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
The last book Al-Ghazali wrote was the _Minhaj al-ʾAbidin_ or “Guide of
True Worshippers.” It is said to have been written for those who could
not understand the _Ihya_ and deals with the creed and ritual of Islam
from the standpoint of the mystic. Our illustration shows in facsimile
the first page of this celebrated work from a recent Cairo edition. On
the margin of the text we have the Beginner’s Guide, already spoken of.
These two works of Al-Ghazali are very popular and have recently had an
increasing circulation.
The _Minhaj_ shows that Al-Ghazali at the close of his life had adopted
the vocabulary of the mystics even for popular teaching. The various
chapters are called “stages” in the progress of the soul towards
salvation and peace. The first stage is that of knowledge, then follows
repentance, a list of the hindrances on the road to God, things that
delay the soul in its onward progress, such as the world and its
allurements, the flesh, the devil, the senses. Other hindrances are the
cares of gaining a living, the perplexities and troubles of life, while
the last stages in the road of the mystic are those of praise to God
under all circumstances, and earnest endeavour to attain to the reality
of the experience of His presence.
So difficult is the road which Al-Ghazali describes that he says: “Some
seekers can only finish these stages in seventy years, some in twenty,
some in ten. Others there are, however, whose souls are so enlightened,
so free from the care and perplexity of the world, that they finish the
journey and arrive at the goal in a year, a month, what do I say, in
an hour; so that they awaken like the Companions of the Cave, and the
change they see in themselves and those about them is to them as a dream.”