Al-Ghazali : Jesus Christ

1 2 3 4 5

The following quotations or references to the Gospel occur in some of his shorter works. In the "Alchemy of Happiness," there is this reference to the Gospel : "Whosoever sows reaps, whosoever sets out arrives, and whosoever seeks finds." (Cf. Matt. 7 : 7.) We have already quoted the words from his epistle, " O Child " : " Verily I have seen in the Gospels, etc." In the same epistle he refers to the parable of Dives and Lazarus : " When the people of hell will say to the people of the garden, ’ Give us a little water from that which God has granted you to cool our tongues.’ " He quotes Jesus as saying : "I was not unable to raise the dead, but I was unable to cure the folly of fools," and quotes the Golden Rule in several places without acknowledging its source as being the Gospel of Jesus.

All this and what he says in his "Alchemy of Happiness " about the love of God leaves no doubt in my mind that he had read the New Testament. It is a sort of Moslem Version of St. John’s Epistles and St. John’s Gospel. The great Mystic gives seven signs of love to God. The first is not to be afraid of death. The second is to prefer the love of God to any worldly object. The third sign of a man’s love to God is that the remembrance of God is always fresh in his heart. He never ceases to meditate upon God. Every man thinks and calls to mind an object in proportion to his love to it. The fourth is love and respect for the Koran. The fifth, secret prayer. The sixth, to find the worship of God delightful. And the seventh sign of love to God is, " That a man loves the sincere friends and obedient servants of God, and regards them all as his friends. He regards all the enemies of God as his enemies and abhors them. And God thus speaks in his eternal word : ’ His companions are terrible towards the infidels, and tender towards each other.’ A Sheikh was once asked, ’ Who are the friends of the exalted and blessed God ? ’ He replied : ’ The friends of God are those who are more compassionate to the friends of God themselves, than a father or a mother to their children.’ " (Compare Psalm 103.) [2].

There seems a great difference between Al-Ghazali as dogmatic theologian, always compelled to agree with the Koran, and Al-Ghazali as the Mystic, when he begins to speculate and lift the veil. We are constantly reminded of the words of Anselm in his great work on the existence of God : " I do not attempt, O Lord, to penetrate Thy depths, for I by no means think my intellect equal to them ; but I long to understand in some degree Thy truth, which my heart believes and loves, for I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand".

Whenever Al-Ghazali speaks of God’s nearness to us and of the soul’s desire for human fellowship with the creator, he comes very close to the Christian idea of the Incarnation, and yet always stops short of it. In his " Alchemy of Happiness," for example, he mentions as the fourth cause of love to God the affinity that exists between man and his Maker, referring to the saying of the Prophet :

"Verily God created man in his own likeness." Immediately afterwards, however, he goes on to say : " This is a somewhat dangerous topic to dwell upon, as it is beyond the understanding of common people, and even intelligent men have stumbled in treating of it, and come to believe in incarnation and union with God. Still the affinity which does exist between man and God disposes of the objection of those theologians mentioned above, who maintain that man cannot love a Being who is not of his own species. However great a distance between them, man can love God because of the affinity indicated in the saying, ’ God created man in His own likeness’. "

1 2 3 4 5