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/216

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This statement needs no proof to those who know Islam from its original sources, the Koran and Tradition. Professor Margoliouth uses lan guage which is strong but not unfair when he says in regard to the saints of the Moslem calendar that is the companions and followers of Moham med " Those who recount the history of Islam have to lay aside all ordinary canons of morality, else the picture would have no lights; they could not write at all if they let themselves be shocked by perfidy or bloodthirstiness, by cruelty or lust, yet both the Koran and Tradition forbid the first three, and assign some limits to the fourth." A stream cannot rise higher than its source; a tower cannot be broader than its foundation. The measure of the moral stature of Mohammed is the source and foundation of all moral ideals in Islam. His con duct is the standard of character. We need not be surprised, therefore, that the ethical standard is so low even in Al-Ghazali, although he ofttimes rises high above the Koran and the Prophet.

In nearly every one of his books on morals the Prophet of Arabia is held up as the highest ideal of character. In his " Precious Pearl/ however, there is a passage quoted from a tradition in which he pays this high tribute to Jesus Christ (page 24 Cairo Edition), "Go to Jesus, on Him be peace, for He is the truest of those who were sent as apostles, and who knew most of God, and the most ascetic in life of them all, and the mos* eloquent of all in