Page:A Moslem seeker after God - showing Islam at its best in the life and teaching of al-Ghazali, mystic and theologian of the eleventh century (IA moslemseekeraft00zwem).pdf/111



ward sciences. So I know that writing on a sur face from which something has been erased is not like writing on a surface in its first purity and cleanness, and I never separated myself from spec ulation except in a few things."

Who can read this and doubt his utter sincerity in the search for God and for Truth?

He tells the rest of the story in his " Confes sions": "I saw that Sufism consists in experi ences rather than in definitions, and that what I was lacking belonged to the domain, not of instruc tion but of ecstasy and initiation.

" The researches to which I had devoted myself, the path which I had traversed in studying religious and speculative branches of knowledge, had given me a firm faith in three things God, inspiration, and the Last Judgment. These three fundamental articles of belief were confirmed in me, not merely by definite arguments, but by a chain of causes, cir cumstances, and proofs which it is impossible to re count. I saw that one can only hope for salvation by devotion and the conquest of one’s passions, a procedure which presupposes renouncement and detachment from this world of falsehood in order to turn towards eternity and meditation on God. Finally, I saw that the only condition of success was to sacrifice honours and riches and to sever the ties and attachments of worldly life.

" Coming seriously to consider my state, I found myself bound down on all sides by these trammels.