A Moslem Seeker after God/The Eleventh Century
I
The Eleventh Century
- "The Assemblies of Al-Hariri" by Thomas Chenery.
"With the time came the man. He was Al-Ghazali, the greatest, certainly the most sympathetic figure in the history of Islam, and the only teacher of the after generations ever put by a Muslim on a level with the four great Imams. The equal of Augustine in philosophical and theological importance. By his side the Aristotelian philosophers of Islam, Ibn Rushd and all the rest, seem beggarly compilers and scholiasts. Only Al-Farabi, and that in virtue of his mysticism, approaches him. In his own person he took up the life of his time on all its sides and with it all its problems. He lived through them all and drew his theology from his experience."
- "Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence and Constitutional Theory," by D. B. Macdonald.
I
THE ELEVENTH CENTURY
THE great characters of history may be compared to mountain peaks that rise high above the plains and the lower foot hills and are visible from great distances because they dominate the landscape. In the historical study of Islam four names stand out prominently. They are those of Mohammed himself; of Al-Bokhari, the most celebrated collector of the Traditions; of Al-Ash'ari, the great dogmatic theologian and the opponent of rationalism; and of Al-Ghazali, the reformer and mystic. The last named has left a larger imprint upon the history of Islam than any man save Mohammed himself. "If there had been a prophet after Mohammed," said As-Suyuti, "it would have been Al-Ghazali."
It is in his life, and more especially in his writings, that I believe we can see Islam at its best. In trying to escape the dead weight of Tradition and the formalism of its requirements, Moslems are more and more finding relief in the way of the mystic. Of all those who have found a deeper spiritual meaning in the teachings of the Koran and even in the multitudinous and puerile detail of the Moslem ritual, none can equal Al-Ghazali. "He was," says Jamal-ud-Din, "the pivot of existence and the common pool of refreshing waters for all, the soul of the purest part of the people of the Faith, and the road for obtaining the satisfaction of the Merciful. . . . He became the unique one of his own day and for all time among the Moslem learned." "Al-Ghazali," said another writer, nearly contemporary, "is an imam by whose name breasts are dilated and souls revived, in whose literary productions the ink horn exults and the paper quivers with joy, and at the hearing of whose message voices are hushed and heads are bowed."
A celebrated saint, Ahmed As-Sayyed Al-Yamani Az-Zabidi, also a contemporary of Al-Ghazali, said, "When I was sitting one day, lo, I perceived the gates of heaven opened, and a company of blessed angels descended, having with them a green robe and a precious steed. They stood by a certain grave and brought forth its tenant and clothed him in the green robe and set him on the steed and ascended with him from heaven to heaven, till he passed the seven heavens and rent after them sixty veils, and I know not whither at last he reached. Then I asked about him, and was answered, 'This is the Imam Al-Ghazali.' That was after his death; may God Most High have mercy on him!"
on him! "
Another story is related of him as follows: "In our time there was a man in Egypt who disliked Al-Ghazali and abused him and slandered him. And he saw the Prophet (God bless him and give him peace!) in a dream; Abu Bakr and Omar (may God be well pleased with both of them!) were at his side, and Al-Ghazali was sitting before him, saying, O Apostle of God, this man speaks against me! Thereupon the Prophet said, Bring the whips! So the man was beaten on account of Al-Ghazali. Then the man arose from sleep, and the marks of the whips remained on his back, and he was wont to weep and tell the story."
And should this praise seem oriental and extravagant, we add the words of Professor Duncan B. Macdonald, who has made a more thorough study of Al-Ghazali’s life and writings than any other student of Islam: " What rigidity of grasp the hand of Islam would have exercised but for the influence of Al-Ghazali might be hard to tell; he saved it from scholastic decrepitude, opened before the orthodox Moslem the possibility of a life hid in God, was persecuted in his life as a heretic, and now ranks as the greatest doctor of the Moslem Church."
To understand the importance of Al-Ghazali and of his teaching we must transport ourselves to the time in which he lived. We cannot understand a man unless we know his environment. Biography is only a thread in the vast web of h istory, in which time is broad as well as long. Al-Ghazali belongs to the small company of torch bearers in the Dark Ages.
He was born at Tus, in Khorasan, Persia, in the year 1058 A. D., and died in 1111 A. D. When Al-Ghazali was born Togrul Bey had just taken Bagdad, Henry IV was Emperor, Nicholas II was Pope, the Norman conquest had just begun in the west, and Asia Minor was overrun by the Turks in the Near East. Among Al-Ghazali’s other contemporaries in the west were Hildebrand the Pope, Abelard, Bernard, Anselm, and Peter the Hermit. About the time he wrote his greatest work, God frey of Bouillon was King of Jerusalem. Al-Ghazali was struggling with the problem of Islam in its relation to the human heart thirsting for God, about two hundred years after Al-Kindi had written his remarkable apology for the Christian faith at the court of Haroun-ar-Rashid and two hundred years before Raymond Lull laid down his life a martyr in North Africa.
The condition of the Moslem world had utterly changed since the days when Busrah with its rival city Kufa were dominated by the victorious Arabs of Omar's Caliphate. The Abbasside Caliphs of the eleventh century were almost as much the shadows of former power as the Emperors of the East; they retained little more than their religious supremacy. Togrul Bey, the grandson of Seljuk, had been confirmed by the powerless Caliph AlQa im bi-amr Allah, in all his conquests, loaded with honours, saluted as King of the East and West, and endowed with the hand of the Caliph's daughter. In the next reign, that of Al-Muqtadi, the Seljuk Turks captured Jerusalem.
"About the year 1000," says Noldeke "Islam was in a very bad way. The Abbasside Caliphate had long ceased to be of any importance, the power of the Arabs had long ago been broken. There was a multitude of Islamite States, great and small; but even the most powerful of these, that of the Fatirnids, was very far from being able to give solidity to the whole, especially as it was Shi'ite.
"...These nomads (the Turks) caused dreadful devastation, trampled to the ground the flourishing civilization of vast territories, and contributed almost nothing to the culture of the human race; but they mightily strengthened the religion of Mohammed. The rude Turks took up with zeal the faith which was just within reach of their intellectual powers, and they became its true, often fanatical, champions against the outside world. They founded the powerful empire of the Seljuks, and conquered new regions for Islam in the northwest. After the downfall of the Seljuk empire they still continued to be the ruling people in all its older portions. Had not the warlike character of Islam been revived by the Turks, the Crusaders perhaps might have had some prospect of more enduring success."
- "Sketches from Eastern History," Theodore Noldeke. London, 1892, p. 98.
Togrul Bey was invested with the title of Sultan
in the royal city of Nishapur, A. D. 1038. Accord
ing to Gibbon, he was the " father of his soldiers
and of his people. By a firm and equal administration Persia was relieved from the evils of an
archy; and the same hands which had been imbrued
in blood became the guardians of justice and the
public peace. The more rustic, perhaps the wisest,
portion of the Turkmans continued to dwell in the
tents of their ancestors; and, from the Oxus to the
Euphrates, these military colonies were protected
and propagated by their native princes. But the
Turks of the court and city were refined by busi
ness and softened by pleasure: they imitated the
dress, language, and manners of Persia; and the
royal palaces of Nishapur and Rei displayed the
order and magnificence of a great monarchy. The
most deserving of the Arabians and Persians were
promoted to the honours of the state; and the
whole body of the Turkish nation embraced with
fervour and sincerity the religion of Mahomet."
The first of the great Seljuk Sultans was conspicuous by his zeal for the Moslem faith. He spent much time in prayer, and in every city which he conquered built new mosques. By force of arms he delivered the Caliph of Bagdad at the head of an irresistible force and taught the people " Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." of Mosul and Bagdad the lesson of obedience. Rescued from his enemies, the alliance between the Caliph and the Sultan was cemented by the marriage of Togrul's sister with the successor of the Prophet. In 1063 Togrul died and his nephew Alp Arslan succeeded him. His name, therefore, was pronounced after that of the Caliph in public prayer by all the Moslems of the Near East.
The character of his rule Gibbon gives us in a sentence: "The myriads of Turkish horse over spread a frontier of 600 miles from Taurus to Erzeroum, and the blood of 136,000 Christians was a grateful sacrifice to the Arabian prophet." The " valiant lion," for that is the significance of his name, displayed at once the fierceness and gener osity of a typical Oriental ruler. Christians suf fered dreadful persecution. Enemies were assas sinated; but the learned, the rich, and the favoured were lavishly rewarded. Arslan was a valiant warrior of the faith and as eager for the battle field as those whom Moore describes:—
"One of that saintly murderous brood
To carnage and the Koran given,
Who think through unbeliever’s blood
Lies their directest path to heaven.
One who will pause and kneel unshod
In the warm blood his hand hath poured
To mutter o'er some text of God
Engraven on his reeking sword."
Armenia was laid waste in the crudest manner when the capital was taken on June 6, 1064. We are told that "human blood flowed in torrents, and so great was the carnage, that the streets were literally choked up with dead bodies; and the waters of the river were reddened from the quantity of bloody corpses." The wealthy inhabitants were tortured, the churches pillaged, and the priests flayed alive. Al-Ghazali was then six years old.
In 1072 Alp Arslan was assassinated. His eldest son, Malek Shah, succeeded him. He extended the conquests of his father beyond the Oxus as far as Bokhara and Samarkand, until his name was inserted on the coins and in the prayers of the Tartar kingdom on the borders of China. " From the Chinese frontiers, he stretched his immediate jurisdiction or feudatory sway to the west and south, as far as the mountains of Georgia, the neighbourhood of Constantinople, the holy city of Jerusalem, and the spicy groves of Arabia Felix. Instead of resigning himself to the luxury of the harem, the shepherd king, both in peace and war, was in action in the field."
Nizam Al-Mulk was his vizier, and it is largely due to his influence that the study of science and literature revived to such a remarkable degree. The calendar was reformed, schools and colleges erected, and the learned competed with each other for the favour of royalty. For thirty years Nizam Al-Mulk was honoured by the Caliph as the very oracle of religion and science. But at the age of ninety-three, the venerable statesman, to whom, as we shall see later, Al-Ghazali owed so much, was dismissed by his master, accused by his enemies, and murdered by a fanatic. The last words of Nizam attested his innocence, and the remainder of Malek’s life was short and inglorious.
The Arabic language had become dominant everywhere. Its vocabulary had leavened the whole lump of languages in the Near East. Every race with which the Arabs came in contact was more or less Arabized. " The extent of this influence," says Chenery,[1]" may be perceived by comparing the Persian of Firdausi with that of Sa'di.
The language of the former, who flourished in the early part of our eleventh century, is tolerably pure, while the Gulistan, which was produced some two hundred and fifty years later, is in some places little more than a piecing together of Arabic words with a cement of the original tongue. It is to be noticed, also, that the latter author introduces continually Arabic verses, as the highest ornaments of his work, and assumes that his readers are acquainted with this classic and sacred tongue."
Trade routes extended everywhere. There was intercourse with India and China on the east, as well as with the Spice Islands, so called, of Malaysia. Caravans carried trade across the whole of Central Asia and Northern Arabia to the emporiums of the West. Spain had intercourse with Persia. Al-Hariri praises Busrah " as the spot where the ship and the camel meet, the sea fish and the lizard, the camel-leader and the sailor, the fisher and the tiller." In other words it was the port and emporium for all the lands watered by the Euphrates and Tigris. The same was true of Alexandria for the West.
We have evidences that an extensive trade was carried on between Arabia and China in walrus and ivory. An extensive work exists written in Chinese in the twelfth century on trade with the Arabs of which a recent translation has been published at Petrograd. More remarkable still is the fact that in Scandinavia thousands of Kufic coins have been found, nearly all of which date from the eleventh century. This would indicate that even this re mote part of Europe was in touch with the Near East.[2]
Judging from literature and history, it was a time of looseness of morals and of divorce between religion and ethics, even more startling than in the world of Islam to-day. There were those who wrote commentaries on the marvels of the Koran, like Al-Harawi, yet did not scruple to indulge in private wine-drinking and carousals and loose con versation. The place of wine, women, and song, not only in popular literature and poetry, but even in the table talk of theologians and philosophers is clear evidence. Huart remarks in regard to the celebrated " Book of the Monasteries," which is an anthology of the convents of the Near East: " We must not forget that, when Moslems went to Chris tian cloisters, it was not to seek devotional impulses, but simply for the sake of an opportunity of drinking wine, the use of which was forbidden in the Mohammedan towns. The poets, out of gratitude, sang the praises of the blessed spots where they had enjoyed the delights of intoxication." Those who dared to preach and write against this public immorality had to suffer the consequences; and because hypocrites were in power reformers were not heeded.
We read of Ibn Hamdun (1101-1167), that when he openly attacked the evils which he saw around him in Bagdad, he was dismissed from his public office as secretary of state, cast into prison, and left to die. Punishments were cruel. Amputations for theft, in accordance with the Koran legislation, were matters of such every-day occurence that the maimed man was always a suspect. We read of Al-Zamakhshari, that one of his feet had been frost-bitten during a winter storm, necessitating an amputation, and so he went about with a wooden leg, but he also carried about with him a written testimony of witnesses to prove that he had been maimed by accident, and not in punishment for a crime.
Al-Baihaki, the chronicler of the court at Bagdad, shows us that the zeal for the faith was often accompanied by a reckless disregard for the law of Islam as regards the use of fermented liquor. Not only the soldiers and their officers had drunken brawls, but the Sultan Mas ud used to enjoy regular bouts in which he frequently saw his fellow topers " under the table." Here is a scene repre
sented as having taken place at Ghazni, the capital
of Khorasan province. " Fifty goblets and flagons
of wine were brought from the pavilion into the
garden, and the cups began to go round. Fair
measure/ said the amir, and equal cups let us
drink fair/ They grew merry and the minstrels
sang. One of the courtiers had finished five tank
ards each held nearly a pint of wine but the
sixth confused him, the seventh bereft him of his
senses, and at the eighth he was consigned to his
servants. The doctor was carried off at his fifth
cup; Khalil Dawud managed ten, Siyabiruz nine,
and then they were taken home; everybody rolled
or was rolled away, till only the Sultan and the
Khwaja Abd-ar-Razzak remained. The Khwaja
finished eighteen goblets and then rose, saying,
If your slave has any more he will lose both his
wits and his respect for your Majesty. Mas ud went on alone, and after he had drunk twenty-seven full cups, he too arose, called for water and
prayer-carpet, washed, and recited the belated noon
and sunset prayers together as soberly as if he had not tasted a drop; then mounted his elephant and rode to the palace."
Mas ud was put to death in 1040. His sons and descendants for more than a century ruled this part of the Moslem world. But Ghazni fell from the proud position of the capital of a kingdom to a mere dependency of the Empire of Malek Shah.
The eleventh century was a period when the nations of Western Europe were beginning to crystallize both as regards their governments and civilization. Their influence was felt at home and abroad, although the masses were still in the depths of barbarism. Among the clergy and nobility something of order and civilization, and social development had appeared, but we are told by one writer that it was a striking characteristic of the time to find side by side with barbarian violence and disorder, and the constant display of the most brutal passions, a strong religious feeling. This feeling often took the form of superstition and fanaticism, the performance of meritorious works, especially a pilgrimage to the holy sepulcher. Thousands risked their life and health, and spent all their fortune to reach the holy city, with the same devotion and sacrifice which we still witness among the ardent Russian pilgrims of to-day.
When Asia Minor and Syria were conquered by the Turks this access to Jerusalem was cut off. In 1076 (Al-Ghazali was then eighteen years old) they massacred three thousand of these Christian people and their subsequent rule was relentless in its tyranny. We read that " the venerable Patriarch was dragged by the hair along the streets, and cast into a dungeon; the clergy of every sect were insulted; and the unhappy pilgrims were made to suffer every indignity and abuse."
This treatment of Christian pilgrims produced a storm of indignation and anger throughout the West. Peter the Hermit himself visited Jerusalem and returned to Europe to arouse the nations. The result was the first Crusade, in which Pope Urban II cooperated. Three hundred thousand half armed, half-naked peasants forced their way across Europe along the Rhine and the Danube. Only one-third of their number reached the shores of Asia. There they were utterly destroyed and only a pyramid of bones remained to tell of their fate.
The Crusade under Godfrey of Bouillon was a well-appointed military expedition embracing the flower of Europe. There are said to have been mustered in the plains of Bithynia one hundred thousand horsemen in full armour and six hundred thousand footmen. These numbers may be exaggerated, and pestilence and famine thinned their ranks, but in less than three years they had attained the great object of their expedition. In 1097 they laid siege to Nicea and captured it. They a dvanced against Antioch and after seven weary months laid siege to the city. In 1099 they advanced on Jerusalem and after a siege of forty days the holy city surrendered. " The merciless Franks did not fail to inflict a terrible vengeance for their own sufferings and the indignities which had been heaped upon their religion and their race. The Jews were burned in their synagogues; and seventy thousand Moslems were put to the sword. For three days the city was given up to indiscriminate pillage and massacre, until a pestilence was bred by the putrefaction of the slain."
Soon Godfrey and his successors extended their dominions until only four cities, Aleppo, Damascus, Hamath, and Hums remained in the possession of the Moslems in Syria. Everywhere the followers of the Prophet were filled with grief and shame and with a great longing to wipe away the disgrace which had fallen on their religion.
" In the year 492 A. H.," says Muir,[3] "consternation was spread throughout the land by the capture of Jerusalem, and cruel treatment of its in habitants. Preachers went about proclaiming the sad story, kindling revenge, and rousing men to recover from infidel hands the Mosque of Omar, and scene of the Prophet’s heavenly flight. But whatever the success elsewhere, the mission failed in the East, which was occupied with its own troubles, and moreover cared little for the Holy Land, dominated as it then was by the Fatimide faith. Crowds of exiles, driven for refuge to Bagdad, and joined there by the populace, cried out for war against the Franks. But neither Sultan nor Caliph had ears to hear. For two Fridays the insurgents, with this cry, stormed the Great Mosque, broke the pulpit and throne of the Caliph in pieces, and shouted down the service; but that was all. No army went."
Among Moslems themselves religious rancour abounded. At present the four orthodox sects worship together and live in peace as neighbours, but in those days there were frequent and hot disputes between the rival schools and much controversial literature arose, so that the hatred between the sects was deep and bitter. The Persian his torian, Mirkhond, has recorded a fact which shows how implacable the feeling had become towards the close of the Caliphate. When the Mongols of Genghiz Khan appeared before the city of Rei, they found it divided into two factions the one com posed of Shafi ites, the other of Hanifites. The former at once entered into secret negotiations undertaking to deliver up the city at night, on condition that the Mongols massacred the members of the other sect. The Mongols, never reluctant to shed blood, gladly accepted these proposals, and being admitted into the city, slaughtered the Hanifites without mercy.
It was in this atmosphere of mutual hatred, of war and bloodshed, that Al-Ghazali spent the last years of his life. We may excuse in him much of what would otherwise seem intolerant and hateful, when we remember how the passion of war blinds human judgment and makes it impossible to see any virtue in the invader.
We must not forget that Al-Ghazali came into close touch with Oriental Christians from his boy hood. 1 Christianity was established in Persia at the time of the Moslem conquest, and the Nestorian Church withstood its terrific impact when Zoroatrianism was almost destroyed. The coming of the Arabs meant to the Christians only a change of masters. The Nestorians became the rayah, " people of protection," of the Caliphs. They did not immediately sink into their present deplorable condition. They still conducted foreign missions and during the entire Abbasside period remained a very important factor of civilization in the East.
That there was not only close social, but religious and polemical contact between the learned men of Christian sects and those of Islam long before this period, and especially during the life of Al-Ghazali is well known. See especially the life and writings of Al-Kindi, John of Damascus, and Theodor Abu Qurra as given by A. Keller in " Der Geisteskampf des Christentums gegen den Islam biszur Zeit der Kreuzziige" (Leipzig, 1896) and " Christliches Polemik und Islamische Dogmenbilding," by C. H. Becker ("Festschrift Ignaz Goldziher," pp. 175-195). The latter shows clearly that Islam borrowed considerably from Christianity, through controversy, both in its dogma and ritual even as late as the tenth century.
They were permitted to restore their Churches, but
not to build new ones; they were forbidden to bear
arms or ride a horse, save in case of necessity, and
they even then had to dismount on meeting a Moslem; they were subject to the usual poll-tax. Yet the Nestorians were the most powerful non-Moslem community while the Caliphs reigned at Bagdad (750-1258), and had a higher tradition of
civilization than their masters. They were used at
court as physicians, scribes, and secretaries, and
thus gained great influence, having much freedom
in canonical matters, elected Patriarchs, etc. The
Arab scholarship which came to Spain, and was a
great factor in mediaeval learning, begins in great
part with the Nestorians of Bagdad. They handed
on to their Arab masters the Greek culture which
was inherited in Syriac translations. So we find
the Caliphs treating them as chief of the Christian
communities, and at times civil authority over all
Christians had been given to the Nestorian Patriarch.
Early in the eleventh century Al-Biruni, a Moslem writer from Khiva, mentions the Nestorians as the most civilized of the Christian communities under the Caliph. He says that there are three sects of Christians Melchites, Nestorians and Jacobites. " The most numerous of them are the Melchites and Nestorians; because Greece and the adjacent countries are all inhabited by Melchites, whilst the majority of the inhabitants of Syria, Irak and Mesopotamia and Khorasan are Nestorians."[4]
Al-Ghazali spent his first twenty years in Khorasan. Did he ever become acquainted with Christianity through perusal of the Gospel? We know that Arabic, if not Persian, translations existed at this period; and not only are there many references to Christ and His teaching in Al-Ghazali’s works, but there are some very few passages accurate enough to be called quotations. He himself states as we shall see later: "I have read in the Gospel."
That there were translations of the Bible into Arabic to which Al-Ghazali may have had access is probable. Dr. Kilgour tells of Arabic Gospel man uscripts of the ninth century and of translations of the Old Testament and portions of the New made in the Fayyoum before 942 A.D. "To the tenth century belong versions of some books of the Old Testament from Syriac, others from the LXX., and from the Coptic; and some fresh translations of the Pentateuch, using the Samaritan text as well as the Massoretic."[5]
Diglot manuscripts in Syriac and Arabic are quite numerous. The manuscript of the four Gospels, of which a few leaves are now in the British Museum, is a good specimen of such a diglot. It was brought by Tischendorf from the Syrian Con
vent of St. Mary Deipara in the Nitrian Desert.
In the early part of the eleventh century an Arabic
scholar made a version of Tatian’s Diatessaron,
that early Syriac Harmony of the Gospels which
helped the Christian Church to realize the main
facts concerning our Saviour. A version of the
Psalms was prepared in the middle of the same
century for use in the Church services of the papal
or Melchite Greeks. This was translated from
the Greek Psalter, and, from the place where it was
first printed, became known afterwards as the
Aleppo Psalter. 1 It remains an interesting ques
tion whether Al-Ghazali in his travels, or while still
in Khorasan, ever examined the New Testament.
We are told that the Jews translated their law into Persian by 827 A. D. It is, therefore, hard to acquit the Christians of Persia of negligence. Their bishops found time to write learned treatises in Persian and Arabic, and even to translate Aris totle, but not to give Moslems the Scriptures. Yet Al-Kindi and others like him, many of whose names and writings are lost, were not afraid to give their testimony even at the court of the Caliphs. " The Church," says W. T. Whiteley, 2 " had not failed to exercise an influence on Islam around it, while Christians might not, on peril of death, seek
See article on "The Arabic Bible" in The Moslem World, October, 1916.
2 " Missionary Achievement: " A survey of world-wide Evangelization, I/mdon, 1907, pp. 22, 26.
THE ELEVENTH CENTUKY 41
to win converts direct, a command occasionally violated with honour and success, yet all the devel opment of Islam at Damascus and Bagdad was in a Christian atmosphere."
The Christianity of that period was, however, not the religion of Christ in its purity nor after the example of His love and toleration. Mutual hatred and suspicion prevented real intercourse of those who, as devout Christians and devout Moslems, were both seeking God. The Moslem was feared and the Christian despised. The followers of Jesus were the enemies of Allah in the eyes of Moslems.
How Christians were regarded at this time we may learn from the books of canon law of this period, and that immediately following upon it. They were considered infidels in the Moslem sense of the word, and were protected only by the pay ment of a poll tax, which gave them certain rights as subjects. The most distinguished jurist of the Shaft ite sect, An-Nawawi, who taught at Damas cus in 1267, lays down the law 1 as follows: "An infidel who has to pay his poll tax should be treated by the tax collector with disdain; the collector re maining seated and the infidel standing before him, the head bent and the body bowed. The infidel should personally place the money in the balance,
"Minhaj et Talibin of An-Nawawi," trans, from the French of L. W. C. Van Den Berg by E. C. Howard, London, 1914, pp. 46 7 and 469.
while the collector holds him by the beard and strikes him upon both cheeks. Infidels should be forbidden to have houses higher than those of their Moslem neighbours, or even to have them as high; a rule, however, that does not apply to the infidels who inhabit a separate quarter. An infidel subject of our Sovereign may not ride a horse; but a donkey or a mule is permitted him, whatever may be its value. He must use an ikaf, and wooden spurs, those of iron being forbidden him, as well as a saddle. He must go to the side of the road to let a Moslem pass. He must not be treated as a per son of importance, nor given the first place at a gathering. He should be distinguished by a suit of coloured cloth and a girdle outside his clothes. If he enters a bathing house where there are Moslems, or if he undresses anywhere else in their presence, the infidel should wear round his neck an iron or leaden necklace, or some other mark of servitude.[6] He is forbidden to offend Moslems, either by making them hear his false doctrines, or by speaking aloud of Esdras or of the Messiah, or by ostentatiously drinking wine or eating pork. And infidels are forbidden to sound the bells of their churches or of their synagogues, or celebrate ostentatiously their sacrilegious rites. "
2 Richard Gottheil gives the contents of a fatwa on the appointment of Dhimmis to office dated about A. D. 1126
" The history of Christian communities," says Margoliouth, 1 " under Moslem rule cannot be ade quately written; the members of those communities had no opportunity of describing their condition safely, and the Moslems naturally devote little space to their concerns. Generally speaking, they seem to have been regarded as certain old Greek and Roman sages regarded women: as a necessary annoyance. Owing to their being unarmed their prosperity was always hazardous; and though it is true that this was the case with all the subjects of a despotic state under an irresponsible ruler, the non Moslem population was at the mercy of the mob as well as of the sovereign; they were likely scape goats whenever there was distress, and even in the best governed countries periods of distress fre quently arose."
There are darker shades in the treatment of Christians and in the moral condition of this period over which one might well draw the veil, but some of the chapters of Ghazali’s Ihya reflect such ter
and given by one Ahmad ibn Al Husain. " To place an infidel in authority over a Moslem would never enter the mind of one who had a sound heart. He who does so must either be a godless fellow or be ignorant of Moslem law and practice. He attempts to prove that a Dhimmi (i. e. Jew or Christian) is not even to be used as a .scribe, a money-changer, or a butcher; citing passages from the Koran and the Traditions" ("Festschrift Ignaz Goldziher von Carl Bezold," Strassburg, 1911, pp. 203-208). 1 " The Early Development of Mohammedanism," London,
rible conditions as Margoliouth describes: "A
form of passion which is nameless would appear at
one time to have been as familiar among Moslems
as of old among Hellenes. Christian lads seem
often to have been the unhappy objects of this pas
sion. A story is told us by the biographer Yakut
of a young monk of Edessa or Urfah who had the
misfortune to attract the fancy of one Sa ad the
copyist. The visits and attentions of this Moslem
became so offensive that the monks had to put a
stop to them. Thereupon this personage pined
away, and was finally found dead outside the mon
astery wall. The Moslem population declared that
the monks had killed him, and the governor pro
posed to execute and burn the young monk who
had occasioned the disaster, and scourge his col
leagues. They finally got off by paying a sum of
100,000 dirhems."
Not only among Moslems, however, but among Christians as well, morals were at a low ebb in the eleventh century. One of the annalists of the Roman Church says it was an iron age barren of all goodness, a leaden age abounding in all wicked ness. " Christ was then, as it appears, in a very deep sleep, when the ship was covered with waves; and what seemed worse, when the Lord was thus asleep, there were no disciples, who by their cries might awaken him, being themselves all fast asleep."
Enemies of the Papacy have perhaps e xaggerated
the vices and crimes of the popes in this and the preceding century; but the Church, on the testi mony of its own writers, was immersed in pro faneness, sensuality, and lewdness. When Otho I, Emperor of Germany, came to Rome, he intro duced moral reforms by the power of the sword, but according to Milner, 1 " The effect of Otho’s regulations was that the popes exchanged the vices of the rake and the debauchee for those of the ambitious politician and the hypocrite; and gradu ally recovered, by a prudent conduct, the domineer ing ascendency, which had been lost by vicious ex cesses. But this did not begin to take place till the latter end of the eleventh century."
Missionary effort in this century was confined to work in Hungary, the unevangelized portions of Denmark, Poland, and Prussia. Adam of Bremen, who wrote in 1080, says: " Look at the very ferocious nation of the Danes. For a long time they have been accustomed, in the praises of God, to resound Alleluia. Look at that piratical people. They are now content with the fruits of their own country. Look at that horrid region, formerly altogether inaccessible on account of idolatry; they now eagerly admit the preachers of the word."
The Prussians continued pagans in a great meas ure throughout this century. We read that eighteen missionaries sent out to labour among them were
Milner, "The History of the Church of Christ," , 1834, p. 531, Vol. II.
massacred. They seemed to have been among the
last of the European nations to submit to the yoke
of Christ.
The noblest figure of the century in the West, in the annals of Christendom, was undoubtedly that of Anselm. He was born about the time of Al Ghazali, and died in 1109. His life in many re spects is a parallel to that of his contemporary. Both were theologians and both were mystics, seek ing rest for their souls in withdrawing from the world and its allurements. Both were apologists for the Faith and opponents of infidelity and philos ophy. Both exerted an immense influence by their writings as well as through teaching; and if Al Ghazali sought the revival of religious life in Islam through his Ihya, Anselm gave employment to his active mind in writing his celebrated treatise " Cur I Deus Homo? " Both of them refuted philosophers in their effort to establish the Faith.
It is interesting to note in this connection that Anselm’s famous book is now used in Arabic trans lation by missionaries to Moslems, and that Al Ghazali’s "Confessions" have been put into the hands of the English reader as a testimony of his sincerity and devotion.
Both Anselm and Al-Ghazali lived and wrote under a deep consciousness of the world to come, the terrors of the judgment day, and the doom of the wicked. This also was characteristic of the times.
To understand the time in which Al-Ghazali lived we must also remember that it was one of great literary activity under the Abbasside Caliphs of Bagdad and the Seljuk sultans. We have seen how rulers rewarded literary genius, established schools, and furthered education on religious lines. Arabic literature affords a galaxy of names during the latter half of the eleventh century in almost every department of Moslem learning.
Among Ghazali’s celebrated contemporaries, men of literary fame, we may mention Abiwardi (d. 1113), the poet; Ibn Al-Khayyat, who was born at Damascus in 1058 and died in Persia in 1125; Al-Ghazi (b. 1049), who composed elegies and panegyrics at Nizamiyya College, was a col lege mate of Ghazali s, and died in Khorasan; Al Tarabalusi (b. 1080), a younger contemporary. But the most famous poet of all was Al-Hariri (1054-1122), whose "Assemblies " throw so much light on the manners and morals of this period. Among the men at the Nizamiyya University were Al-Khatib (b. 1030), the great philologist; and Ibn Al-Arabi, born at Seville in 1076, who visited Bagdad to attend the teaching of Al-Ghazali. The greatest of all the Shafi ite doctors, Al-Ruyani, was also a contemporary of Al-Ghazali. He taught at Nishapur and wrote the most voluminous book on jurisprudence in existence, called " The Sea of Doctrine." In 1108, just as he had finished one of his lectures he was murdered by a fanatic of the
Assassin sect, who were then holding the castle of
Alamut in the mountains. We must also mention
a schoolmate of Al-Ghazali, Al-Harrasi (1058
1110), who studied at Nishapur under the Imam
Al-Haramain, was made his assistant, and then
went to Bagdad, where he taught theology in the
Nizamiyya University for the rest of his life. Nor
must we forget Al-Baghawi, who wrote a famous
commentary on the Koran, and other works of the
ology (1122); Al-Raghib Al-Ispahani, who died
in 1108, and wrote a dictionary of the Koran, ar
ranged in alphabetical order, called Mufradat alfaz
Al-Koran, with quotations from the traditions and
from the poets; he also wrote a treatise on morals,
which Al-Ghazali always carried about with .him
(Kitab ad-dharia), and a commentary on the
Koran. Among the early contemporaries of Al
Ghazali we must not forget to mention Ali bin
Uthman Al-Jullabi Al-Hujwiri, the author of the
oldest Persian treatise on Sufism extant. He was
born in Ghazni, Afghanistan, and died in A.D. 1062,
when Al-Ghazali was fourteen years old. Al
Hujwiri travelled far and wide through the
Mohammedan Empire and his famous work
Kashf al-Mahjub anticipates much of the teaching
of Al-Ghazali, who must have been familiar with
this author. And to complete this already long
list of celebrities, we may mention Al-Maidani of
Nishapur, who died in 1124, having written a
great work on Arabic proverbs; Al-Zamakhshari,
born in 1074, who wrote a famous commentary
on the Koran; Ibn Tumart, the noted philosopher
of the West who attended Al-Ghazali’s lectures at
Nizamiyya; and ash-Shahristani who wrote on the
various religions and sects the standard work
among all Moslems to-day on comparative re
ligion. The period was in many respects the
golden age of Islamic literature, and it is high
praise indeed that, in the judgment of Moslem and
Christian, Al-Ghazali surpassed all his literary
contemporaries, if not in style and eloquence, at
least in the scope and character of his writings
still more by the enduring and outreaching in
fluence of his life. The story of that life and the
character of his message we will now attempt to
sketch for the reader.
- ↑ "The Assemblies of al-Hariri," trans, by Thomas Chenery. London, 1867. Vol. I, Introduction, p. 5.
- ↑ Der Islam, Band V, Heft 2/3; C. H. Becker, Strassburg, PP. 239, 291.
- ↑ "The Caliphate, its Rise, Decline and Fall," 1892, p. 578.
- ↑ Cf. "The Lesser Eastern Churches," Adrian Fortescue, London, 1913.
- ↑ Cf. The Moslem World, Vol. VI, p. 385.
- ↑ These badges of servitude, called Ghayar, are referred to as obligatory in Al-Ghazali’s " Wajiz." See the chapter on infidel-subjects.