Klaas-Jan BAKKER - AMORC

The Seljuk Empire at the time of Ghazali. In the Middle East,
the Persian-speaking Seljuk Turkish Sultans ruled an empire and
controlled the Sunni Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad as his “protector,”
while from Egypt the Shi’ite Fatimid Imam-Caliphs controlled a
large empire covering North Africa and the Levant.
attracting men of letters and culture into their
orbit.
In the Middle East, the Persian-speaking
Seljuk Turkish Sultans ruled an empire and
controlled the Sunni Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad
as his “protector,” while from Egypt the Shi’ite
Fatimid Imam-Caliphs controlled a large empire
For him, the essence of mysticism was
simply the confession of God’s unity.
covering North Africa and the Levant. The Caliphs
in Baghdad had little effective authority beyond
the city suburbs, though nominally they were the
suzerains of the Seljuk Sultans.
This was a time of great transition, the
Golden Age of Islam was long gone and the
Crusades, which came as a complete shock to
the sophisticated and cultured society that the
Muslim world had settled into, began
during al-Ghazali’s lifetime. After
being attacked from the West on one
front, some 150 years after his death the
Mongols swept down on Iraq from the
east, destroyed Baghdad utterly and
extinguished the Abbasid caliphate.
Al-Ghazali was born in 1085, in
Tus, in the eastern Persian province
of Khorasan. In his autobiography, he
tells us that from his youth he thirsted
after truth. The study of philosophy,
Kalam or theology, and Ismaili (Fatimid)
esoteric doctrine did not quench his thirst. After
spending years in study and reflection, he was
Map showing the location of
Khorasan, where al-Ghazali
was born.
appointed professor at the prestigious Nizamiyya
University in Baghdad by the Vizier Nizam al-
Mulk, who was also from Tus.
His thoughts brought him to the conclusion
that the Sufi adepts derive their insights ultimately
from the niche of prophetic light. For him, the
essence of mysticism was simply the confession
of God’s unity. This meant the recognition that
God was the sole being and the sole light of the
universe. God cannot be known through discourse
or speculation or through union with him. Rather,
he could be known through his self-unveiling in
the wake of constant observation. According to
al-Ghazali, the seers or knowers perceive God
through a “veil of light.” The highest class of
knowers called by him, “those who have arrived”
are alone able to understand that the celestial
world along with its intelligences, are all subject
to the Creator.
Al-Ghazali’s mystical experience stopped
short of the claim of union with God; instead, the
concept was replaced by that of “confession of
unity.” Philosophers had to be careful, as al-Hallaj
had been convicted on a charge of blasphemy by a
jury who considered his concept of union
with god as self-deification that could
not be tolerated. He tried to link the Sufi
way and his own theory of knowledge, a
gnosis, where intuitive ecstatic knowledge
is attained through personal experience that
conveys absolute certainty.
His Works
Of the scores of books he wrote, the Ihya Ulum ad-
Din (Revival of the Religious Sciences) is regarded
as al-Ghazali’s masterpiece; a monumental
composition of forty books or tracts. As one great
Sufi master (Sheikh) remarked: if all
the standard books on science, religion
and the arts were destroyed and the
Ihya Ulum ad-Din managed to survive,
human knowledge could be restored
on the basis of its contents.
Another Sheikh is said to have
read the book twenty-five times and at
each completion he feasted his disciples
and the poor. The Ihya represents the
standard exoteric lore of Sufism, the
“Science of Practical Religion,” whose
aim is the attainment of outward and
inward piety achieved through learning, discipline
and instruction; whereas the esoteric constitutes
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The Rosicrucian Beacon -- December 2007