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/266



compared with the fifty-first Psalm or the seventh chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. That Al-Ghazali himself had a deep sense of sin, no one can doubt. He was not a Pharisee but an earnest seeker after God. He teaches clearly that all the prophets, including Mohammed, were sinners, al though he nowhere mentions any sinfulness in Jesus Christ.

One of the most important passages is that in which he speaks of the benefit of asking pardon. It reads as follows: " Said Mohammed the Prophet (upon him be peace): Verily, I ask forgiveness of God and repent towards Him every day seventy times/ He said this, so says Al-Ghazali, al though God had already testified, " We have for given thee, thy former and thy latter sins." " Said the Prophet of God, i Truly a faintness comes over my heart until I ask God forgiveness every day one hundred times/ And said the Prophet (on him be peace), * Whosoever says when he goes to sleep, " I ask forgiveness of the Great God, than whom there is no other, the living, and I repent of my sins three times," God will forgive him his sins even though they were as the foam of the seas or its sands piled up, or as the numbers of the leaves on the trees or the days of the world/ And said the Prophet of God (upon him be peace), Whosoever says that word I will forgive his sins though he deserts the army/ Al-Ghazali relates a story of one Hudhifa, who said, " I was accus