PREFACE The perusal of the constructive treatises of the foremost leaders of the different religions should help to promote at least more mutual respect, if not, indeed, actual co-operation, among their devotees than the study of the critical discussions of lesser minds. For this reason the present small volume of extracts from the chief constructive work of Al Ghazzali has been included in the Gaekwad Studies in Religion and Philosophy. The purpose of that series is to be constructive rather than critical, and further, it is meant to contain volumes appealing to the general public as well as to the scholar. For a wider and more correct understanding and appreciation of the spirit of Islam, it is to be regretted that there are so few English translations of Muslim works in Arabic and Persian.
It is to be hoped that in future more attention will be turned in this direction. In the meantime the present volume may serve at least to arouse some interest.
This work was undertaken at the request of Professor Widgery, to whom I am indebted for several suggestions and for going through the whole of the manuscript and the proofs.
NAWAB ALI _Baroda, 1920._ CONTENTS Preface _Page_ 5 Introduction 9 List of Al Ghazzali’s works 30 I. The Nature of Man 41 II. Human Freedom and Responsibility 53 III. Pride and Vanity 78 IV. Friendship and Sincerity 95 V. The Nature of Love, and Man’s highest Happiness 116 VI. The Unity of God 138 VII. The Love of God and its Signs 145 VIII. Riza or Joyous Submission to His Will 164 INTRODUCTION The Comparative Study of Religions, interesting as a form of intellectual research, has for many a further value in the influence it may exert upon the widening and the deepening of the religious life. The practical value may become more and more acknowledged, if, as signs suggest, the reality of the religious experience is more keenly felt and mankind recognise the place of religious goods in the highest type of life. Though it is certainly premature to say that there is much serious acknowledgement and recognition of these values amongst the peoples of the world, there are reasons to think that tendencies of thought and feeling in this direction are increasing in power. One of the best means of aiding the Comparative Study of Religions and promoting these tendencies is by the publication of important books connected with the religions, representing the views of leading thinkers and saints.
If we turn to Islam, we find that some Western writers describe it as in a condition of progressive decay, while others would have us believe that its onward march is a menace. It is well to be able to avoid the obvious purpose which lies behind both contentions. Nevertheless, to the present writer it appears true to say that there is much stagnation in Islam (In which religion is there not?), and that its spirit is often lost and its real teachings neglected owing to the general use of Arabic in the recitation of the Quran by persons entirely ignorant of that language, and also to the prevalent mechanical conception of the character of the Quran as a form of divine revelation. We believe that the Comparative Study of Religions will help to turn the attention of Muslims away from these to the emphasising of the essential spirit of Islam. This should be central and normative in the rising movements of reform and rejuvenescence. In this connection, as bringing out this spirit, it is especially appropriate, both for the students of the religions and for those directly interested in the spiritual revival in Islam, to publish in an easily accessible form some of the religious and moral teachings of Ghazzali. A Western scholar has written of him that he is “the greatest, certainly the most sympathetic figure in the history of Islam...the only teacher of the after generations ever put by Muslims on a level with the four great Imams.”[1] And he goes on to remark further; “In the renaissance of Islam which is now rising to view, his time will come and the new life will proceed from a renewed study of his works.”[2] But Dieterici says of him: “As a despairing sceptic he springs suicidally into the all-God (_i.e._ all-pervading deity of the Pantheists) to kill all scientific reflection.”[3] To justify such a judgment would indeed be impossible if the whole course of Ghazzali’s works is taken into consideration. The greatest eulogy is perhaps that of Tholuck: “All that is good, worthy, and sublime, which his great soul had compassed, he bestowed upon Muhammedanism, and he adorned the doctrines of the Quran with so much piety and learning that in the form given them by him they seem, in my opinion, worthy of the assent of Christians. Whatsoever was most excellent in the philosophy of Aristotle or in the Sufi mysticism, he discreetly adapted to the Muhammedan theology. From every school he sought the means of shedding light and honour upon religion, while his sincere piety and lofty conscientiousness imparted to all his writings a sacred majesty.”[4] One feature of Ghazzali’s attitude has considerable significance in looking to an increased study of his works as a factor towards the revivification of Islam: his tolerance. Although regarding Al Hallaj’s expressions, (for example, I am the truth, _i.e._ God) as incautious, he helped to defend him and to save him from execution on a charge of blasphemy. He wrote a treatise on tolerance: _The Criterion of the Difference between Islam and Heresy_. In this teaching of tolerance he felt himself to be pointing back to the policy of the earliest Muslim times and to the greatest authorities of early Islam. He “strove to attract the souls of his fellow Muslims to spiritual faith which unifies, to worship at the altars which are in the hearts of men”.[5] The influence of Ghazzali has been represented by Mr. Macdonald as chiefly that he led men back from scholastic labours upon theological dogmas to living contact with, study and exegesis of the Quran and Traditions; gave Sufiism an assured position within the Church of Islam; and brought philosophy and philosophical theology within the range of the ordinary mind.[6] Al Ghazzali has given some account of his own religious development in a work entitled: _Munqidh min-ad-dalal_. This account is significant, but as the Baron Carra de Vaux remarks, his eventual explicit adoption of a Sufi mysticism was not merely a consequence of the failure of his other attempts to find a solution to life’s profoundest problems but a result of his early influences. For, soon after his birth at Tus in Khorassan in 450 A.H. (1059 A.D.), his father died and he was brought up by a Sufi.
Nevertheless his mystical leanings did not assert themselves vigorously till he was well on to maturity. Up to that time he devoted himself to the usual studies of canon law, the orthodox theology, the doctrines of the Mutazillites, and a variety of other subjects including the works of the Sufis. For a time he was a student of the Asharite Imam Al Haramayn at Nysabur. He himself represents his attitude as at this time that of one working and wishing for reputation and wealth. In 484 A.H. he was honoured by appointment to the “University” or “Academy” of Baghdad, where he soon acquired great renown as lawyer and theologian.
On the threshold of maturity he was afflicted by doubts as to the validity and worth of the theological and philosophical bases of his religious belief. The strain of his reflection and the intensity of his anxiety to reach a secure faith seem to have caused a breakdown of health. With unexpected suddenness he left Baghdad. That was in 488 A.H.
(1095 A.D.) He had examined in all details the traditional orthodox scholastic system of the _Kalam_, the positions of the Mutazilites and the philosophers, and in the light of his new doubts and experiences turned again also to a closer study of the writings of the leading mystics, such as Abu Talib, Al Muhasibi, and Al Junayd. His early training had predisposed him to the acceptance of mysticism, and this acceptance was led up to by the conclusions of his reflection, in which it has been maintained he carried doubt as far back as did Descartes.
Thus he himself writes: “A thirst to comprehend the essential natures of all things was, indeed, my idiosyncrasy and distinctive characteristic from the beginning of my career and prime of my life: a natural gift and temperament bestowed on me by God, and implanted by Him in my nature by no choice or device of my own, till at length the bond of blind conformity was loosed from me, and the beliefs which I had inherited, were broken away when I was little more than a boy.”[7] Carra de Vaux[8] thus graphically describes the process in Al Ghazzali’s mind, as he himself suggests it to us: “Religious beliefs, he reflected, are transmitted by the authority of parents; but authority is not proof.
To arrive at certitude it was necessary for him to reconstruct all his knowledge from the very foundation. With a vivid feeling of this necessity, he aspired to certitude, defining it in a purely psychological fashion as a state in which the mind is so bound up with and so satisfied with a piece of knowledge that nothing might henceforth deprive him of it. This curious definition, which is applied to religious faith as well as to scientific knowledge, does not escape from being purely subjective.
As one might foresee, the great desire for certitude only led him at first into a series of doubts. As he sought this state of perfect assurance, step by step he saw it recede before him. He looked for certitude in the perceptions of the senses, with the result that he could no longer trust his senses. Sight, the most powerful of the faculties of sense, for example, led him to the perception of an immovable shadow on the sun and an hour afterwards this shadow was gone. Sight showed him a star which is very small, and geometry made him recognise it to be greater than the earth. Then he turned to the first principles of reason; but the perception of the senses took its revenge in saying to him: ‘Previously you believed in me and you abandoned me when this judge reason presented itself. If this judge had remained hidden you would have continued to believe in me. Who can tell you that beyond the reason there is no other judge, which if it made itself evident, would convict reason of falsehood?’. That is a movement of thought which is dramatic enough, though perhaps a little artificial.—The thinker continued his search for the certain. He halted and concerned himself with the famous comparison of life with a dream and death with an awakening. Perhaps after that awakening he would see things in a different manner from that in which he then saw them. Mysticism thus suggested itself to him: This actual dream of death could be anticipated by the condition of ecstasy, by less than ecstasy, by a light which God pours into the heart. In this light, he saw not only the truth of the dogmas of the faith or the beauty of the moral life, but he was assured of the truth of the first principles of reason, the basis of all knowledge and all reasoning. He doubted no longer; he was cured of his pains; he had found certitude and peace.”
On leaving Baghdad, he retired to meditate in the mosques of Damascus, and is further reported to have made pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Hebron (the burial place of Abraham), Medina and Mecca. In abandonment to his immediate religious experience of the love of God he found more peace. In the course of time he associated again more definitely with his family.
Eventually in 499 A. H. (1106 A.D.) he was ordered by the Sultan to teach in the Academy at Nysabur. After a life in which he had written a large number of independent treatises and indeed brought about a great change in the tendencies of Islam, he died at his native town of Tus in 505 (1111 A.D.).
If in his initial process of doubt Ghazzali resembled Descartes, in his view of causality he reminds us of Hume; in his general attitude he approaches Kant and Schleiermacher. On the one hand he insists on the limitation of the efficiency of the theoretical reason, on the other he finds in will, in the moral and the religious experience a more immediate avenue to real knowledge. For the study of religion in our day it is important to note that Ghazzali (here unlike Kant) sees in religious experience a way to certitude. But in this he is led to acknowledge that the advance of the human mind towards its goal of real knowledge and peace is dependent upon an active influence of God upon man. It may be maintained that he puts here in religious terminology the central idea of the Aristotelian conception of Scholastic times, the relation of the “Active Intelligence” to the minds of men. His view enabled him to give a due position to the Prophet and the Quran. For the knowledge of God is to be conceived as coming not in immediate mystical intuition to all alike, but while in some degree to all, to some in a special degree. These are the prophets. The position which Maimonides presents in his _Guide to the Perplexed_[9] with relation to religious knowledge and the functions of the prophets is parallel with that of Ghazzali.
From the accompanying list and classification of the works of Ghazzali, it will be seen that he was a writer on all sides of the theory and practice of his religion. He was an authority on canon law and jurisprudence, and a commentator of the Quran. He examined the positions of the Scholastic theologians, and found that they depended entirely on the acceptance of their initial dogmatic assumptions. The disputes of the Scholastics amongst themselves appeared to have little or no relation with religious life, rather if anything they were a hindrance to true religion. And in face of the philosophers the Scholastic theologians were almost helpless. But the books which exerted the greatest influence both within and beyond Muslim circles, and the books that still retain their interest today are the Maqasid ul Falasafa (The Aim or Goal of the Philosophers) the Tahafat ul Falasafa (the Refutation of the Philosophers) and the Ihya-u-Ulum-id-Din (The Renovation of the Sciences of Religion.) In the first of these he gives an account of the different philosophical positions which were more or less prevalent. In the second he critically examines those positions. In the third he gives a general survey with a constructive purpose chiefly moral and religious. It is due to this last work more than all others that Ghazzali has been called “The Regenerator of Religion”, “The Proof of Islam”. The _Ihya_ “expounds theology and ethics from the moderate Sufi school”. Though it was committed to the flames, chiefly in Spain, probably by those holding opinions which Ghazzali had bitterly attacked, it soon established its position in the Muslim world, in which it has been widely studied up to today. From it the passages translated in this book are taken. The following table of contents will show the range of the subjects with which it deals.
THE RENOVATION OF THE SCIENCES OF RELIGION.
PART I.
1. On Knowledge. Articles of Faith.
2. On Purification.
3. Prayer and Its Meaning.
4. Zakat and Its Meaning.
5. Fasting and Its Meaning.
6. Pilgrimage and Its Meaning.
7. The Reading of the Quran.
8. Varieties of Orisons.
9. The Order of Praying, and Vigils.
PART II.
1. On Eating.
2. On Marriage.
3. On Business.
4. The Lawful and the Unlawful.
5. Social Relations and Etiquette.
6. On Retirement.
7. On Travel.
8. On Music.
9. On Enforcing Good and Checking Evil.
10. Good Living: Description of the Prophet’s Mode of Living.
PART III.
1. Psychological Description of the Nature of Man.
2. On Virtues and the Purification of the Heart.
3. On Appetite and Passion.
4. On the Tongue: Its Goods and Evils.
5. On Anger: Enmity and Envy.
6. The Evils of the World.
7. Parsimony and the Evils of the Love of Wealth.
8. On the Evils of Reputation and Hypocrisy.
9. Pride and Vanity.
10. Self-deception.
PART IV.
1. Repentance.
2. Patience and Thanksgiving.
3. Hope and Fear.
4. The Poor and the Hermit, 5. Unity of God, and Dependence on Him.
6. On Love, Ecstasy, and Joyous Submission to His will.
7. On Intention, Sincerity and Truth.
8. Meditation.
9. Contemplation and taking a Warning.
10. On Death and the After-Life.
Against the philosophers he argued for the belief in the reality of the divine attributes and against the view of the eternity of the world. He contended against the theory that there would be no physical punishments and rewards hereafter, maintaining, as he did, the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. He virtually denied that there is real causal connection in events as experienced by us: but only sequence: in this he adumbrates the theory of Hume. For Ghazzali, God is the only efficient cause. From the scepticism to which his consideration of philosophy led him he turned to the acceptance of revelation, this as found in the mystic experience and in the words of saints and prophets, especially the Prophet Muhammed.
The knowledge of moral principles Ghazzali conceived as coming not through rational reflection but by immediate intuition of the divine character revealing itself. Moral truths come especially through moral and religious teachers, as the most fit persons for the transmission of these revelations. He possessed great skill in psychological analysis of moral conditions, and passages in illustration of this have been included here, treating of pride and vanity, friendship and sincerity. As almost all great practical moral and religious teachers, Ghazzali makes considerable use of apt stories, and of striking sayings from the saints and prophets. He continually harks back to the time of the Prophet and his “Companions”.
Ghazzali’s abandonment of his academic position at Baghdad, his retirement to mosques and journeyings on pilgrimage, are sufficient evidence that he recognised that the truth of mysticism could not be tested by theoretical reflection but only by an attempt at practice.
Only the experience itself could prove its own reality. He appears to have held that for the attainment of the condition of ecstasy the means of asceticism and meditation should be used. But it does not seem quite correct to suggest as does Carra de Vaux that Ghazzali did not recognise the fact of divine “grace”, though he did not use a corresponding term. The beatific vision of the mystic certainly depended in part, for Ghazzali, on God’s mercy in removing the veil. How far he himself was successful in attaining the bliss of the mystic vision it is impossible to tell: in this direction he gained no such reputation as did several other Sufis. He taught that repentance, a moral conversion, is a necessary preliminary to the mystic life, and he fought against a common tendency of mystics towards antinomianism. Similarly he tried to avoid the danger of interpreting the union of the soul with God as its identification with God in a pantheistic view of the universe. Goldzieher says he differed from the Sufis generally in the rejection of their pantheistic aims and low estimate of religious ordinances.[10] A LIST OF WORKS BY AL GHAZZALI[11] A: CANON LAW.
of publication._ _Risalat-ul-Qudsiyya._ (Transcendence of God) included in Ihya as the 3rd section of the 2nd Chapter of its Book 1.
_Anqud ul Mkhtasir._ Summary of Jowim’s Mukhtasar.
_Ghait ul Ghor fi Masail Divorce.
il dor._ _Gaur ul Durar._ _Qanun ul Rasul._ The Canon Law of the Prophet.
B: JURISPRUDENCE.
_Al Manhul wal Muntahal._ Doctrines falsely attributed to others and falsely claimed by some. Jurisprudence.
_Khulasat ul Fikh_ Jurisprudence.
(Quintessence of Jurisprudence).
_Al-durr ul Manzum fi An Exposition of sirr il Muktum Wasit._ Shafite Jurisprudence.
C: LOGIC.
_Mihakkul Nazar fil Logic. Cairo Mantaq._ (Whetstone of reflection).
_Maayar ul Ilm._ Logic.
_Al Maarif ul Aqliyyah Discourses on Logic.
wal Allahiyyah Al Mutaqid._ _Mayar ul Ilm Fannil On Logic. Cairo 1329 A. H.
Mantaq._ (the weighing scale of the science).
D: PHILOSOPHY.
_Ihya u-Ulum-id-Din._ (The most important Cairo 1322, book for his philosophy). 1324 A. H.
Egypt 1282 ” Lucknow 1281 ” Meerut 1280 ” (The aims of the philosophers).
_Maznun bihi ala Ghairi Exposition of Ghazzali’s ” 1328 ” Ahlihi._ own views.
_Risalat ul Luduniyya._ Knowledge (Ilham and Wahi) ” 1328 ” _Al-Kashfu-wat-Tabyin fi On the delusion of men in ” 1324 ” Ghurur il khalqi Ajmain._ general. (On the margin of As-Shurain’s Tanbihal Mughtarrin.)
_Faysalut-Tafriqa baynal Refutation of Atheists. Cairo 1325 A. H.
_Al Fikratu al Ibrah._ Meditation and Contemplation.
Philosophers.
_Iljam ul Awam._ Abbreviation of the Ihya.
_Al-Imla-u-’ an Statements on disputed In the margin of ishkalat-il-Ihya._ passages of Ihya. 1334 edition of Ihya.
_Mustazhiry._ A guide for novices.
Makhluq-i-Ilahi._ _Hakikat ul Ruh._ On Soul.
E: ETHICS.
_Tibr ul Masbuk._ An ethical mirror for ” 1317 ” princes. A letter.
conduct.
F: THEOLOGY: EXEGETICAL AND DOGMATICAL.
_Yaqut ul Tawil fi Tafsir A commentary on the Quran il Tanzil._ in 40 vols. Not found.
_K. Iqtisad fil-I’tiqad._ Exposition of Faith. Cairo _Fadhaih ul Abahiya._ The exposure of the Doctrines of the Free-thinkers _Al Quistas ul Mustaqim._ (No Imam is necessary ” except the Prophet himself).
_Al Qual ul Jamil fil Criticism of those who Raddi Ala man Ghayyar have changed the text al Injil._ of the Bible.
_Haqiqat ul Qualain._ An Exposition of truth of two sayings.
_Tadlis Iblis._ The intrigue of the devil.
verses of the Quran.
_Risalat ul Wahdah A brief letter on preaching wal-I’tiqad._ and Belief.
_Risalat-ul-’Aqaid._ Doctrines of Islam and Cairo 1325 A. H.
the duties of rulers.
_Al Maqasid ul Khilaf Different theories of fi fan il Kalam._ Kalam.
G: SUFIISM.
religion).
of general advice of religious matters).
_Maqasid ul Hasana Sharh An exposition of Divine ” 1322 ” Asma i-illahi’l Husna._ names.
_Minhaj ul Abidin._ The path of the devout. Cairo 1313 A. H.
(Said to be the last of his work).
_Kitab Asrar al Anwar._ _Madkhal ul Suluk ila A Guide for kings.
Manazil il Muluk._ _Al Munqid min ad Dalal._ Autobiographical statement ” 1303, (Deliverer from error). of his spiritual progress. 1320 A. H.
Tauhid._ _Murshid ul Talibin._ A Guide for novices.
_Mishkat ul anwar fi Esoteric exposition of the ” 1325 ” Lataif il Akhbar._ verse “God is the light of (Niche for the lights). heaven and earth.”
the verse “Then shaped him and breathed of His Spirit into him.”
_Makashifat-ul-Qulub._ (Abridgement of a work Boulaq & Cairo of doubtful authorship 1360 A. H.
ascribed to Al Ghazzali). Cairo 1306 A. H.
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS OF AL GHAZZALI THE NATURE OF MAN[12] Though man shares with the other animals external and internal senses, he is at the same time also endowed with two qualities peculiar to himself, knowledge and will. By knowledge is meant the power of generalisation, the conception of abstract ideas, and the possession of intellectual truths. By will is meant that strong desire to acquire an object which after due consideration of its consequences has been pronounced by reason to be good. It is quite different from animal desire, nay, it is often the very opposite of it.
In the beginning children also lack these two qualities. They have passion, anger, and all the external and internal senses, but will finds its expression only later. Knowledge differs according to the capacity for it, according to the latent powers in a man. Hence there is a variety of stages amongst Prophets,[13] the Ulamas, the Sufis and the Philosophers. Further progress is possible even beyond these stages, for divine knowledge knows no bounds. The highest stage is reached by one to whom all truths and realities are revealed intuitively, who by virtue of his exalted position enjoys direct communion and close relation with the Most Holy. The real nature of this position is known only to him who enjoys it. We verify it by faith. A child has no knowledge of the attainments of an adult; an adult is not aware of the acquisitions of a learned man. Similarly, a learned man is not cogniscant of the holy communion of the saints and the prophets, and of the favours bestowed on them. Although the divine blessings descend freely, those are fit recipients of them, whose hearts are pure and wholly devoted to Him. “Verily,” says the Hadis, “the desire of the virtuous is to hold communion with me, and I long to look at them”. “He who approaches me a span, I approach him an arm”.[14] The divine favours are not withheld, but hearts bedimmed by impurity fail to receive them. “Had it not been that the devils hover round the hearts of men, they would have seen the glories of the Kingdom of the Heaven”.[15] The superiority of man consists thus in his being cogniscant of divine attributes and actions. Therein lies his perfection; thus he may be worthy of admission to God’s presence.
The body serves as a vehicle for the soul, and the soul is the abode for knowledge which is its fundamental character as well as its ultimate object. The horse and the ass are both beasts of burden, but a superiority of the former is found in its being gracefully adapted for use in battle. If the horse fails in this it is degraded to the rank of mere burden bearing animals. Similarly with man. In certain qualities man resembles a horse and an ass, but his distinguishing trait is his participation in the nature of the angels, for he holds a middle position between the beast and the angel. Considering the mode of his nourishment and growth he is found to belong to the vegetable world. Considering his power of movement and impulses he is a denizen of the animal kingdom. The distinguishing quality of knowledge lifts him up to the celestial world.
If he fails to develop this quality and to translate it into action he is no better than a grunting pig, a snarling dog, a prowling wolf, or a crafty fox.
If he wishes for true happiness, let him look upon reason as a monarch sitting on the throne of his heart, imagination as its ambassador, memory as treasurer, speech as interpreter, the limbs as clerks, and the senses as spies in the realms of colour, sound, smell, etc. If all these properly discharge the duties allotted to them, if every faculty does that for which it was created—and such service is the real meaning of thanksgiving to God—the ultimate object of his sojourn in this transitory world is realised.
Man’s nature is made up of four elements, which produce in him four attributes, namely, the beastly; the brutal, the satanic, and the divine.
In man there is something of the pig, the dog, the devil, and the saint.
The pig is the appetite which is repulsive not for its form but for its lust and its gluttony. The dog is passion which barks and bites, causing injury to others. The devil is the attribute which instigates these former two, embellishing them and bedimming the sight of reason which is the divine attribute. Divine reason, if properly attended to, would repel the evil by exposing its character. It would properly control appetite and the passions. But when a man fails to obey the dictates of reason, these three other attributes prevail over him and cause his ruin.
Such types of men are many. What a pity it is that these who would find fault with those who worship stones do not see that on their part they worship the pig and the dog in themselves: Let them be ashamed of their deplorable condition and leave no stone unturned for the suppression of these evil attributes. The pig of appetite begets shamelessness, lust, slander, and such like; the dog of passion begets pride, vanity, ridicule, wrath and tyranny. These two, controlled by the satanic power produce deceit, treachery, perfidy, meanness etc. but if divinity in man is uppermost the qualities of knowledge, wisdom, faith, and truth, etc.
will be acquired.
Know then that mind is like a mirror which reflects images. But just as the mirror, the image, and the mode of reflection are three different things so mind, objects, and the way of knowing are also distinct. There are five reasons which may prevent the object from being reflected in the mirror. 1. There may be something wrong with the mirror. 2. Something other than the mirror may prevent the reflection. 3. The object may not be in front of it. 4. Something may come between the object and the mirror. 5. The position of the object may not be known, so that the mirror may be properly placed. Similarly, for five reasons, the mind fails to receive knowledge. 1. The mind may be imperfect, like the child’s. 2. Sin and guilt may bedim the mind and throw a veil over it. 3.
The mind may be diverted from the real object. For example, a man may be obedient and good, but instead of rising higher to the acquisition of truth and contemplation of God is contented with bodily devotions and acquirement of means of living. Such a mind, though pure, will not reflect the divine image for his objects of thought are other than this.
If this is the condition of such mind, think what will be the state of those minds which are absorbed in the gratification of their inordinate passions. 4. An external screen, may as it were, come before the objects.
Sometimes a man who has subjugated his passions still through blind imitation or prejudice fails to know the truth. Such types are found amongst the votaries of the Kalam. Even many virtuous men also fall a prey to it and blindly stick to their dogmas. 5. There may be ignorance of the means for the acquisition of truth. Thus for illustration, a man wants to see his back in a mirror: if he places the mirror before his eyes he fails to see his back; if he keeps it facing his back it will still be out of sight. Let him then take another mirror and place one before his eyes and the other facing his back in such a position that the image of the latter is reflected in the former. Thus he will be able to see his back. Similarly the knowledge of the proper means is a key to the knowledge of the unknown from the known.
The divine dispensation is liberal in the distribution of its bounties, but for reasons mentioned above, minds fail to profit by them. For human minds partake of the nature of the divine and the capacity to apprehend truth is innate. The Quran says: “Surely we offered the trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they declined to bear it up and were afraid of it and man took it up. Surely he is not just (to himself) and is ignorant”.[16] In this passage the innate capacity of man is hinted at and refers to the secret power of knowing God, latent in human minds by virtue of which they have preference over other objects and the universe. The Prophet says: “Every child is born in the right state (Fitrat) but his parents make him a Jew, a Christian, or a Magian.”
And again: “Had it not been that evil spirits hover round the hearts of the sons of Adam they would have seen the kingdom of heaven”. Ibn Umar