Al-Ghazali Quotes

If you were to show a piece of intelligible writing to a reasonable person and say to him: 'do you know its writer?' and he said 'no', he would be speaking truly. But if he said 'yes: its writer is a man living and powerful, hearing and seeing, sound of hand and knowledgeable in the practise of writing, and if I know all this from [the sample] how can I not know him?-he too would be speaking truly. Yet the saying of the one who said 'I do not know him' is more correct and true, for in reality he has not known him. Rather he only knows that intelligible writing requires a living writer, knowing, powerful, hearing, and seeing; yet he does not know the writer himself. Similarly, every creature knows only that this ordered and precisely disposed world requires an arranging, living, knowing, and powerful maker.

"Abdullah Ibn Dinar relates, "Once I was walking with the Caliph Omar near Mecca when we met a shepherd's slave-boy driving his flock. Omar said to him, "Sell me a sheep." The boy answered, "They are not mine, but my master's." Then, to try him, Omar said, "Well, you can tell him that a wolf carried one off, and he will know nothing about it." "No, he won't," said the boy, "but God will." Omar then wept, and, sending for the boy's master, purchased him and set him free, exclaiming, "For this saying thou art free in this world and shalt be free in the next." There

placing the Ka’ba between my brows, the Bridgeover-Hell beneath my feet, Paradise to my right and Hell to my left, and the Angel of Death behind me, thinking all the while that this is my final Prayer. Then I stand between hope and fear.

Akal adalah seperti penunggang kuda yang memburu. Syahwatnya adalah sebagai kuda. Nafsu marahnya sebagai anjing. Jika penunggang kuda itu bijak, kudanya menurut perintah dan anjingnya terlatih dengan baik nescaya ia berhak mendapat kejayaan. Sebaaliknya jika penungang kuda itu bodoh, kudanya meliar dan anjingnya tidak masur ajar, maka ia berhak pula ditimpa kebinasaan. Kebodohan penunggang kuda itu adalah diumpamakan sebagai kejahilan manusia, kurang kebijaksanaannya dan lemah daya pemikirannya. Keliaran kuda itu pula diumpamakan sebagai penguasaan nafsu syahwat khususnya nafsu syahwat perut dan seks. Anjing yang tidak masuk ajar itu diumpamakan sebagai penguasaan dan kemaharajelaan nafsu marah.

A rational foe is better than an ignorant friend.

"الصنف الثالث: أن تكون وسوسة بمجرد الخواطر وتذكر الأحوال الغالبة والتفكر في غير الصلاة مثلاً فإذا أقبل على الذكر تصور أن يندفع ساعة ويعود، ويندفع ويعود، فيتعاقب الذكر والوسوسة وبتصور أن يتساوقا جميعاً حتى يكون الفهم مشتملاً على فهم معنى القراءة وعلى تلك الخواطر كأنهما في موضعين من القلب. وبعيد جداً أن يندفع هذا الخنس بالكلية بحيث لا يخطر، ولكنه ليس محالاً إذا قال عليه السلام "من صلى ركعتين لم يحدث فيهما نفسه بشيء من أمر الدنيا غفر له ما تقدم من ذنبه فلولا أنه متصور لما ذكره، إلا أنه لا يتصور ذلك إلا في قلب استولى عليه الحب حتى صار كالمستهتر، فإنا قد نرى المستوعب القلب بعدو تأذى به قد يتفكر بمقدار ركعتين وركعات في مجادلة عدوه بحيث لا يخطر بباله غير حديث عدوه، وكذلك المستغرق في الحب قد يتفكر في محادثة محبوبه بقلبه ويغوص في فكره بحيث لا يخطر بباله غير حديث محبوبه، ولو كلمه غيره لم يسمع ولو اجتاز بين يد أحد لكان كأن لا يراه. وإذا تصور هذا في خوف من عدو وعند الحرص على مال وجاه فكيف لا يتصور من خوف النار الحرص على الجنة ولكن ذلك عزيز لضعف الإيمان بالله تعالى واليوم الآخر، وإذا تأملت جملة هذه الأقسام وأصناف الوسواس علمت أن لكل مذهب من المذاهب وجهاً في محل مخصوص.

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.

O lower self, which is better, the Garden of eternity or a glimpse of this world's unlawful bounty and its wretched, fleeting rubbish? You are capable of obtaining that permanent blessing in exchange for your worshipful obedience, so do not be mean in your aspiration, vile in your intention, and base in your deeds. Look at the doves when they fly aloft, and see how their worth ascends and their value increases! You must raise all your aspiration heavenwards. You must not waste what you have gained by your worshipful obedience.

You must therefore pay close attention, O miserable wretch, and beware of being among the deprived.

"God said to David, "Be not too intimate with men; for two kinds of persons are excluded from My presence: those who are earnest in seeking reward and slack when they obtain it, and those who prefer their own thoughts to the remembrance of Me. The sign of My displeasure is that I leave such to themselves." In"

إعلم أن من لم يكن حظه من معاني أسماء الله تعالى إلا بأن يسمع لفظه، ويفهم في اللغة تفسيره ووصفه ويعتقد بالقلب وجود معناه في الله تعالى /فهو مبخوس الحظ/ نازل الدرجة، ليس يحسن به أن يتبجح بما ناله.
فإن سماع اللفظ لا يستدعي إلا سلامة حاسة السمع التي بها يدرك الأصوات وهذه رتبة يشارك البهيمة فيها.
وأما فهم وضعه في اللغة، فلا يستدعي إلا معرفته العربية وهذه رتبة يشارك فيها الأديب اللغوي، بل الغبي البدوي.
وأما اعتقاد ثبوت معناه لله تعالى من غير كشف، فلا يستدعي إلا فهم معاني هذه الألفاظ والتصديق بها. وهذه رتبة يشارك فيها العامي، بل الصبي...فإنه بعد فهم الكلام إذا ألقى إليه هذه المعاني تلقاها، ولقنها، واعتقدها بقلبه، وصمم عليها[...] ولكنه نقص ظاهر إلى ذروة الكمال؛ فإن حسنات الأبرار سيئات المقربين.

قال عيسى عليه السلام: (إنّي ما عجزت عن إحياء الموتى و قد عجزت عن معالجة الأحمق).

Firstly, there are some who, failing to find God by observation, conclude that there is no God and that this world of wonders made itself, or existed from everlasting. They are like a man who, seeing a beautifully written letter, should suppose that It had written itself without a writer, or had always existed. People in this state of mind are so far gone in error that it is of little use to argue with them. Such are some of the physicists and astronomers to whom we referred above. Some,

"A certain saint said, "During one space of thirty years I performed my night-devotions with great difficulty, but during a second space of thirty years they became a delight." When love to God is complete no joy is equal to the joy of worship. The"

"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.

Similarly, whoever worships God-great and glorious-for the sake of paradise has made God-may He be praised and exalted-a means to seeking it rather than making Him the goal of his quest. The sign that something is a means is that no one seeks it if its benefit can be attained without it, so that if one's intentions could be achieved without gold, gold would neither be loved nor sought, for what is really loved is the benefit sought and not the gold. So if paradise were attainable to one worshipping God for its sake, without worshipping God-great and glorious, he would not worship God. Therefore, what he is seeking and what he loves is paradise, and nothing else. Whoever has no love but God-great and glorious-and seeks nothing except Him, and whose gain lies in delight at meeting God most high, being near to Him, and in accompanying the heavenly host who are close to His presence; he is the one who can be said to worship God-great and glorious-for the sake of God; not in the sense that he is not seeking gain, but in the sense that God-great and glorious-is Himself his gain, and there is no gain beyond Him.