EXCERPTS FROM AL-GHAZALIS DELIVERANCE FROM ERROR AND THE BEGINNING OF GUIDANCE

Many times we are reminded via for example the monthly texts advice that we should not read the books of those who wish to misguide you about Islam. However this seems strange, especially when you live amongst many nonMuslims and/or intellectuals. You will be asked what is your opinion on this?, is it true what that person said about Islam? Are you just supposed to say I was ordered not to look at this. But how can you dismiss something you have no knowledge of? However there is a good reason for this advice not to read those books. Al-Ghazali explained it clearly in his book Deliverance from Error and The Beginning of Guidance on pages 28 until 31. But who is Al-Ghazali?1 He was a great Islamic scholar not only for his own time for the rest of history as well. He grew up in a time of great intellectual turmoil when there were: 1. 2. the theologians, traditionalists focusing too much on the laws of Quran & Hadith and thereby neglecting the soul of Islam. the party of infallible authoritative instruction believing their leader is infallible. They (in theory) completely reject reason and blindly follow their leader. But their rejection of reason leads to ignorance which ironically leads to disobedience of their leader and more importantly Allah. the philosophers following the ancient Greeks and can be compared to modern day scientists. Their overemphasis on their own reason makes them arrogant. Their pride in their reason makes them believe that their reason can solve philosophical questions of belief (axioms), which actually are beyond the domain of reason and cannot be proven with reason at all. This eventually leads to them rejecting Quran & Hadith and replacing it with their own ideas which are just conjecture (without any foundation). the mystics are those who focus on good character and ibadah. They stress the importance of doing and experiencing Islam and developing your heart & soul instead of just talking and discussing about it. However in extreme cases there focus on ibadah and acherot makes them lose touch with reality and dunia, including some of the rules of Islam (stressed by the theologians/traditionalists).

3.

4.

(Al-Ghazalis explanation of these groups can be found in Part One Chapter III: The Classes of Seekers) Every group claimed to follow the truth, just like the comparable groups are claiming they follow the truth in our times. How he described his search for the truth is a great lesson for us. Al-Ghazalis logic is sound and his evidence is backed up by Quran and Hadith. Because of this I hope that you will not only blindly obey, but gain greater understanding in why you should do what is advised. And I hope that by using the foundations of Islam in the Quran and Hadith (theologians) our Imam (authoritative instruction) advices us using his reason (philosophy) and that if we understand this and follow his advice we will be able to grow our hearts and souls towards enlightenment (mystics). (This is just my understanding of the situation and I could be wrong.) All these excerpts are by the way not the only good parts of Al-Ghazalis book and you can only understand what he is trying to explain if you read the entire book, because everything he says is related to each other and builds upon the preceding information in his book.

For a good documentary on his life see Al-Ghazali: Alchemist of Happiness http://youtu.be/C_eTAxvcH24 Alchemy is not about the chemical magic of turning base metals like lead into gold literally. It is about the spiritual growth from lead to gold of our consciousness from the lower level of materialism into the greater awareness (Takwa) of the Truth (Allah).
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Excerpts from Al-Ghazali

O N M EN & T RUTH

AND

W HY

MOST MEN SHOULD B E FORBIDDEN

FROM READING BOOKS O F THE MISGUIDED

(p28) This is like a man who bears a Christian assert, 'There is no god but God, and Jesus is the Messenger of God'. The (p29) man rejects this, saying, 'This is a Christian conception', and does not pause to ask himself whether the Christian is an infidel in respect of this assertion or in respect of his denial of the prophethood of Muhammad (Peace be upon him). If he is an infidel only in respect of his denial of Muhammad, then he need not be contradicted in other assertions, true in themselves and not connected with his unbelief, even though these are also true in his eyes. It is customary with weaker intellects thus to take the men as criterion of the truth and not the truth as criterion of the men. The intelligent men follows 'Ali (may God be pleased with him) when he said, 'Do not know the truth by the men, but know the truth, and then you will know who are truthful.' The intelligent man knows the truth; then he examines the particular assertion. If it is true, he accepts it, whether the speaker is a truthful person or not. Indeed he is often anxious to separate out the truth from the discourses of those who are in error, for he knows that gold is found mixed in gravel with dross. The money-changer suffers no harm if he puts his hand into the counterfeiter's purse; relying on his skill he picks the true gold from among the spurious and counterfeit coins. It is only the simple villager, not the experienced money-changer, who is made to abstain from dealings with the counterfeiter. It is not the strong swimmer who is kept back from the shore, but the clumsy amateur; not the accomplished snakecharmer who is barred from touching the snake, but the ignorant boy. (p30) The majority of men, I maintain, are dominated by a high opinion of their own skill and accomplishments, especially the perfection of their intellects for distinguishing true from false and sure guidance from misleading suggestion. It is therefore necessary, I maintain, to shut the gate so as to keep the general public from reading the books of the misguided as far as possible. The public are not free from the infection of the second bad tendency we are about to discuss, even if they are uninfected by the one just mentioned. To some of the statements made in our published works on the principles of the religious sciences an objection has been raised by a group of men whose understanding has not fully grasped the sciences and whose insight has not penetrated to the fundamentals of the systems. They think that these statements are taken from the works of the ancient philosophers, whereas the fact is that some of them are the product of reflections which occurred to me, independently-it is not improbable that one shoe should fall on another shoe-mark-while others come from the revealed Scriptures, and in the case of the majority the sense though perhaps not the actual words is found in the works of the mystics. Suppose, however, that the statements are found only in the philosophers' books. If they are reasonable in themselves and supported by proof, and if they do not contradict the Book and the Sunnah (the example of Muhammad), then it is not necessary to abstain from using (p31) them. If we open this door, if we adopt the attitude of abstaining from every truth that the mind of a heretic has apprehended before us, we should be obliged to abstain from much that is true. We should be obliged to leave aside a great number of the verses of the Qur'an and the Traditions of the Messenger and all the sayings of the philosophers and the mystics. The reasons for that is that the author of the book of the 'Brethren of Purity' has cited them in his work. He argues from them, and by means of them he has gradually enticed men of weaker understanding to accept his falsehoods; he goes on making those claims until the heretics wrest truth from our hands by thus depositing it in their writings. The lowest degree of education is to distinguish oneself from the ignorant ordinary man. The educated man does not loathe honey even if he finds it in the surgeon's cupping-glass; he realizes that the cupping-glass does not essentially alter the honey. The natural aversion from it in such a case rests on popular ignorance, arising from the fact that the cupping-glass is made only for impure blood. Men imagine that the blood is impure because it is in the cupping-glass, and are not aware that the impurity is due to a property of the blood itself. Since this property is absent from the honey, the fact that the honey is in such a container does not produce this property in it. Impurity, therefore, should not be attributed to the honey. To do so is fanciful and false.

For recent research on these matters see the article Incompetent People Really Have No Clue, Studies Find / They're blind to own failings, others' skills http://articles.sfgate.com/2000-01-18/news/17635543_1_percentile-dunning-incompetent or the original paper appearing in the December issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own. Incompetence Lead to Inated Self-Assessments by Justin Kruger and David Dunning http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/30284993?access_key=key-e7wj4ouhjelk1xkq4gy (or) http://www.scribd.com/doc/3286156/165408866

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Excerpts from Al-Ghazali