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/254



sciences, and are taught in every great centre of Moslem learning. For dogma other writers are more authoritative. For Moslem law there is the study of the great writers of the four Schools, but in matters of ethics Al-Ghazali still holds his own.

To quote once more from Hurgronje: " The ethical mysticism of Al-Ghazali is generally recog nized as orthodox; and the possibility of attaining to a higher spiritual sphere by means of methodic asceticism and contemplation is doubted by few. The following opinion has come to prevail in wide circles: the Law offers the bread of life to all the faithful, the dogmatics are the arsenal from which the weapons must be taken to defend the treasures of religion against unbelief and heresy, but mysti cism shows the earthly pilgrim the way to Heaven." *

In one particular, however, this ethical teaching is utterly disappointing. Al-Ghazali’s mysticism is not for the multitude. It is esoteric, for a par ticular class who are filled with religious pride that they, in this respect, are not as other men. Even the noblest minds in Islam restrict true religious life to an aristocratic minority, and, like the Phari sees of old, consider the ignorance of the multi tude an evil that cannot be remedied. The teach ing of Al-Ghazali was intended not for the masses but for the initiates.

"Mohammedanism," C. Snouck Hurgronje, New York and London, 1916.