Al-Ghazali Quotes

A learned man said: The learned men are the lights of the ages. Each is a light in his own time giving light to the people of his time.

كلما عز المطلوب و شرف ، صعب مسلكه و طل طريقه و كثرت عقابته

I will rouse you from your sleep, you who have given yourself up to recitation, who have taken the study of the Qur’an as a practice, who have seized upon some of its outward meanings and sentences.

How long will you wander about the shore of the sea with your eyes closed to its wonders?

Was it not for you to sail through its depths in order to see its amazing things, to travel to its islands to pick its delicacies, to dive to its bottom and become rich from obtaining its jewels? Don’t you despise yourself for losing out on its pearls and jewels as you continue to look only to its shores and esoteric aspects? Haven’t you heard that the Qur’an is an ocean from which the knowledge of all ages branches out just as rivers and streams branch out from the shores of the ocean?

Don’t you envy the happiness of people who have plunged into its overflowing waves and seized red sulfur, who have dived into its depths and taken out red rubies, shining pearls and green chrysolite, who have roamed its shores and gathered gray ambergris and fresh blooming aloes wood, who have clung to its islands and found an abundance in their animals of the greatest antidote and pungent musk?

كُلُّ ما قسمَ اللهُ تعالى بين عباده مِن رِزْق وأجَل وسرور وحُزْن وعَجْز وقُدْرَة وإيمانٍ وكُفْرٍ وطاعة ومعصية، فكلُّهُ عدلٌ محضٌ لا جَوْرَ فيه، وحقٌّ صِرْفٌ لا ظُلْمَ فيه.

Shame upon you, O soul, for your overweening love of the world! If you do not believe in heaven or hell, at any rate you believe in death, which will snatch from you all worldly delights and cause you to feel the pangs of separation from them, which will be intenser just in proportion as you have attached yourself to them.

"Oh mein Sohn, es wird auch berichtet, dass Luqman (der Weise) seinem Sohn riet: "Oh Sohn, du möchtest doch nicht, dass der Hahn gescheiter ist als du. Er kräht zur Morgendämmerung und du schläfst weiter.

كرامات الأولياء هي بدايات الأنبياء

Some may say that the resources of the world are necessary for men to pass their lives in this world. How can they abstain from using these necessaries of life? It may be noted carefully that whatever has been said about Zuhd (abstinence) pertains to the possession and use of useless and superfluous things of life. The practice of Zuhd has been advised about things which are not indispensable for life in this world. None can advise against using things which are necessary to maintain health so necessary for keeping body and soul together and for devotion and worship in the path of Exalted Allah.

لان العلم حياة القلوب من العمى ، ونور الابصار من الظلم ،وقوة الابدان من الضعف ،يبلغ به العبد منازل الابرار والدرجات العلى ،التفكر فيه يعدل بالصيام ، ومدارسته بالقيام ، به يطاع الله عز وجل وبه يوحد ويمجد،وبه يتورع،وبه توصل الارحام وبه يعرف الحلال من الحرام وهو امام والعمل تابعه، يلهمه السعداء ويحرمه الاشقياء

Faith is confession with the tongue and belief with the heart and work with the members of the body. So long as you do not work, you do not find reward.

Never have I dealt with anything more difficult than my own soul, which sometimes helps me and sometimes opposes me.

Firsyt of all, it must be realized that only God
truly knows about Himself ( ya-
rif aqq ma-
rifatih) and fully comprehends
the essence of His majesty. This need not be considered strange. For I
say, only an angel truly knows about angels. Only a prophet truly knows
about prophets. Indeed, only a scholar truly knows about scholars. I
would even say that as long as a student has not attained his professor’s
rank in scholarship, he does not truly know his professor. When he has
attained his professor’s rank, he knows him almost in the way the pro-
fessor knows himself . . . I would even say that it cannot be conceived
that an impotent man could truly know about the condition attained
by a person during cohabitation . . .” Al-Ghazzâlî goes on to say that
even for low animal life such as ants and gnats, it must be assumed that
any true knowledge of their being is possible only for ants and gnats,
that man has no true knowledge of himself and as a rule knows about
himself only through the actions and characteristics of his self (soul),
while ignoring its quiddity, “and once man knows that he is of necessity
unable to perceive the essence of God’s majesty, he has attained what
is the end of his perfection, as this is the goal of human perfection.

و النفس إن لم تشتغل بشيء شغلت صاحبها

"قال الشعبي: " لا أدري" نصف العلم. ومن سكت حيث لا يدري لله تعالي فليس بأقل أجراً ممن نطق لأن الاعتراف بالجهل أشد علي النفس ."

INTELLECT AND ITS NOBLE NATURE. The noble nature of knowledge has been revealed through intellect. Intellect is the source and fountainhead of knowledge and its foundation. Knowledge is like the fruit of a tree and it flows from intellect, or like the light of the sun or like the vision of the eye. Why should it not be honored when it is the cause of fortune in this world and the next? What is there to distinguish between beasts and men except intellect? Even a ferocious beast which has got more strength than man fears a man at seeing him as it knows that he may put him into snare on account of his intellect.