of his books that on the last
day Israfil, who, with Gabriel and Michael, has been restored to life,
“standing on the rock of the temple of Jerusalem, will at the command
of God call together the souls from all parts, those of believers from
Paradise and the unbelievers from hell, and throw them into his trumpet.
There they will be ranged in little holes, like bees in a hive, and will,
on his giving the last sound, be thrust out and fly like bees, filling
the whole space between earth and heaven. Then they will repair to their
respective bodies. The earth will then be an immense plain without hills
or villages, and the dead, after they have risen, will sit down each one
on his tomb, anxiously waiting for what is to come.”[39]
A modern traveller describes other Moslem superstitions connected
with this Mosque. “The little arcades at the top of the steps of the
platform are called ‘Balances,’ because the scales of judgment are to be
suspended there on the Great Day. The Dome of the Chain owes its name
to the circumstance that there a golden chain hung at David’s place of
judgment, which had to be grasped by witnesses and dropped a link when a
lie was told. A place in the outer wall is shown from which a wire will
be suspended on the Day of Judgment, whose other end will be made fast
to the Mount of Olives. Christ will sit on the wall and Mohammed on the
mount. Over this wire must all men find their way, but only the good will
cross, the wicked falling into the valley beneath. In the Al-Aqsa Mosque
a couple of pillars stand very near each other, so worn that they are
perceptibly thinned. The space between them bulges, and a piece of spiked
iron work is now inserted between them. These are another test for the
final award—he who could squeeze himself between them, and he alone, had
found the true ‘narrow way to heaven.’”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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