Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali is one of the geniuses of Arab and Islamic culture and its great figures. He has been widely mentioned in the east and west of the earth, and in all times, and he remains to this day a sweet resource for those who wish to taste knowledge, and to follow the spirit searching for the secrets of truth, and his inimitable book “The Rescuer from Error” represents a narrative biography. Spiritual because of the soul’s anxiety and its oscillation in the fever of questions, and its journey from anxiety to… Search and contemplate until you taste the pleasure of tranquility and tranquility.
Al-Ghazali was born in a city called Tus, which is one of the cities of Khorasan in Persia, and his birth was in the year 450 AH, that is, in the middle of the fifth century AH. He was orphaned early on by his father, but the orphanage did not prevent him from heading towards science and seeking knowledge, so Al-Ghazali went on seeking the lessons available in his country, and he did not He soon moved to the city of Gorgan, his second educational station, and continued there New lessons in principles and in the branches of religious and worldly sciences, and from there he returned to his hometown of Tus again, but the place did not last long for him, so he left for Nishapur, in order to stay with Imam Al-Juwayni and accompany him there and learn directly from him.
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After the death of his imam and teacher Al-Juwayni, the educated young man Al-Ghazali leaves for Iraq, and when he arrives in Baghdad, he finds that his name has preceded him there. This means that the matter of his knowledge and excellence has begun to spread among the people. In the capital of the Caliphate, he works in the regular school founded by the Abbasid minister Nizam al-Mulk, the same one who received Al-Ghazali at the time of his arrival in Baghdad.
Al-Ghazali worked for a few years in the regular school until the year 484, when his illness became severe and anxiety and despair took over him, until he was forced to apologize to his students, so he left them on a pilgrimage to Mecca. He settled in Hijaz for a short time, then returned to Jerusalem and resided there for about two years next to the mosque. Al-Aqsa.
Then he left for the Egyptian country, residing in Alexandria for some time, and then returned to his homeland after a long absence from his town of Tus, and from there he moved to teaching in Nishapur, and it was not long before he returned permanently to his town. He devoted himself to some of his later writings, until he died early in the year 505 AH, when he was 55 years old.
In his scientific journey, Imam Al-Ghazali left a large number of works and writings, and most of what he wrote has reached us, which indicates the popularity of his books from an early time. Among his famous works is the book The Revival of Religious Sciences, which is one of the reference books that is relied upon until today. He also has the book The Incoherence of the Philosophers, in responding to the philosophers and criticizing their proposals. He also has: Revealing the Hearts, The Journeys to Jerusalem on the Levels of Self-Knowledge, The Balance of Action, and Alchemy. Happiness, the essences of the Qur’an, and economy in belief. He has many other books.
The Savior from Misguidance.. The Book of the Heart and the Mind
As for his book, “The Savior from Error,” it is the book of the soul, the heart, and the mind, the biography of the scholar and scholar, not only in terms of his life and days, but also in terms of the transformations of his soul, the anxiety of his questions, and the ways in which he attained knowledge and reassurance. Do you see what Al-Ghazali said about the anxiety of his soul? Why did he become disturbed and anxious? How was he able to overcome his ordeal and get rid of his disorder? This is what he tells us about in his interesting spiritual biography, which he called “The Savior from Error.”
“The Savior from Misguidance” is therefore a spiritual and scientific biography that reveals Al-Ghazali’s anxiety in his continuous migrations and his journey from one place to another. It is as if that departure is nothing but the external image that reflects an internal migration from one state to another, and from anxiety to anxiety, on the path of searching for the paths of the travellers, and for the reassurance of absolute, enchanting faith.
Al-Ghazali, in his narrative biography, seems frank in acknowledging his anxiety and turmoil. He doubted everything: himself, his knowledge, and all of his senses. Anxiety and doubt took hold of him, but doubt leads to certainty. He refers to something similar in the introduction to his biography (The Savior from Error), where he directs his speech to a person to whom he does not mention a name, but whom he calls a brother in religion: “You asked me, O brother in religion.” This hypothetical question may be one of those narrative questions that create a recipient or a narration for him that helps the narrator announce his speech, and it is a well-known, specific pattern. In Arabic narratives, according to Al-Ghazali and other ancient authors.
In the first section of the biography of “The Savior from Error,” he presents the stage of youth, and he sees that he was born to question, doubt, and search for the truth. He says in his own words: “The thirst to realize the truths of things has been my habit and my desire from the beginning of my life, and the prime of my life, an instinct and nature from God placed in me, not by my choice and trickery.” At that stage, he thought that certainty was a material matter that must be clearly and clearly verified by the senses: “It appeared to me that certain knowledge is one in which the known is revealed in such a way that no doubt remains about it, and the possibility of error and illusion cannot compare to it.”
Introductions to sophistry and denial of science
Al-Ghazali calls this stage “the entrances to sophistry and denial of knowledge” because he became a “sophist” in it, that is, a doubting questioner, who does not accept anything, and denies or denies any certainty unless it is proven to him in a concrete, material way. He relies on the senses and perceived things, then soon he becomes overcome with anxiety, and becomes deeply disturbed… and where can he be reassured… and how can he reach peace? Certainty?
Al-Ghazali says about his sophistic stage: “Where does the confidence in senses come from? The strongest of them is the sense of sight, which looks at the shadow and sees it standing and not moving, and decides to deny movement. Then, through experience and observation after an hour, you know that it is moving, and that it did not move all of a sudden, but rather gradually, one by one, until it was no longer in a state of standing, and (the eye) sees.” To the planet and you see it small in The amount of dinar. Then the geometric evidence indicates that it is greater than the earth in size, and this and similar things of tangible things are judged by the ruler of sense with his rulings, and the ruler of reason denies it and betrays it in such a way that there is no way to defend it. So I said: Trust in tangible things has also ceased, so perhaps there is no trust except in rational things, which are among the first ones.”
The state that Al-Ghazali narrates is a state of anxiety and doubt even about certainties, matters of the senses, and the mind. That is, he doubts the tools of certainty themselves. This anxiety intensified, and the crisis worsened until “God Almighty cured that disease, the soul returned to health and moderation, and rational necessities became accepted and trusted with security and certainty.”
Al-Ghazali adds: “This was not done by arranging evidence and arranging speech, but rather by a light that God Almighty cast into the chest, and that light is the key to most knowledge. Whoever thinks that revelation depends on liberated evidence has narrowed the vast mercy of God Almighty.”
Al-Ghazali cites the explanation of the Holy Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, of the Almighty’s saying: “Whoever God wants to guide, He opens his chest to Islam.” He said: “It is a light that God Almighty casts into the heart. It was said: What is its sign? He said: Moving away from the abode of deception and turning to the abode of eternity.”
Study of trends of thought and knowledge
Thus, Al-Ghazali was cured of his illness and the total doubt that tormented him, and after that he moved to a higher stage in his research, and limited the trends of knowledge in his time to 4 basic trends. He saw that the truth must lie in one of them, so he decided to study these trends, in order to choose from among them what suits him, and these intellectual or cognitive trends are: “theologians, esotericists, philosophers, and Sufis,” considering She is The dominant currents of his time, so he had to delve into them and study them one by one, until he selected from among them what he saw as worthy of choice, and what would lead to the path of truth and certainty. But what Al-Ghazali did not think about: what if certainty was outside of these jurisprudence, and what would prevent the creation of another current, and a new ijtihad, outside of the prevailing trends, and perhaps this is what Al-Ghazali arrived at later.
Al-Ghazali began his scientific journey with the science of theology, which is an Arabic science that differs from philosophy, and in which the Mu’tazila group emerged: “Then I began with the science of theology, and I acquired it and rationalized it… Then I encountered knowledge that was sufficient for its purpose, but not sufficient for my purpose. Rather, its purpose was to preserve the doctrine of the Sunnis and guard it when the people of heresy disturbed it.. But speaking about my rights was not sufficient, nor was my disease that I was complaining of a cure.”
Thus, Al-Ghazali did not benefit much from the scholars of theology because the goals of their knowledge dealt with matters of responding to the enemies of Islam with protest and proof, and with the ability to create evidence, and this does not suit what Al-Ghazali suffers from. But it is certain that he educated this science and benefited from some of its tools. He did not deny the importance of theologians, but he admitted that their medicines were not suitable for his illness.
Al-Ghazali moved to the philosophical movement after he finished the science of theology, but through what he narrated about his experience with philosophy books and their authors, we find him severely denouncing them, rejecting them completely, and considering their knowledge to be corrupt science. He said: “And I knew with certainty that no one can stand up to the corruption of a type of science if he does not stand up to the ultimate level of that science, that is, philosophy.”
Al-Ghazali traced the trends and types of philosophy, as he understood and educated it. He saw that there were three types of philosophers: the secular, the natural, and the divine. The sciences of philosophers were divided into: mathematical sciences such as arithmetic and geometry, logical sciences that include consideration of methods of evidence, measurements, and proof, and natural sciences that deal with astronomy and the components of the world and its elements, such as water, air, earth, and fire, which are the four basic elements from a philosophical perspective, and composite bodies such as animals, plants, and minerals.
Al-Ghazali’s analysis reveals a comprehensive knowledge of philosophy, but in the end he rejected it categorically, excluded it from the sciences of certainty and saw it as a false and misguided science, despite all that he suffered in order to acquire and test it.
As for the esoteric trend, or esotericism, Al-Ghazali went a reasonable way with him to know and test it, just as he did with theology and philosophy, and we benefit from Al-Ghazali a useful scientific lesson, which is represented in his precise approach in tracing the origins of these sects and collecting their opinions and organizing them, to the point that one might think that he is one of their advocates, even though he does not aim to achieve more than knowledge and to come out with a final ruling on them.
He points out that some of his acquaintances criticized his interest in esotericism and its arguments: “Some of the people of truth among me even denounced me for exaggerating in stating their argument, and said: This is their effort, for they would have been unable to support their doctrine with such doubts, had it not been for you investigating them and arranging them.” But Al-Ghazali is a scholar who wanted the research method to be necessary, so that his ruling would be accurate and convincing, and so he came out with invalidity. The doctrine of esotericism, individualized He rejected it, just as he rejected the doctrine of philosophers.
Al-Ghazali and Sufism
As for the fourth direction in which Al-Ghazali entered, it was the Sufi trend, and thus he turned to understanding the Sufi paths, and reviewing them in search of truth and certainty, which prompted him to study his era with its various trends and ideas, and committed him to the path of the method of knowledge, and to confirm in the various steps of his arduous journey.
Thus, he first studied the books of the Sufis, book by book, then he heard from some of their sheikhs directly, so he approached the truth of Sufism and the methods of Sufi knowledge, with knowledge and taste, and began to delve into the Sufi sciences, as if he had found a passion within himself, so he settled on them or merged with them, because of the spiritual closeness and breathtaking beauty he found in them that attracted the soul, and reduced the power of the mind that tired and exhausted him, and a stage Spiritual isolation is linked In the Levant and his residence there, in Damascus, Jerusalem, and Hebron, as is clear from what Al-Ghazali himself narrates, after he settled on the Sufi faith.
Al-Ghazali’s isolation continued for about 10 years, after this tour in the lands of Islam, and nothing distracted him from remembrance and contemplation, except for the family affairs and concerns that came up, but he frankly admitted that he had reached what he was satisfied with in terms of belief in the path of Sufism as a spiritual choice for him, after he had spent a long time on the path of doubt.
Thus, Al-Ghazali’s biography, called “The Rescuer from Error,” becomes clear to us as a biography of knowledge and spirit, through which we learn about the author’s culture, and much of what he studied from the culture of his time. We also know precisely the fluctuations of his soul and its fervent questions that are transmitted to us, so we enjoy the taste of the question, and the desire for knowledge that it stirs in us.
It is an enjoyable biography, although the narrative style does not flow at the same pace, and it becomes stronger and weaker, depending on the conditions the author presents to it. However, it is worth reading as an early example of a spiritual and scientific biography, in addition to its fresh, exciting language that sounds like a flowing river that is only hindered by asking about the truth. To this day, it is capable of renewal and life.
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