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 — Al-Ghazali — John Shaqi
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
Al-Ghazali · en
He did that it would be justice on His part, and would not be
a vile action or tyranny in Him. He rewardeth His believing
creatures for their acts of obedience by a decision which is of
generosity and of promise and not of right and of obligation,
since no particular action towards any one is incumbent upon
Him, and tyranny is inconceivable in Him, and no one possesses
a right against Him. And His right to acts of obedience is
binding upon the creatures because He has made it binding
through the tongues of His prophets, not by reason alone. But
He sent apostles and manifested their truth by plain miracles,
and they brought His commands and forbiddings and promisings
and threatenings. So, belief in them as to what they have
brought is incumbent upon the creation.
“The second Word of Witnessing is witnessing that the
apostolate belongs to the apostle, and that God sent the
unlettered Qurayshite prophet, Mohammed, with his apostolate
to the totality of Arabs and foreigners and Jinn and men.
And He abrogated by his law the other Laws except so much of
them as He confirmed; and made him excellent over the rest of
the prophets and made him the Lord of Mankind and declared
incomplete the Faith that consists in witnessing the Unity,
which is saying, ‘There is no god except God,’ so long as there
is not joined that of witnessing to the Apostle, which is
saying ‘Mohammed is the Apostle of God.’ And He made obligatory
upon the creation belief in Him, as to all which He narrated
concerning the things of this world and the next. And then He
would not accept the faith of a creature, so long as he did not
believe in that which the Prophet narrated concerning things
after death. The first of these is the question of Munkar and
Nakir; these are two awful and terrible beings who will cause
the creature to sit up in his grave, complete, both soul and
body; and they will ask him, ‘Who is thy Lord, and what is thy
religion (_din_), and who is thy Prophet?’ They are the two
testers in the grave and their questioning is the first testing
after death. And that he should believe in the punishment of
the grave—that it is a Verity and that its judgment upon the
body and the soul is just, according to what God wills. And
that he should believe in the Balance—it with the two scales
and the tongue, the magnitude of which is like unto the stages
of the heavens and the earth. In it, deeds are weighed by the
power of God Most High; and its weights in that day will be
the weight of motes and mustard seeds, to show the exactitude
of its justice. The leaves of the good deeds will be placed in
a beautiful form in the scale of light; and then the Balance
will be weighed down by them according to the measure of their
degree with God, by the grace of God. And the leaves of evil