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/229

 leave her

alone, she will grow more and more crooked; there fore treat her tenderly. *

"The greatest care should be taken to avoid divorce, for, though divorce is permitted, yet God disapproves of it, because the very utterance of the word divorce causes a woman pain, and how can it be right to pain any one? When divorce is abso lutely necessary, the formula for it should not be repeated thrice all at once, but on three different occasions. A woman should be divorced kindly, not through anger and contempt, and not without a reason. After divorce a man should give his for mer wife a present, and not tell others that she has been divorced for such and such a fault. Of a certain man who was instituting divorce proceed ings against his wife it is related that people asked him, Why are you divorcing her? He answered, I do not reveal my wife’s secrets/ When he had actually divorced her, he was asked again, and said, She is a stranger to me now; I have nothing to do with her private affairs/

All the relations of life, its pleasures and duties pass under review in books on Adab. Every de tail of outward conduct is regulated by what is said to have been the practice of the Prophet. How to eat a pomegranate correctly, how to take a bath, how to use the Misivak, or tooth-brush, how to behave towards Jews and Christians, and what ornaments are allowed all this comes under the "Alchemy of Happiness," pp. 94-96.