Al-Ghazali
Persian philosopher, theologian, jurist and mystic of Sunni Islam (c. 1056 to 1111); taught at the Nizamiyya Madrasa in Baghdad until 1095 and in Nishapur from 1106; author of Deliverance from Error.
Al-Ghazali did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
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Their wordsKnow then, my brothers (may God direct you in the right way), that the diversity in beliefs and religions, and the variety of doctrines and sects which divide men, are like a deep ocean strewn with shipwrecks, from which very few escape safe and sound.
↗The Confessions of Al Ghazzali (Deliverance from Error) (tr. Claud Field, 1909)gutenberg.org 1st of 7 in this piece
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Our reading
Knowledge that is not immune to doubt deserves no confidence and cannot count as certainty
Their wordsI then understood that all forms of knowledge which do not unite these conditions (imperviousness to doubt, etc.) do not deserve any confidence, because they are not beyond the reach of doubt, and what is not impregnable to doubt cannot constitute certitude.
↗The Confessions of Al Ghazzali (Deliverance from Error) (tr. Claud Field, 1909)gutenberg.org 2nd of 7 in this piece
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Our reading
Assuming that certainty can rest only on formal arguments wrongly limits the mercy of God
Their wordsTo suppose that certitude can be only based upon formal arguments is to limit the boundless mercy of God.
↗The Confessions of Al Ghazzali (Deliverance from Error) (tr. Claud Field, 1909)gutenberg.org 3rd of 7 in this piece
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Their wordsIt was plain to me that, in order to discover where the professors of any branch of knowledge have erred, one must make a profound study of that science; must equal, nay surpass, those who know most of it, so as to penetrate into secrets of it unknown to them.
↗The Confessions of Al Ghazzali (Deliverance from Error) (tr. Claud Field, 1909)gutenberg.org 4th of 7 in this piece
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Their wordsIt is therefore a great injury to religion to suppose that the defence of Islam involves the condemnation of the exact sciences. The religious law contains nothing which approves them or condemns them, and in their turn they make no attack on religion.
↗The Confessions of Al Ghazzali (Deliverance from Error) (tr. Claud Field, 1909)gutenberg.org 5th of 7 in this piece
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Their wordsIn a word, truth does not cease to be true because it is found among them. Such, however, is the tendency of weak minds: they judge the truth according to its professors instead of judging its professors by the standard of the truth.
↗The Confessions of Al Ghazzali (Deliverance from Error) (tr. Claud Field, 1909)gutenberg.org 6th of 7 in this piece
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Their wordsI saw that Sufism consists in experiences rather than in definitions, and that what I was lacking belonged to the domain, not of instruction, but of ecstasy and initiation.
↗The Confessions of Al Ghazzali (Deliverance from Error) (tr. Claud Field, 1909)gutenberg.org 7th of 7 in this piece
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