The Confessions of Al Ghazzali
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~13,300 words · 63 passages
Cite this work
- APAAl-Ghazali. (n.d.). The Confessions of Al Ghazzali. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/al-ghazali/the-confessions-of-al-ghazzali
- MLAAl-Ghazali. "The Confessions of Al Ghazzali." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/al-ghazali/the-confessions-of-al-ghazzali.
- ChicagoAl-Ghazali. The Confessions of Al Ghazzali. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/al-ghazali/the-confessions-of-al-ghazzali.
What it is about
Al-Ghazali's intellectual autobiography, known in Arabic as 'al-Munqidh min ad-dalal', 'the deliverer from error'.
Context and history
Al-Ghazali was the best-paid professor in Baghdad when, around 1095, he lost the power of speech: a crisis he reports as both an illness and a warning. He gave up the chair, his family and the city, and spent years in retirement before returning to teach. The book is the account of that road and, at the same time, an orderly examination of the four ways he tried: theology, philosophy, Ismailism and Sufism. He concludes that only the last gives what he was after, because the first three can be learnt and this one has to be lived — 'there is a difference between knowing what drunkenness is and being drunk'. It is often compared with Augustine's 'Confessions', and the comparison holds, though al-Ghazali is far drier and far less confessional than the English title leads one to expect.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Glory be to God, Whose praise should precede every writing and every speech! May the blessings of God rest on Muhammed His Prophet and His Apostle, on his family and companions, by whose guidance error is escaped! You have asked me, O brother in the faith, to expound the aim and the mysteries of religious sciences, the boundaries and depths of theological doctrines. You wish to know my experiences while disentangling truth lost in the medley of sects and divergencies of thought, and how I have dared to climb from the low levels of traditional belief to the topmost summit of assurance. You desire to learn what I have borrowed, first of all from scholastic theology; and secondly from the method of the Ta’limites, who, in seeking truth, rest upon the authority of a leader; and why, thirdly, I have been led to reject philosophic systems; and finally, what I have accepted of the doctrine of the Sufis, and the sum total of truth which I have gathered in studying every variety of opinion. You ask me why, after resigning at Bagdad a teaching post which attracted a number of hearers, I have, long afterwards, accepted a similar one at Nishapur. Convinced as I am of the sincerity which prompts your inquiries, I proceed to answer them, invoking the help and protection of God. Know then, my brothers (may God direct you in the right way), that the diversity in beliefs and religions, and the variety of doctrines and sects which divide men, are like a deep ocean strewn with shipwrecks, from which very few escape safe and sound. Each sect, it is true, believes itself in possession of the truth and of salvation, “each party,” as the Koran saith, “rejoices in its own creed”; but as the chief of the apostles, whose word is always truthful, has told us, “My people will be divided into more than seventy sects, of whom only one will be