El Ghazali of Persia

From Idries Shah's THE SUFIS (1964) EL-GHAZALI OF PERSIA

... For him, the real object of education was not merely to provide information, but the stimulation of an inner consciousness-- a concept too revolutionary for the scholastics of the time. He propounded this theory in his Ihya-el-ulum. As in the case of Rumi (who spoke of the limitations of poetry only when he had become a great poet) Ghazali could afford to show up scholasticism by the time he had no less than three hundred thousand traditions of the Prophet by heart, and was the Authority of Islam.

His intellectual powers were yoked to a restlessness of mind which, as he says in his own autobiographical writings, made him tirelessly investigate every dogma and every doctrine which he came across; and this from his early youth.

While he was still teaching, Ghazali came to the conclusion that canon law (on which he wrote authoritative books) was an insufficient basis for reality, and he lapsed into scepticism.

Resigning his post, Ghazali spent twelve years-the traditional dervish period-in wandering and meditation, returning to his Sufi background for the answers which he did not find in the ordinary world. He confesses that he was an egoist, and craved applause and recognition. When he realized that this was a barrier to real understanding, he did not abruptly demean himself by choosing the "path of blame," the panacea offered to many mystics. He decided that he would use conscious development in order to arrive at objective truth.

During his period of detachment from the world, after he had abandoned his career as a scholastic, which had saved Moslem theology from decay, Ghazali relates how he battled with his Commanding Self. He had been wandering throughout the East, on pilgrimages and seeking enlightenment in the manner of the dervishes, when he entered a mosque. In the sermon, the Imam was ending his discourse with the words: "So speaks our leader Ghazali."

The wandering dervish said to himself, "O Commanding Self, how pleasant it is to you to hear this said! Yet I shall not tolerate this indulgence any more. I leave this place forthwith, to go where nobody talks of Ghazali."

The theologian, accepted master in matters of outer religion, knew that the realization of what might be meant by the term "God" was something which could only be appreciated by inner means, not accessible through the framework of any formal religion.

"I traveled to Syria," he says, "and remained there for two years. I had no other objective than that of seeking solitariness, overcoming selfishness, fighting passions, trying to make clear my soul, to complete my character." He did this because the Sufi cannot enter into understanding until his heart is prepared to "meditate upon God,' as he calls it .

This period of time was sufficient only to give him sporadic flashes of spiritual fulfillment (foretaste)-the stage which is considered by most non-Sufi mystics to be the ultimate, but which is in fact only the first step. It had become clear to him that "the Sufis are not men of words, but of inner perception. I had learned all that could be learned by reading. The remainder could not be acquired by study or by talk."

Instead of being bemused by his ecstatic experiences, considering them the be-all and end-all of the mystical quest, Ghazali realized that "the so-called absorption in God, considered to be the goal of the Sufi, is in fact only the beginning.

He had exhausted scholasticism and intellectualism because he realized that they had an end, and so he was able to exhaust the preliminary stages which passed as mystical experience in a final sense. He was able to do this because he attained what he sought-a form of cognition which, like a directing beam, gave him a sense of certitude and a means of reaching the ultimate realization. "It is something," he reports, describing this perception, "as specific as if one had actually touched an object."

Relating happiness and fulfillment to a process of alchemical transmutation of the human mind, Ghazali gives a story of Bayazid, one of the early classical Sufi masters, in his Alchemy of Happiness, to stress how the amour pro pre (Commanding Self) must first be seen in its real light before any refining can actually be done:

A man came to Bayazid and said that he had fasted and prayed for thirty years, and yet had not come near to an understanding of God. Bayazid told him that even a hundred years would not be enough. The man asked why. "Because your selfishness is working as a barrier between yourself and truth." "Give me the remedy." 'There is a remedy, but it is impossible to you ." The man insisted, and Bayazid agreed to describe it to him. "Go and shave your beard. Strip yourself naked, except for a loincloth. Fill a nose bag full of walnuts and go to the marketplace. There cry out, `A walnut for every boy who slaps me!' Then make your way to the court where the doctors of law are in session." "But I really could not do that. Give me some other method." "This is the only method," said Bayazid, "but I have already told you, there is no answer for you."

Ghazali, like other dervish teachers, maintained that Sufism was the inner teaching of all religions, and he used many quotations from the Bible and Apocrypha to make his points. He wrote an early critical work on distortions in Christian ideals-- El Qawl el Jamil fil Raddi a la man Ghayar el Injil. As a consequence, of course, he has been said to have been under Christian influence. He was, in fact, less so than even the British Broadcasting Corporation when it occasionally uses Sufi stories in its morning religious program, probably deriving them from secondary sources, and using them in their esoteric sense when they accord with nominal Christianity.

Ghazali was widely accused of preaching one thing and secretly teaching another. This is undoubtedly true, if it is accepted that he regarded active Sufism as a specialized undertaking suitable only for a limited number of people with the capacity for Adepthood. The external and doctrinal aspects of Islam which he enunciated with such impeccable orthodoxy were intended for those who could not follow the inner Sufi Way.

The Perfected Man (insani kamil), because of his living in different dimensions at the same time, must appear to follow more than one set of doctrines. A man who is swimming across a lake is carrying out actions and responding to perceptions other than a man walking down a hill, for instance. He is the same man; and he carries with him when heiswalkingallthe potentiality of swimming.

With extraordinary bravery he actually states this in his Mizan el Amal (Balances of Work).

The Perfected Man has three frameworks of belief:

1. That of his surroundings.

2. That which he conveys to students in accordance with their capacity for understanding.

3. That which he understands from inner experience, only to be known among a special circle.

His Mishkat el Anwar (Niche for Lights) is both a commentary on the famous Light Verse of the Koran and a rendering of its initiatory significance."

He explains that everything has an Outward and an Inward significance. They do not operate together, though they both work consistently within their own dimensions. The version which is available in general circulation, it is true, does not contain the interpretation which is handed down by the present representatives of the dervish fraternities; but this is only because the key to this extraordinary book cannot be expressed in words, but is an extension of personal experience. In other words, it cannot be understood unless it is experienced.

This fact, a basic one in Sufism and stressed by numerous Sufi writers, may easily be misunderstood by formal thinkers. In a translation of the Niche made in English by the Director of the School of Oriental Studies, Cairo, Mr. W. H. T. Gairdner speaks of the difficulty of understanding Ghazali on the subject of the point at which belief and disbelief meet, and much else:

"All these things are incommunicable mysteries, secrets, from the revealing of which our author (Ghazali) turns away at the exact moment when we expect the denouement. The art is supreme-but something more than tantalizing. Who were the Adepts to whom he did communicate these thrilling secrets? Were these communications ever written down for or by his brother initiates?"

Ghazali is referring to secrets which are experienced, and cannot be written down. He is not trying to tantalize at all.

There are really four parts of Ghazali's work. The first is the philosophical material which he placed at the disposal of Moslem theologians and intellectuals for the purpose of keeping the theoretical framework of the religion together. Then comes his metaphysical teachings as contained in such works as the Niche and the Alchemy. Afterward there are the meanings which are concealed in an enciphered form in his writings. Finally there is the teaching which extends from an understanding of the last two, which is partly transmitted orally and partly accessible to those who have followed correctly his mystical works and experiences.

Like all the classical dervishes, Ghazali made use of poetic symbolism and encipherment. His surname, chosen by himself, is generally rendered "El-Ghazali." Primarily this means "the Spinner." This appellation denotes "one who spins, works with material such as wool"-the code word for Sufi-and carried the connotation of the need to spin, or work upon, one's materials-and one's self. Also by vocation association it is linked with Fatima (which means "the Dyer"), Mohammed's daughter. From her all descendants of the Prophet trace their pedigree. They are believed to inherit the inner teaching of Islam, showing where it connects with all genuine metaphysical traditions.

The care with which these poetic names are chosen is shown by the numerous other associations of the work. Chazali also stands for "gazelle" (the generic term for various types of antelope, such as the Oryx, which is a literal homonym for "a lover"). The three-letter root GH-Z-L from which the whole series of words is derived also produces the word GHaZaL, which itself is the standard Arabic and Persian technical term for a love poem, an amorous verse. Other derivations from this root include a spider's web (something spun), which is in this case intended to be a reference to action coming through faith . The action was the spinning of a web across a cave mouth where Mohammed and his companion Abu Bakr were hiding from their enemies, on a famous occasion.

A Sufi aware of these traditions therefore interprets El Ghazali's name in accordance with the principles on which it was chosen. To him, then, it means that Ghazali follows the path of Love, of Sufism ("wool"), which means work (spinning in this case). Ghazali has left these keynotes to be picked up by his successors, including the hint of the continuity of an inner doctrine (Fatima, the Dyer) within the religious context in which he lives.

The methodology of Ghazali is followed in the traditional Sufi orders, with various variations. He defended the special use of music to elevate the perceptions in his Ihya-and music is used in this way in the Mevlevi and Chishti Orders of dervishes. The tune known in the West as Ravel's Bolero is actually an adaptation of one of these specially composed pieces. He points out that in order to develop higher faculties, self-pride must be recognized and overcome. This forms another part of Sufi training and study. He points out that the consciousness must be transmuted, rather than suppressed or distorted.

It is this very use of the phraseology of alchemy by the Sufis of the middle ages which is responsible for a very great deal of confusion in the minds of later researchers as to what "alchemy" really does mean. Some say that it is a disguised form of a spiritual quest. Others reply that the laboratories of the alchemists have been examined and show every indication of having been used for real experiments. Works attributed to spiritual alchemists have been described as chemical treatises.

Thus Ghazali: "Alchemical gold is better than gold, but real alchemists are rare, and so are true Sufis . Who has but a smattering of Sufism is not superior to a learned man." (Alchemy of Happiness)

First of all it should be remembered that a great part of the alchemical tradition of the West came through Arabic sources, and that the so-called Emerald Tablet of Hermes the Thrice-Greatest is found in its earliest form in Arabic. Further, the first classical Sufi was 'Jabir Ibn al-Hayyan, surnamed the Sufi, the alchemist and occultist-the Latin Geber, who lived three centuries before Ghazali. The "Great Work" is a translated Sufi phrase, and the doctrine of the microcosm and macrocosm (what is above is equal to what is below) is also found in Sufi tradition, and expounded by Ghazali. As Sufism is not a mere invention which took place at a certain point in time, it is inevitable that similar ideas should occur in other genuine inner traditions. Unless all these points are firmly grasped, there can be no advantage in observing the theory of transmutation from coarse to fine from an adequate standpoint .

Ghazali's Revival of Religious Sciences was publicly burned in Moslem Spain (before he had become the greatest religious authority in Islam) because it contained such statements as:

The question of divine knowledge is so deep that it is really known only to those who have it. A child has no real knowledge of the attainments of an adult. An ordinary adult cannot understand the attainments of a learned man. In the same way, a learned man cannot understand the experiences of enlightened saints or Sufis.

The Revival contains most important expositions of the Sufi love ideal. Affinity of humanity for each other and of humanity for creation is stressed. Quoting the Sufi master Malik ibn Dinar, Ghazali says, in Book IV : "Just as birds of the same feather fly together, two persons having a quality common to both will join." (Sayed Nawab Ali's version, Some Moral and Religious Teachings of Al-Ghazzali, Lahore, 1960.)

Ghazali points out that a "mixture of a pig, a dog, a devil and a saint" is not a suitable basis for a mind which is attempting to attain deep understanding of things which this mixture by definition cannot attain. "You must stop looking at a cushion if you are trying to look at a lamp ."

The way in which the unholy mixture is corrected, the method whereby the mirror is aligned in order to reflect properly, must be known and must be practiced. This is the knowledge and the practice which is the result of the Sufi specialization.

The specialized techniques of Sufism for arriving at the ability to learn and the learning itself, as well as the wisdom which is ultimately attained, are the result of the correct approach. "There are many degrees of knowledge," Ghazali stresses. "The mere physical man is like the ant crawling on paper, who observes black lettering and attributes its production to the pen and to nothing more." (Alchemy o f Happiness)

What is the product of this specialization, as far as the ordinary world is concerned? Ghazali answers this in specific terms in the Alchemy. Some people rule their own bodies. 'Those individuals who reach a certain height of power rule their own bodies, and those of others as well . Should they desire an invalid to recover, he does so. . . . They can make someone come to them, by an effort of will ."

There are three qualities which are the consequence of Sufi specialization that can be expressed in terms perceptible to the ordinary reader:

1. The power of extra perception, consciously exerted.

2. The power to move bodies outside their own mass.

3. Immediate consciousness of knowledge. Even that which is normally acquired only by labor becomes theirs by illumination or insight.

These faculties may appear to be separate or strange, but they are in fact only a part of a higher stage of being or existence, and can be recognized by ordinary people only in this crude way. "This interrelation cannot be explained in the usual way; just as in more mundane things we cannot explain the effect of poetry to one whose ear cannot accept it, or color to one who lacks the function of sight."

Man, Ghazali points out, is capable of existing on several different planes. He does not normally know enough about them to be able to differentiate. He is on one of four planes.

"The first plane is when he is like a moth. It has sight, but no memory. It will be singed again and again on the same flame. The second is where he is like a dog. Once beaten, it will flee at the sight of a stick. The third is like that of a horse or a sheep. Both will run immediately, if they see a lion or a wolf, which are their natural foes. They will, however, not flee from a camel or a buffalo, even though both are much larger than their hereditary enemies." The fourth plane is that in which man entirely transcends these animal limitations. He is now able to exercise some foresight. The relationship between these stages in respect of locomotion can be likened to:

1. Walking on the land.

2. Being on a ship.

3. Riding in a chariot.

4. Walking on the sea.

Beyond all these there is the phase in which one might say that the man can fly by his own power through the air.

The commonalty remain in one of the first two stages. In these they do not endure as much as they should. Being static, they are invariably inimical to those who are in movement.

In his metaphysical work, Ghazali seldom troubles himself to exhort people to follow the Sufi path. In one passage, however, he does emphasize one argument. If, he says, what the Sufis are saying is true-that there is an urgent undertaking in life which bears a relationship with one's future state-it will matter very much in the future state. If, on the other hand, there is no such relationship, nothing will matter. Therefore, he asks, is it not better to give this point of view the benefit of the doubt? Later it will be too late.

Ghazali next turns in his Alchemy to the question of music in its psychological aspects. He notes the mechanism whereby music and dancing can be used for excitatory purposes. Music can be a method of producing emotional effect. He maintains, however, that there is an innocent function of music, in which it does not produce the pseudoreligious sentiments used by undiscriminating cults.

The Sufi use of music is different from the emotional use. Before a Sufi can participate in musical activities, including listening to music, it must be established by his director as to whether he will benefit correctly from the experience.

A story is related here to show how a Sufi teacher (Sheikh Gurjani) explained that a certain disciple was not yet fitted for the audition of music in the Sufi, objective, sense. In response to his request, the Sheikh said, "Fast for a week. Have delicious food cooked for you. If you then still prefer musical movement, take part in it."

Participation in music and "dancing" under any other circumstances is, says Ghazali, not only forbidden; it is actually harmful to the aspirant. Modem psychology has not yet realized that there is a special function of sound for elevating consciousness.

The reality of the true "state" of Sufi experience is very difficult to grasp for the outsider, because he is accustomed to thinking in terms which are different from this state. "Allowances must be made for him," Ghazali says, "because he is unaware of what these states are. It is like a blind man trying to understand the experience of seeing green herbage or running water."

At best the outsider can only relate the experience which is reported to him in terms of his own experiences-sensual, orgiastic, emotional. "Yet a wise man will not deny such states simply because he has not experienced them; because this form of opinion forming is disastrously foolish."

The deist view of the so-called mystical experience, which carries no superior knowledge but is merely a form of autointoxication, is not the one which Ghazali is trying to portray. Still less is he inclined to accept the contention that there is any sort of a descent of deity into man. The whole reportage is vitiated, and may even be voided, by the attempt to transpose it into a vehicle-words-which will not adequately convey it. A Sufi commentator on Ghazali notes that things which are comprehensive experiences "cannot be penned by a mumbling wordsmith, any more than he himself would accept a paper copy of a fruit as edible or nutritious."

The intellectual or externalist attempt to understand something vicariously, to force into a word pattern something which is beyond it, is "like someone who, seeing his face in a mirror, imagines that his face has in some way become imprisoned ina mirror."

In dervish meetings, there are examples of ecstatic convulsions and other signs of false experience or states. Once, Ghazali recalls, the great Sheikh Junayd reprimanded a youth who fell into frenzy at a Sufi meeting. "Never do that again, or leave my company," Junayd told him. Sufi belief is that outward evidences like this of supposedly inner changes are counterfeit or merely emotional. True experience carries no physical concomitant of this kind whether it be "speaking in tongues" or rolling on the floor. The illustrious Mahmud Shabistari, in his Secret Garden, comments: "If thou know not these states, pass on, nor join the infidel in ignorant counterfeit. . . . But all learn not the secrets of the Way."

These demonstrations are, in a way, associated with the emotional use of words which is the shortcoming and ultimately the downfall of the formal religions. Making phrases connected with God, faith, or any religion is an external, at best an emotional, matter. This is one reason why Sufis will not discuss Sufism in the same context as religion. Different planes are involved.

Once there has been an inner experience of what is meant by the familiar phraseology of religion, the phrases cease to have any meaning at all, because the transition from the coarse to the finer has taken place. Ghazali illustrates this fact by a report. The Sufi master Fudayl (died 801) said: "If asked whether you love God, say nothing. This is because if you say, `I do not love God,' you are an unbeliever. If, on the other hand, you say, `I do love God,' your actions contradict you."

If a person knows what religious love is, he will express it in its own way, not in a way which is familiar to those who do not know. Everyone will be uplifted or the reverse in accordance with his own capacities and that with which he is familiar. Ghazali reports that a man collapsed in a perfume bazaar. People tried to revive him with sweet odors. Presently someone who knew him said, "I have been a dustman. This man is also one. He will be revived by the smell of that which is familiar to him." Accordingly some nauseating substance was held under his nose, and he immediately revived.

This kind of contention is generally anathema to those who seek to attribute familiar sensations to a higher order of being, and assume that they are experiencing at least some measure of the divine or mystical in forms which are nothing more than grosser ones. The grosser form is suitable to its context, and cannot be transposed. A petrol engine cannot be run on butter, even though butter is in its own place a very excellent thing. Nobody would think of refer ring to it seriously as petrol, however. The Sufi doctrine of a continuum of refinement of matter will here be seen to be quite different from that of other systems. The other two schools hold that materiality must either be shunned altogether, or that it must be made use of. In actual fact, every degree of materiality has its own function; and materiality extends in successive refinement until it becomes what has been generally considered to be separate-spirit .

Ghazali enunciated the doctrine that it is necessary to realize the multiple functions, at different levels, of what appears to be the same thing; e.g.: "The eye may see the large as small: the sun as the size of a bowl. . . . Intelligence understands that the sun is in fact many times larger than the earth. . . . The faculties of imagination and fantasy often produce beliefs and pass judgments which they consider to be products of the intelligence. The error is consequently in the lower mental processes to the unwary or insensitive." (Niche of Lights, first part.) By insensitive he means those who do not allow themselves to feel multiple impact and meaning. Among numerous illustrations of the working of this tendency, he says in his Revival some important things about the self.

The self means in one sense the personality of man, which is used to handle outside impacts and employ them for gratification. But it also means the inner or essential quality of the individual. In this capacity its formal name changes in accordance with its functions. If the essence operates correctly in reorganizing the emotional life and preventing confusion, it is known as the Peaceful Self. Operating in the field of conscience, when it is activated to remind the man or woman of certain matters, it is called the Accusatory Self. There has been tremendous confusion in this matter, because for purposes of examination and teaching, the essential self has to be given a name. Yet its differing modes of operation according to what work it is performing can give the impression that it is a number of different things; or even that it is at different stages of development. It is legitimate to represent the process as being composed of stages, but this is at best only an illustrative distinction. The Sufi whose consciousness is operating correctly will regard the different phases of the essence's transmutation in a special and distinctive way, not adequately duplicated in familiar terminology. When the essence is operating in a way normal to undeveloped man, it gives its potential to the mechanism which indulges primitive satisfactions, and is then known as the Commanding Self.

"Certain conditions," he stresses, "are easily understood and give the impression that everything can similarly easily be understood. But there are situations which can only be understood by those who see them in a certain [special] way. The ignorance of this [mechanism] gives rise to the common fault of assuming an uniformity in events."

In common with other Sufi teachers, Ghazali finds that he has to repeat his argument in different forms as his text demands it. This is partly because the Sufi method may require the same standpoint to be taken up in different sets of ideas. It is also because, as is so often seen in study groups, people may give lip service to an important contention, yet not be permeated with it. The contention must actually operate as a dynamic force within the mind of the student. In many cases, because he is accustomed to being conditioned or trained, the student will accept a contention as a conditioning. The result of this will be that he merely thinks that he has absorbed it, because he responds in a predictable way whenever a certain stimulus of contention is applied to him. Such conditioning, if it has taken place, must be broken before the Sufi effect can manifest itself.

The misunderstanding involved in the use of the terms "Son of God" (attributed to Jesus) and "I am the Truth" (said by the Sufi Hallaj) is due entirely to this question. The attempt to express a certain relationship in language not prepared for it causes the expression to be misunderstood.

The individual, Ghazali says in the Revival, may pass through stages of interior development analogous to those of human growing up. This gradual development causes his experiences to take different forms. Hence, a Sufi may not need a certain physical experience because his development has substituted a capacity for a more coherent, better experience. "Every stage of life, for example, is marked by a fresh kind of enjoyment. Children like playing and have no conception of the pleasures of marriage which they will develop the capacity for later. The adult, in his turn, will in his younger days have no capacity for the enjoyment of riches and greatness which is experienced by the middleaged. The latter, in their turn, may consider earlier delights as much less significant than their current ones. More developed individuals, of course, will consider incomplete, impalpable or sporadic the conventionally familiar indulgences when compared with their new capacities for appreciation:'

The alternation of allegories, which prevents their becoming crystallized into mere conditioning mechanisms, is a common procedure in the living teaching of Sufi schools. Ghazali in his works often changes his teaching in an outward sense, while the inner meaning remains the same. In his Minhaj el-Abidin, he treats of the progress of the alchemizing of the consciousness in seven "valleys" of experience-the Valleys of Knowledge, Turning Back, Obstacles, Tribulations, Lightning, Abysses and Praise. This is the more theological frame of projection of the Sufi message, and forms the medium through which the Moslem and Christian devout of the middle ages was able to gain a glimpse of Sufi teaching. It is interesting to note that Bunyan and Chaucer used this Sufi material, drawing heavily upon its imagery to provide a stiffening for Catholic thinking. Eastern teachers such as Attar and Rumi maintained contact with the more direct stream of meaning of the "quest" theme; probably because they were practical, as well as theoretical, teachers with their own schools.

Man's happiness undergoes successive refinements in accordance with his "state of being," according to Ghazali . This teaching, which will not accept the usual human view that there is one standard form of happiness, an abstraction, is a marked feature of Sufi lore.

"Man contains diverse possibilities, each responding to its own type of enjoyment. Initially there is the physical one. In a similar way there is the moral faculty, which I call real reason, which enjoys the attainment of as much knowledge as possible. There are thus the outward and inward indulgences. In accordance with their refinement, so will they be preferred.

"A man, then, who has a capacity for acceptance of a perfection of Being will prefer the contemplation of this. Even in the present life the happiness of the right-seekers is incomparably greater than can be imagined."