Offener Brief von Al-Ghazali

Allah has reserved His bounties for those who are pious and turn away from worldly gain and vanities, and avoid forbidden things. There are only a few men out of thousands who seek knowledge in its truest sense and renounce pleasure, wealth and power which are the general objects of human ambition. Of the learned there are still fewer who know those things which are based upon the overflow of gifts, not upon constrained research or wearisome struggle for acquisition, and these few people are those possessed of knowledge, they are those who make Allah and their spiritual world ever present realities in the routine of daily life, and whose knowledge reveals to them that all interfering distractions must be removed entirely so that the heart may be purged of all that is not Allah. They are those who have knowledge of religion and act upon it, instructing others and believing that attention given to theory and practice has its proper value and proportion. They are unmistakably the most prominent and exalted religious personalities. "When they were patient, We made from them leaders, guiding with Our Command they were certain of Our verses." Koran, Chapter 32 verse 24. They are not to be included among those of whom it has been said: "Recite to them the news of he to whom We gave Our signs and who turned away from them; how satan overtook him as he was led astray." Koran, Chapter 7 verse 175. There are very few people who have the aptitude for the acquisition of true knowledge and are endowed with piety. Usually they are overtaken by the devils and the stages of their upward progress are blocked by the mischief of the devils. Near relatives, friends, money and property are deemed as interfering distractions in addition to rift and enmity which have ruined many a family.…