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/227

 hazali in

his Ihya and in some of his other works. The hus band, according to this teaching, ought to main tain a golden mean in dealing with his wife in twelve points, that is, he means that there should be no excess of kindness or excess of harshness in any of these particulars: (1) the marriage feast; (2) behaviour; (3) playfulness or caressing; (4) maintaining his dignity; (5) jealousy; (6) pecuniary allowance; (7) teaching; (8) granting every wife her rights (in the Moslem sense); (9) chastisement; (10) the rules of cohabitation; (11) childbirth; (12) divorce. In one place he says if the wife be disobedient and obstinate, the husband has the right to punish her and force her to obey him, but he must proceed gradually, ex hort, admonish, threaten, abstain from intercourse with her for three days, beat her so as to let her feel the pain, but be careful not to wound her in the face, make her blood flow abundantly or break a bone! The teaching of Al-Ghazali on divorce and slavery is so thoroughly Moslem that much of it is untranslatable. Suffice it to say that he agrees with other doctors of Moslem law in excusing onanism and other sins under certain circum stances, and even indicates that it may become a duty if practiced in order to escape from greater sins. 1

In spite of his Islamic conception of the sexual

1 " Ihya," Vol. II, pp. 32-33, " Mizan al Amal," pp. 126-128,