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/78



Imam accepted this condition, and when one of the appointed times of prayer arrived, the Imam went to the Mosque, and the people followed him, till, when the Imam began the prayer, and the people began it after him, Jamal-ud-Din followed him in the prayer in the distance. And while they were praying Jamal-ud-Din suddenly interrupted him. So this trial was worse than the first; and when he was asked the reason (of his conduct) he replied that it was impossible for him to take as his pat tern an Imam whose heart was full of blood, indi cating by this expression the vileness of one who took a share in the work of worldly men of learn ing." 1

Al-Ghazali must have begun his education at a very early age, and his studies at Tus met with such success that he went to the larger educational centre of Jurjan before the age of twenty, a dis tance of over one hundred miles, and no inconsider able journey at that time.

In Al-Ghazali’s autobiography we have a glimpse of how he himself conceived the growth of a child in wisdom and stature. " The first sense revealed to man," he says, " is touch, by means of which he perceives a certain group of qualities heat, cold, moist, dry. The sense of touch does not perceive colours and forms, which are for it as though they did not exist. Next comes the

the Biography given at the end of Miskat-ul Anwar, Cairo edition (1322).