ENCOUNTERS WITH IMAM AL-GHAZALI - By Shafiq Morton
THERE'S an image of Imam Ghazali on the wall of the Azzawia library in Walmer Estate, Cape Town. It's an etching of indeterminate age and origin. It depicts a man of about sixty with a bald pate and mane of shoulder-length hair.
If I hadn't been told that the etching was an impression of Imam al-Ghazali, the undisputed giant of early 11h century Islam, I would have attributed it to a Renaissance artist - and would have guessed the portrait was of someone like Michelangelo.
Usually, such esteemed personalities are depicted in a more regal fashion. The Persians, unafraid to picture the human form, painted Sufi masters, generals, Caliphs and scholars with generous relish. So did the Ottomans
The fact that their miniatures and murals portrayed human shapes did not mean that they had no respect for the laws of God, and nor did it mean they were polytheists. Far from it.
Normally Shaikhs such as Imam Ghazali - himself originally a Persian from Tus - would be depicted in the centre of the painting with majestic splendour. He would also be surrounded by circles of smaller sized students to show his seniority.
Saints, prophets and angelic beings would always be depicted without facial or physical features, their beings emanating a blaze of light - the mark of spirituality. Interestingly, very few who dream of the saints and messengers of Allah ever see the face of the holy person they dream about, as it usually emanates so much radiance.
It was this accurately stylised motif that inspired European Renaissance artists to paint halos on divine or saintly figures. It was indeed Islamic iconography - informed by the experiential - that inspired Christian symbolism and stirred the stone of mediaeval Europe's soaring cathedrals.
But here was Imam al-Ghazali, a scholar regarded as the Hujjat al-Islam (the Proof of Islam), bareheaded and without badge of office. Not typical at all for a scholar of his stature, a mujtahid (a master of Sacred Law capable of creating his own school of legal thought) who only adopted the Shafi'i school to avoid conflict.
Nevertheless, the portrait still conveyed the dignity of a sage, of a wise man of the Seljuk era who wrote in his magnus opus, the Ihya 'Ulum ud-Din (the Revival of the Religious Sciences), that the human spirit had to rid itself of its squadrons of nafs - things such as pride, arrogance, excessive anger and greed to perfect its awareness of the Divine.
For here was an intellectual giant who, when the world was at his feet, had turned his back on status, accolade and well-heeled patronage. Here was a man unafraid of what he wrote and fearless in confronting the darkest recesses of his own personality, and undaunted in challenging his reader.
One can only wonder what it took to spurn one of the world's top academic positions at the time - the Chair of the Madrasah Nizamiyyah in Baghdad - at only 37 years of age. It's the equivalent of a young man preferring the Chair of Law at Oxford, or Harvard, to the desert.
Already celebrated for his exhaustive knowledge and respected at the court of the ruler, Nizam al-Mulk, al-Ghazali underwent an intense personal crisis - some even say a nervous breakdown - and left the halls of 11th century academia to wander as an ascetic for 12 years.
Dissatisfied with knowledge and argument for its own sake, he had become convinced that only through experience could knowledge be perfected.
Exactly where he went to, nobody really knows. In fact, there is even doubt as to where he lies buried. Again, typical of a man who before he died asked to kiss his funeral shroud, adding that his soul was but a bird.
I first encountered Imam al-Ghazali over twenty years ago when I bought a copy of W.H.T. Gairdner's 1923 translation of his Mishkat al-Anwar (the Niche of the Lights), an exposition on the mystical Qur'anic verse (24: 35) on the parable of light, on the meaning of an oil lamp shining in a niche.
Although I had only an English version to go by, my first meeting with the thought and expression Imam al-Ghazali rendered me breathless with amazement.
Not since Shakespeare at university had I read someone with such linguistic verve weaving such a rich and confident tapestry of verse, philosophy, theology and metaphor. Furthermore, unlike many scholars, everything he wrote about he had experienced himself.
Or as he said so thought-provokingly to his students:
"You can weigh and measure wine a thousand times, but if you do not drink, you will not become drunk."
And as I got know a little Arabic, I began to realise that - even if I could not understand much of it - Imam al-Ghazali's prose was even more sublime in its original language.
My second encounter with Imam al-Ghazali was through a Mukhtar Holland translation, The Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship, a publication by the Islamic Foundation of Britain. A series of excerpts from the Revival of the Religious Sciences, it's one of my favourites, and always travels with me.
Dog-eared and dusty, the most thumbed chapters are the ones on the Hajj and the blessings of invoking blessings on the Prophet [s]. This humble, but eloquent book cost me R 9, 95 twenty-two years ago, but its blessings have been worth millions.
My third encounter was being taught volumes XXII and XXIII of the Revival of Religious Sciences by the Shaikhs at the Azzawia, particularly the Kitab Riyadat un-Nafs (the Disciplining the Soul) and Kitab Kasr ash-Shahawatain (the Breaking of the Two Desires).
I also bought T.J. Winter's (Shaikh Abd ul-Hakim Murad's) magnificently produced Islamic Texts Society's translation of the volumes. His deep understanding of the subtlety of Imam Ghazali's language, thought and style further nuanced my appreciation.
Another occasion I was privileged to proof-read Shaikh Seraj Hendricks' translation of Ayyuhal Walad (O My Son), a letter of advice written to a student. Yet again, I found it to be an astounding work.
But perhaps the most significant moment of my continuing engagement with Imam Ghazali was writing about his influence on Salahuddin Ayyubi for my next book, Surfing behind the Wall - best described as an eclectic Palestinian travelogue.
I discovered that Salahuddin Ayyubi, the 12th century liberator of Jerusalem and the most admired figure of the Crusades, had left behind a legacy stretching from Aleppo in Syria to Acre in Palestine.
However, Salahuddin is much misunderstood today, having been appropriated by political Islamists and Arabian despots. The truth is that Saluhuddin's contribution to history is very much due to the influence of Imam al-Ghazali, rather than the jihadist maxims of the modern Egyptian polemicist, Sayyid Qutb.
It's my belief that without the ethos of Imam al-Ghazali, who passed away just before Salahuddin was born, the Kurdish Sultan would not be remembered so fondly by history. He would not have become Time Magazine's personality of the 12th century.
Imam al-Ghazali, already a master of the outer aspects of Islam, had perfected its inner aspects during his seclusion through the science of Tasawwuf, or Sufism. In Ghazalian terms this meant everything perishing except for the face - or consciousness - of Allah in all that is said and done.
For Imam Ghazali, the purpose of his seclusion was to practice Tasawwuf's precepts - to create a synthesis between Sacred Law and Spirituality through its practical application.
This is something often forgotten. Islamic spirituality, or Tasawwuf, is not borne on the wings of an independently-acting angel called "whim". The Tariqah (the path) is merely the inner kernel of Shari'ah. Critics who claim that Imam al-Ghazali surgically separated the body, (Shari'ah) from its life support (Tasawwuf) are victims of the critics themselves.
Imam al-Ghazali's role was to bring Tasawwuf back to its proper place, the centre of Islam, his focus being on the psychology of the soul and laws appertaining to the body. This was the approach of Salahuddin, who having been schooled by a pupil of the imam, famously said that without compassion there could never be a true victory over your foe in battle.
If any mediaeval leader was the epitome of Imam al-Ghazali's Ihya, then it was Salahuddin.
This was the general who offered his seat to his ambassador father, Ayyub, when he came to Egypt; this was the soldier who refused to stay in the palace when he overthrew the Fatimid dynasty and this was the Sufi who established Zawiyyah's (Sufi hospices) wherever he travelled.
And more famously, this was the Muslim leader who sent his personal physician, the Jew Maimonides, to an ill Christian king, Richard the Lionheart, with bowls of fruit and Mount Hermon snow.
The possibility of modern enemies behaving with such decorum is as remote as the prospect of George Bush sending Muqtada as-Sadr an 'Eid card.
But, more importantly, it's my view that when Imam al-Ghazali refuted the philosophers by arguing that Revelation would always take precedence over reason, he deferred the zeitgeist, the supra-materialistic spirit of the industrial revolution - which led to globalisation - by at least four centuries.
And that's precisely what gives Imam al-Ghazali the relevance he still enjoys today. In a world crowded with profanity and pollution, he is the saint of blue skies and fresh air.
This article was written to commemorate the announcement by Dome Publications, South Africa, and Fajr Symphony, Malaysia, that they would be hosting an international Imam al-Ghazali conference in Cape Town from 17-19 April 2009. The South African premiere of Ovidio Salazar's award-winning documentary "The Alchemy of Happiness" will open the event.
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Al-Imam Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali
(450-505AH/1158-1111CE)
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