Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Imam Abu Hamid alGhazali and Sufism HD

One man came along, and he did something that popularized the

past to Allah subhanaw taala. Like a focus on the past, not just

nominal worship.

Some of you may be thinking when people were believers, yes, they

were believers, but nominal believers, the focus wasn't on the

hereafter as much as it should be. I don't know what we would say

today. I don't think it's the case today either.

So, one man came along 450 Hijiri. And he had some personal

experiences. He died at 505 at the age of 55 only, but with his, with

with him, he is

considered to be the man that popularized Sufism among the

masses, made it acceptable for them, because the way he explained

these things, you have to remember many of the Sufi spoken allusions.

They spoke in allusions in very high kind of language. So for the

common folk, it was very difficult for them to understand that and

until now, there was no formal shake, married relationship. There

were no tricks until now, fifth century until Imam Ghazali died,

there were hardly any formal techniques. In fact, none they

began afterwards. So we're still talking about early times, fifth

century, sixth century coming sixth century. Imam Ghazali, Imam

Hassan, Mohammed Al Hassan Hoja, to Islam, who died in 505, which

is 1111 Gregorian. He is the one who is considered responsible for

turning people's attention to the yearning of Allah subhanaw taala.

Because of the way he described his magnum opus, which is the hero

Rumi Dean in numerous volumes, the way he explained this, which is

called the Revival of the Religious Sciences. He was

obviously not one who was born into Sufism.

He obviously his father, his father died at a young age and he

was looked after by somebody else, and his mother, and he and his

brother, his brother was a very famous Sufi, amateur Kozani,

right.

Who was who who faced very prominently in the Sufi circles as

well, but Sheikh Mohammed Al Ghazali. He was into the sciences

first, and it's famous about him that he was into the science first

and he became such a great scholar, because he was ingenuous.

He was remarkable in his understanding and in his memory

and in everything that he became.

He was put into the highest place that any scholar could be put, and

they had one vizier, whose name was nirvana. He was known as

Muhammad Wilk. He was Shafi and he established a series of colleges,

universities, when in Nisa ward or Nisha pool, another one in

Baghdad, and Shiraz and other areas. The Barnard one, you know,

like we have Harvard today, Yale, we have Oxford, Cambridge, the

Baghdad one was the center of learning, but that was the center

of the caliphate. This is where many of the scholars flocked you

had some good scholars there. Imam Rizzoli was originally from Persia

from tus, which is in Iran today. But he went to Baghdad as well.

And people recognize and remember, he's very young. He died at the

age of 55. And he left everything for at least 1112 years, and then

some more years after that. So this was probably when he was 30,

something he became the top scholar of the country of the

Islamic lands, coveted position, everybody wanted that position. He

got it. And he started, and his crisis was different because the

thing about him was that he was

many people, if we study something, we will study it with a

bias. And I'm not trying to do that here. I'm trying my best,

right? But it's very difficult for people to completely shut

everything that you know about something and to study it. Most

people can't do it. What he did was, he said I came to a crisis in

my faith. I didn't know what to believe.

You know about Allah subhanho wa taala. He says there were three

main groups that were prominent my time, the Sufis, the bhakti

knights and the Philosopher's

most Muslim philosophers that taken from the Greek philosophy,

the new Neoplatonist

he said, I studied each one of these groups, the bottom knights,

they talked about some inner reading hidden hidden reading of

the Quran. So they wouldn't take it says a people Salah established

the prey, they wouldn't take that. They would say oh, it means

something else in between so they could write and it was a highly

secretive kind of arcane cult. These are the bounty knights

Write Hamdulillah we don't we no longer have a formal group call

about unites. But that was the assumption. So I mean, it's only

the imam who knows the true understanding and you have to be

in, you have to be entered into the, into this group to be able to

learn that he says that can't be the right way. So he began to

study these things. And I'm not encouraging this for all of us.

Because I don't think most of us could handle that kind of thing.

Right? But he said, I stripped my mind of all beliefs. I was in a

crisis. And I went and studied this, I found that this couldn't

be it. Then I studied the Sufis.

And I studied the philosophy says, in two years, despite my busy

schedule, in my free time, I studied all of the books of the

philosophers. And then he wrote a book called The exposition, the

more classical philosophy.

Right, the main objectives of the philosophers, it was such a great

book that was written in such a neutral way, that one, that the

later even Christian philosophers consider him to be among the

Muslim philosophers, because they think he's his contribution is

great. Then after that, when he found out that it's a lot of

incoherence in there, they say one thing, but they can't, it can't be

really true, because there's somebody else that contradicts it.

There's no absolute truth in there. Then he wrote the Daffodil

philosopher, the incoherence of the philosophers. And in there, he

did what no other scholar until now had done, because the

philosophy was coming into the Muslim circles. And there were

people who are taking him on like Hypno, Sina, Al farabi. And one of

the, one of the roses, and none of the Muslim scholars were able to,

to oppose it properly. Because they hadn't studied, he studied

it. And then the way he wrote about it, he says, I can't

understand look at look at the demeaning way, he writes what he

says, I can't understand how these people even can come to this

conclusion, even a young child would not come to this conclusion.

So not only did he defend the Arizona, the orthodoxy against

this, he ridiculed them. He ridiculed them. And so then he

discovered that that's not the way he said, if there is any way it's

the way of the Sufis. He said, I wanted to leave my position,

because then I started recognizing that I'm doing all of this for

show, I'm in the highest position, I'm the most celebrated scholar,

you know, and he started saying that this was all for vain glory,

and best arrogance and consult concedes, and there's no class.

And he said, I had this internal dilemma. Now I had my faith. I

knew what I was longing for. But I had to get out of this position,

but I couldn't, you've got to position is difficult to leave a

position. He says, Allah made it easy for me. He inflicted me with

a calamity that I was unable to speak. If you are wanting to give

Bruce if you want to teach to one of the great scholars of the time,

and you can't speak anymore, that's a calamity for you. But he

said that that helped me finally make up my because I used to make

up my mind. But then I used to break it. Finally, this time when

this happened, I realized that I had to leave this. He left it

people were like, Why are you leaving this?

People couldn't understand what I was doing was crazy for anybody to

do. Because it was it was considered the highest position.

He went, he left. He stayed for about 10 to 11 years. Nobody knows

exactly what he did during those times. We know he went to

Jerusalem, stayed there for a long time he went to the hot I mean, he

stayed there for a while. And a lot of the time he spent in

Damascus in the jungle movie, in a room there. This is when he wrote

the review. He says this is where Allah opened up many things to me.

This is when I got my realization. When I got my enlightenment,

that's when he wrote that held within the Revival of the

Religious Sciences. He comes back finally, and he doesn't want to

take the position that he's being forced to. Finally he agreed to do

some teaching close to his hometown and took on some

students. And then he wrote a number of other books, the

beginning of guidance, he wrote the Moscato Anwar, he wrote, but

his book The revival of the religion sciences health routine,

is the one that popularized the soul of the way he explains this.

He's a Persian, highly articulate, he's considered one of the his

literary literature is studied in the history of Arabic literature.

And you should read it he's a psychologist, the way he speaks

the way he explains things absolutely fantastic. Yes, there

are criticisms on him ignore Tamia ignore Josie number of these

scholars have criticized aspects of his work. Basically, their

criticism is that he's mentioning things in there which are

difficult for other people to understand. And they, according to

them, it's extreme things. Right. The science is such that the

science is he's mentioned a lot of weak Hadith no doubt he does write

some fabricated narrations in in the book as well. No doubt that

those are there. He wasn't a hadith scholar. He actually

started Hadith after studying Hadith. Afterwards, on his way

back, he died with a copy of Sahil Barrios

something on his chest. He went into Hadees study afterwards.

Right? So

that's difficult for us to understand today because most of

the focus of for example, a subcontinent mother says on

Hadith, not as much on Tafseer, for example, or anarchy that even

for that matter, hadith is very strong.

But when it comes to Aki that, you know, serious theology, and

serious tafsir, you know, it's not as strong as the Hadith, but

that's just the way it is, you know, we're human beings and we

can't become it's very difficult to master everything on a mass

level.

Right. So his focus had been, his focus had been something

different. But now he started mastering Hadith. And he

popularized basically what scholars say is that he guaranteed

Sufism, an official place in orthodox Islam, alongside law and

theology, just like Aikido was a subject. And Fick became a subject

Hadees studies was another science, the soul became a

subject. That's why if you look at many of the books, they will have

a section on the solf unfortunately, now, you don't see

many of these books, you know, things have been stripped off

them, and I'll explain why that came about. You'll understand from

the rest of our discussion when all of this came about