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/293

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occupy my care and do not allow the unmerciful to overcome me, O Thou Eternal!:

" It is related concerning Jesus (on him be peace) that God spoke to him saying: Though you serve me with the worship of the people of heaven and earth and do not have love towards God in your heart but hatred toward Him it will not enrich you at all. " (Vol. II, p. 210.) "God Most High said to Jesus (on him be peace), my servant and do not find in them love either for this world or the world to come I fill him with my own love and I put him in my safe-keeping. (Vol. IV, p. 258.) In the "Alchemy of Happi ness" we already found allusion to this subject: "Jesus (upon him be peace) saw the world in the form of an ugly old hag. He asked her how many husbands she had possessed; she replied that they were countless. He asked whether they had died or been divorced; she said that she had slain them all. I marvel, he said, at the fools who see what you have done to others, and still desire you. "Jesus (on him be peace) said, The lover of the world is like a man drinking sea-water; the more he drinks, the more thirsty he gets, till at last he perishes with thirst unquenched/
 * Verily when I look upon the secret thoughts of

Al-Ghazali, however, never seems to have drawn the conclusion from the life of Christ which a care ful study of the Gospel would have made possible. Namely, that a true renunciation of the world is