Ahmad al-Ghazali, Remembrance, and the Metaphysics of Love

Joseph E. B. Lumbard

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781438459646, 9781438459653
• eBook ISBN: 9781438459660
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Islamic Theology

The teachings of A?mad al-Ghaz?l? changed the course of Persian Sufism forever, paving the way for luminaries such as R?m?, A???r, and ??fi?. Yet he remains a poorly understood thinker, with many treatises incorrectly attributed to him and conflicting accounts in the historiographical literature. This work provides the first examination of A?mad al-Ghaz?l? and his work in Western scholarly literature. Joseph E. B. Lumbard seeks to ascertain the authenticity of works attributed to this author, trace the development of the dominant trends in the biographical literature, and reconstruct the life and times of A?mad al-Ghaz?l? with particular attention to his relationship with his more famous brother, Ab? Hamid al-Ghaz?l?. Lumbard's findings revolutionize our understanding of A?mad al-Ghaz?l? writings, allowing for focus on his central teachings regarding Divine Love and the remembrance of God.

PART I

LIFE AND HISTORY

Chapter 1

Sources for the Aḥmad al-Ghazālī Tradition

In the primary biographical sources of the Islamic tradition, Aḥmad al-Ghazālī is usually listed as Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Ghazālī, Abu’l-Futūḥ aṭ-Ṭūsī. But at times he can be found under one of his honorifics (alqāb, sg. laqab), Abu’l-Futūḥ (The Father of Victories), which in some sources is mistakenly recorded as Abu’l-Fatḥ, or Majd ad-Dīn (The Glory of Religion). In the early biographical (ṭabaqāt) tradition, he is known as a preacher (wāʿiẓ), a Sufi, and a jurisprudent (faqīh). He is also recorded as a scholar of the exoteric sciences and the esoteric sciences (ʿālim wa ʿārif) and as a master of miracles and allusions (ṣāḥib al-karāmāt wa’l-ishārāt). Though many later Sufis saw Aḥmad al-Ghazālī as an accomplished spiritual master, in the earlier ṭabaqāt literature he is often viewed in light of his more celebrated brother, Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī. All biographies mention that he is the brother of Imām Abū Ḥāmid, and in several works his biography is presented as an addendum to that of his brother. But from the eighth/fourteenth century onward, Aḥmad is given pride of place in the Sufi hagiographical tradition; his biographies are more extensive than Abū Ḥāmid’s, and he is consistently portrayed as the spiritual superior of his older, more famous brother. The prevailing opinion conveyed in the biographical works comes to be that which was attributed to Jalāl ad-Dīn Rūmī (d. 672/1273) by his biographer Shams ad-Dīn Aḥmad al-Aflākī (d. 761/1360): “If he [Abū Ḥāmid] had one iota of love (ʿishq) like Aḥmad al-Ghazālī, it would have been better, and he would have made known the secrets of Muḥammadan intimacy the way Aḥmad did.”1

Whereas in the earlier ṭabaqāt works Aḥmad al-Ghazālī is recognized as a scholar (ʿālim), a jurisprudent (faqīh), and a preacher (wāʿiẓ), in later sources he is referred to as Shaykh, and even as the Shaykh of shaykhs (shaykh al-mashāyikh or shaykh ash-shuyūkh). The attribution of such honorifics is part of a larger trend in which a complex hagiography develops to compensate for a lack of historical details, not only for Aḥmad al-Ghazālī, but for many luminaries of the Sufi tradition. In order to properly detail the course of Aḥmad al-Ghazālī’s life and the nature of his teachings, we must first examine the authenticity of his works, their interrelationship with other textual sources, and the development of the biographical and hagiographical traditions. This is essential for differentiating his teachings from those that have been attributed to him, and distinguishing those anecdotes that develop and perpetuate a legendary image from the stories which provide details of an historical person who forever changed the face of Persian Sufi literature.

Works by Aḥmad al-Ghazālī

In both Western academia and the modern Islamic world, even in his native Iran, Aḥmad al-Ghazālī is usually known only as the younger brother of Abū Ḥāmid. Some have a deeper appreciation of his accomplishments and are familiar with his place in the initiatic chains of several Sufi orders. But Aḥmad al-Ghazālī is best known for his sublime treatise on Love, Sawāniḥ, the most read of his works.2 The Sawāniḥ was widely read throughout the Persian speaking world and has exerted an influence on Persian literature that has carried through to this day. As noted in the introduction, it has been the subject of several Persian commentaries and has been translated into both German and English. But all of the attention received by the Sawāniḥ may have obscured other writings that are also fundamentally important for obtaining a full picture of Aḥmad al-Ghazālī as an individual, as a Sufi shaykh, and as a literary and historical figure.

Aḥmad al-Ghazālī composed several other works in Persian, all of which have been critically edited, and three works in Arabic, two of which have been printed, but only one of which has been critically edited. In addition, several works have been incorrectly attributed to him. The content and style of his authentic works will be discussed in Chapters 3, 4, and 5; here the authentic will be separated from the spurious. Among the Persian works that are definitely of his hand are the aforementioned Sawāniḥ on mystical love (ʿishq), Dastān-i murghān (The Treatise of the Birds) on the symbolism of spiritual flight,3 Risālah-yi ʿAyniyyah (Treatise for ʿAyn al-Quḍāt), written in response to a letter from his most celebrated disciple, ʿAyn al-Quḍāt Hamadānī,4 on many aspects of the spiritual life,5 and several letters, most of which are believed to have been written for ʿAyn al-Quḍāt, though the authenticity of the letters is not fully established.6 All of Aḥmad al-Ghazālī’s Persian treatises are distinguished by concise, yet allusive prose, interspersed with frequent citations of ḥadīth, Quran, and both Arabic and Persian poetry.

Two other Persian works attributed to Aḥmad al-Ghazālī in Brockelmann’s Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur (GAL) are ʿIshqiyyah and Baḥr al-ḥaqīqah (The Ocean of Reality).7 The former appears to be another title for the Sawāniḥ, and the latter appears to be spurious. There is only one extant manuscript of Baḥr al-ḥaqīqah, from 877/1472, and it is attributed to Aḥmad al-Ghazālī.8 The date of the manuscript and internal evidence, however, shows it to be highly unlikely that this is a work of his hand, though it may have been inspired by his teachings, thus explaining its attribution to him. The two leading scholars of Aḥmad al-Ghazālī, Aḥmad Mujāhid and Nasrollah Pourjavady, have considered it a part of the Ghazālian corpus, and both have edited it.9 As Pourjavady observes, “Though the ideas expressed in this book can very well be considered to belong to Aḥmad al-Ghazālī, the style and composition of the book are somewhat different from those of the Sawāniḥ, the Risālat aṭ-ṭayr, and the letters.”10 It is this very difference of style and composition that make the authenticity of this work more dubious than probable. The treatise is divided into an introduction and seven chapters, each about one of the seven oceans of spiritual realization. It is this seven-ocean scheme that represents its closest relation to the Ghazālian corpus, for in his sessions he cites a story from the famous Sufi Abu’l-Ḥusayn an-Nūrī (d. 295/908), who was asked, “How does one arrive at recognition (maʿrifah)?” To which he responded, “It is seven oceans of light and fire.”11 Nonetheless, the fact that this is a well-ordered text distinguishes it from all of Aḥmad’s writings; the style of his authenticated works resembles the immediate inspiration of a preacher more than the systematic exposition of a scholar. Though Aḥmad al-Ghazālī’s writings have an internal order, it is not readily accessible and must be discerned by close reading. Furthermore, the content and method of citation in Baḥr al-ḥaqīqah is complet...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I Life and History
• Part II Practice and Teachings
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Back Cover