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/234



struggle between the higher and the lower natures in man. Again and again he contrasts the body and the soul as to their eternal value in their struggle for supremacy. Both are of God, His gift to us; both show His wisdom and His power; but there is no comparison when we try to estimate their real values.

"The body, so to speak, is simply the riding animal of the soul, and perishes while the soul tn dures. The soul should take care of the body, just as a pilgrim on his way to Mecca takes care of his camel; but if the pilgrim spends his whole time in feeding and adorning his camel, the caravan will leave him behind, and he will perish in the desert."

The four leading virtues the mothers of all other good qualities Al-Ghazali says are " Wis dom, temperance, bravery, and modetation (or the golden mean of conduct)."! This classification he has borrowed from Plato with so much else on the theory of conduct. He explains all these virtues in terms of the Koran and illustrates them from the lives of Mohammed and the early saints of Islam as well as the later mystics.

He is at his best when he speaks of vices and their opposite virtues. No one can read his chap ter against pride and boasting without seeing that he gives us again a page from his own experience. He begins by quoting the saying of the Prophet, " No one shall enter paradise in whose heart there

a " Alchemy of Happiness."‘s " Mizan al Amal."