Ahmad al-Ghazali is the younger brother of the famous Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. Though well-trained in the religious sciences, he devoted his career to guiding others on the spiritual path. He forms an important link in the spiritual lineages of many Sufi orders and is considered by many to be the originator of the tradition of Persian Sufi poetry which came to full fruition with such luminaries as Rumi and Hafiz. Ahmad al-Ghazali's writings represent the quintessence of Sufism. Reading al-Ghazali one is inclined to put aside the life of the mind in pursuit of the heart. He does not offer metaphysical lessons or doctrinal explanations. Rather, his every word is an exhortation to seek God here and now; for life is short and the path is long. This, his most extensive Arabic treatise, is a guide to the levels of Sufi dhikr and the corresponding spiritual stations. Still used as a Sufi manual to this day, each chapter provides nourishment for the serious seeker and insight into the practice of Sufism at a crucial stage of its development.

AHMAD B. MUHAMMAD Al-GHĀZĀLĪ, the Sufi and popular preacher, made his way via Hamadan to Baghdad, and took his brother’s place when the latter retired from teaching at the Nizamiyya. He died in 520/1126 in Kazwin. 

He wrote an abridged version of the K. al-Ihya’ of his brother, which has not survived; an exposition in sermon form of his confession of faith, al-Tajrid fi kalimat al-tawhid (Turkish translation by M. Fewzi, el-Tefrid fi terjemet el-Tejrid, Istanbul 1285); a discussion of the admissibility of sama’ (Sufi music and dancing), Bawarik al-ilma’ fi ‘l-radd ‘ala man yuharimu ‘I-sama’, ed. J. Robson in Tracts on listening to music (Or. Transl. Fund, NS v), London 1938; a subtle psychology of love, Sawanih, ed. H. Ritter (Bibl. Islamica, xv) 1942; (probably) the Risalat al-Tayr, which was the inspiration for the Mantik al-tayr of Farid al-Din ‘Attar (see H. Ritter, Das Meer der Seele, 8-1o); and other minor writings which have not yet been investigated. 

His sermons were very popular in Baghdad, and were collected in two volumes by Sa`id b. Faris al-Labbani; of these however, only extracts are preserved in Ibn al-Jawzi. In them he undertook the defense of Satan (al-ta’assub li-lblis), popular in many Sufi circles since Hallaj, which was soon afterwards further developed by ‘Attar (see Das Meer der Seele, 536-5o), and which presumably gave the so-called Devil worshippers, the Yazidis, the justification for their worship of Satan (Ahmad Taymur Pasha, al-Yazidiyya, Cairo 1352, 59-61).

[Return to Catalog] - [Fons Vitae titles] - [Sufism] - [Order books] - [Fons Vitae Printable Catalog]