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/56



Assassin sect, who were then holding the castle of Alamut in the mountains. We must also mention a schoolmate of Al-Ghazali, Al-Harrasi (1058 1110), who studied at Nishapur under the Imam Al-Haramain, was made his assistant, and then went to Bagdad, where he taught theology in the Nizamiyya University for the rest of his life. Nor must we forget Al-Baghawi, who wrote a famous commentary on the Koran, and other works of the ology (1122); Al-Raghib Al-Ispahani, who died in 1108, and wrote a dictionary of the Koran, ar ranged in alphabetical order, called Mufradat alfaz Al-Koran, with quotations from the traditions and from the poets; he also wrote a treatise on morals, which Al-Ghazali always carried about with .him (Kitab ad-dharia), and a commentary on the Koran. Among the early contemporaries of Al Ghazali we must not forget to mention Ali bin Uthman Al-Jullabi Al-Hujwiri, the author of the oldest Persian treatise on Sufism extant. He was born in Ghazni, Afghanistan, and died in A.D. 1062, when Al-Ghazali was fourteen years old. Al Hujwiri travelled far and wide through the Mohammedan Empire and his famous work Kashf al-Mahjub anticipates much of the teaching of Al-Ghazali, who must have been familiar with this author. And to complete this already long list of celebrities, we may mention Al-Maidani of Nishapur, who died in 1124, having written a great work on Arabic proverbs; Al-Zamakhshari,