Hamzah Wald Maqbul – 13 Ramadan 1441 Late Night Majlis Ghazali’s Search Begins Addison 05062020
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Yesterday, we finished our reading from the, heirs
of the prophets,
the,
and there's a there's an appendix in it
that has
some some,
biographies
and anecdotes
with regards to the,
you know, with regards to the great scholars,
of the past, many of whom were mentioned
in the
in the in the book. Maybe we can
return to we can return to that section
later.
But for now, I wanna switch tracks
and, read some excerpts from a book,
written by Moana Seid Abu Hasan Ali Naddui,
Sheikul Masay.
He just a little background about him.
He was a brother in the tariqa of,
my, sheikh,
Sayed
Anwar Hussein Nafeez Shah. His Nafeez was his,
like,
pen name that he used for his, works
of calligraphy because he was a master, Khatib
scribe,
a calligrapher,
and poet.
And, he used it for he used the
the the Khalaf of Nafis for his poetry
and for his artwork.
And,
he passed away in 2007, maybe,
I would say, just a couple of months
after I came back to America from from
studying in Madrasa.
The last time I went to the Hanukkah
was to give him the good news that,
I received
my
and,
from the Madrasah. He had been a great,
encouragement and instrumental in getting me,
getting me admitted to
the place where I would end up studying
studying. So I wanted to give him the
good news, and by that time, he had
already,
slipped out of consciousness, and and then he
would pass
away, in that unconsciousness,
several months later after
I returned home. I never I never got
the chance to see him again.
Envelop him in mercy in his mercy and
and raise his ranks,
amongst the.
So his dear friend and brother in the
Tariqa,
Moana Abul Hasan Ali Nadawi,
was director of the great Nadwatul Ullama, Madrasah
in Lucknow
in India,
which was an attempt to,
an attempt to synthesize
the traditionalist approach of Daoban
with, preparation
for, for the modern world whereas Deoban was,
kind of a
a resistance against that.
I think Nadua had a very similar
beginning in terms of their curriculum, but, their
outlook was a little
bit, a little bit different. And,
was, like, the intellectual
anchor that that anchored that, that madrassa. But
one of the reasons he was so loved
is because
precisely he took, he took the
he took the
the soul of and the spirituality
from the.
He was the Khalifa,
along with our Sheikh
of the, Sheikh Shah Abdel Kader,
from Raipur, who was the Khalifa of the
Sheikh Shah Abdul Rahim, who was a Khalifa
of the Sheikh,
Rashid Ahmed Gangohi, one of the 2 founders
of Deoband.
And then from there,
the the goes up through the.
I mentioned those names not necessarily in order
to make a,
you know, some sort of, like, a long
title uselessly, but just to mention the
These are great and
their their, I mentioned their names. So in
case you're interested in in knowing who they
are, you can go through,
the previous late night,
Majlis',
and, in previous years, and we actually mentioned
the,
the the stories about about those particular,
mashaikh
so you can do that. But,
his initial,
his initial
sheikh in the in the in the tariqa
was,
Muna
Muhammad Ali Lahori,
who
was,
also himself a great and
a great, Alem.
He used to, teach,
the Dura of the Tafsir, the Quran, and,
from all over the all over the subcontinent
would gather in order to hear his
his,
his tafsir.
Someone recently sent me an anecdote about his
life because, many of these Mashaik were there,
during the time of the British occupation,
and some of them also passed away before
their homeland was free.
And so
one of the most, like, boss
like anecdotes I ever heard was Muhammad Ali
Lahori.
The British wanted him to validate their rule
and he said, I'm sorry. I can't do
that.
And,
they wanted him to say that the British
are the legitimate rulers of the South continent.
He said, nope. And so they tortured him.
And one of the tortures that they did
was they laid his body down and chained
it to a block of ice.
You have to wonder what kind of weird,
and what kind of, like, psycho people these
were. Allah give them,
Allah give them what they deserve,
when Allah give them what they deserve. So
they laid him down on a block of
ice,
and basically almost froze him to death,
and one can imagine how much that would
that would be painful.
And so when he was basically had about
as much ice as a human body can
take, you know, before before dying or going
to hypothermia,
they unchained him, and they say, what do
you think now?
And he said
he said he said he said he said
the body has become cold but the iman
is hotter than ever and if that's not
boss, I don't know. I don't know what
is.
So, at any rate, so that was the
first sheikh of Mullan Abu Hasan Ali Naddui
then he passed away and then he took
the tariq from Shabdul
Kadir, from whom he received the khilafa.
And he wrote a bunch of books. And
one of the interesting things about his books
that he wrote was that he wrote them
both in Urdu and in Arabic. His
his,
practical command of the Arabic language was far
stronger than that of most of the Ulema
of the sub continent, many of whom are
are very,
adept at,
using, the language language for textual analysis. But,
like, if you ask them to speak, they
may not be super great good at it,
or if you ask them to write, they
may not be super good at it. But
there are a number of masha'if,
who who are known for their command over
the Arabic language,
in all four fluency skills, in in in
speaking just as much as listening and then
and writing just as much as reading. And
so he was one of them. He would
oftentimes
address,
the the different gatherings of scholars or the
different gatherings of Arab leaders in the Arabic
language. You can find YouTube videos of his,
bands in Arabic as well as in Urdu,
and he was a very prolific writer and
he was a person who engaged the topic
of modernity
very fearlessly and he dealt with it in
a very in a very principled manner. And
he wrote a number of books
that were designed to be, a motivation for
the to get back to the work that
it's supposed to be doing and that that
in many ways, it it seems to have
kind of,
taken taken more than its, you know, lawful
15 minutes of
break for. And so,
this book is one of those books.
He published it in Urdu, under the name
Tari, under the name or the title of
and he,
wrote it also in Arabic, and it's published
under the title Rigalu Dawa Ul Fikr Rigalu
Dawa Ul Fikr.
And so it it is composed of a
number of biographies.
During his lifetime, I think one of his
disciples who was a little bit better at
English
rendered it under his supervision into English,
but it's it's still a kind of a
subcontinental
English. It it's definitely better than most of
the translations you get from the Indian subcontinent
from that era,
but, it could use a little bit of
work. So the first volume of the, of
this,
this work, first three volumes were, I think,
translated during his lifetime and published under the
under the title Saviors of the Islamic Spirit.
And so from those first three volumes, there's
been a kind of a new edition of
the first volume, a cleaned up edition that
Mufti Abdul Rahman Mangera from, London,
has published,
and I
had 2 copies.
1 I gifted and 1 I gave to
a brother who was, trying to get married
to
a woman,
and, so he's like, hey. I have to
give her get her a gift. I'm like,
why don't you give her this? It didn't
work but hopefully she's inspired Islamically as well
with whatever happened with her life.
So at any rate,
we continue and that's how life goes, goes,
ladies and gentlemen.
We continue with the chapter that I wanted
to start with tonight,
which was a chapter
about Imam Al Ghazali. So, he talks about
who Ghazali was in great detail and you
know, Imam Ghazali is a name that's mentioned
a lot. A lot of people
hear the name and they have no idea
who it is and some people have,
really positive feelings when they hear the name
Ghazali and they don't know who he is
and some people have some very negative feelings
about Ghazali. They also don't know who he
is. So, it's good to kinda know who
who who he was, who his influences were,
what the historical backdrop
to his writing was,
what the,
you know,
what the,
you know, the political backdrop was, what the
economic
scene was, what the intellectual scene was. It's
good to know all of these things and
part of it is, you know, if you
listen, you'll realize that stuff was kind of
messed up in the past as well, which
is a little bit depressing at first because
we like to think that everything was wonderful
until some nondescript CAFR trashed our countries but,
that's unfortunately kinda not how it is.
But the reason that it is good for
us to know
is that, we realize that,
you know, we realize in knowing that that
we are in control of our destiny and
our fate, that we've messed it up really
bad in the past and we've also gotten
it together as well, really good in the
past. And we had external enemies that overwhelmed
us in the past and we've gotten them
back and we've had internal problems that have
overwhelmed us in the past and we've rectified
those as well.
So, you know, the part of
the part of the solution is to take
agency for our fate and to, you know,
see what the road map is if we
wanna fix things or make things right again.
How did they do it in the past?
How did it work out for them in
the past so that we can perhaps try
to do the same thing again rather
than, you know, just to kinda romanticize and
daydream about some magical caliphate that's gonna like,
you know, I don't know, make Coca Cola
come out of the water fountains or something
one day.
So,
it's 8th chapter of Moana's book. Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala Raises Rank. By the way, Moana
passed away in
2,000, Mullana Abu Hasan Ali Naddui.
He,
it was a Friday.
He was waiting for the Mubarak hour of
Jumuah, and he had read the Surat Kah,
and he had still, like, 10 minutes before
salat, and so he he thought, I'll start
reading Surat Yaseen as well. So when he
got to the verse,
indeed, you your
warning is going to benefit no one except
for
the one who follows and submits to this
reminder,
and fears his lord from from the unseen.
Fears the most merciful from the unseen.
Give such a person glad tidings
of mercy
and of a generous reward.
And with that,
his soul,
departed,
departed from this broken,
from this broken world. Allah,
elevate his rank
and,
elevate the rank of all those who carried
his with him,
with them and, who did this work and
who
strove for the rectification of of the Muhammad
So chapter 7, Al Ghazali.
Abuhamad Mohammed Atusi. Al Ghazali was born in
Tus,
at Taburan,
in 450,
after Hijra. He lost his father while still
very young, although his father had entrusted him
to the care of a mystic friend, meaning
a Sufi,
he got himself admitted in a seminary for
receiving education. So he went to a madrasa
for education.
Tus, by the way, is, the modern city
of Mashhad. We had a a classmate who
studied with us in Pakistan from Tuz. It's
in the Khorasan
province of the modern, nation state of Iran.
And,
the majority of the the the inhabitants of
Tuz to this day are are Sunnis with
the exception of
there's a large
shrine
that the, that
maintained,
in that city.
The the sheikh who's the sheikh from the
Ahlulbayt who's buried there.
We you know, our mashaikh say that that
he was also from the tariqa, the sunnah,
but, at any rate, the shrine is run
by run by, people of heterodoxy,
and Allah knows best.
Ghazali first studied the Shafi'i system of jurisprudence
from Sheikh Abdul Rahman,
Razgani in his hometown and then moved to
Jurjan,
or Gurgaon in Persian,
for completing, the course from Abu Nasser,
Ismaili here. Ismaili is not doesn't mean Shia
Ismaili, but,
it's just a nisba.
Thereafter, Ghazali went to Nishapur where he became
a disciple of Imam al Haramain. Imam al
Haramain is,
Imam al Juwayni,
who himself is a really amazing person. His
books are amazing. He is he is a
a genius of,
of of, you know, of of of the
first rate. And in his genius, he, you
know,
I don't think anyone can claim that he
was even behind Ghazali. I don't think that
that would be a legitimate claim.
His outstanding intellectual gifts were soon recognized, and
he was appointed as an assistant of his
reputed teacher who used to say that Ghazali
possessed an encyclopedic knowledge.
Although only 28 when he left Nishapur after
the death of his mentor in 478,
he was held in, greater
than many other aged doctors of his time.
Doctors here doesn't mean like a a,
you know, a radiologist or or a pediatrician,
but meaning meaning professors of of of of
the knowledge of Din.
He went to Nizam al Mulk, the prime
minister of Malik Shah,
who accorded Ghazali a coveted place in his
court. So Nizam al Mulk is a really
important person. Nizam al Mulk is a really
important person.
He was a prime minister of the Seljuk,
of the Seljuk court
and, he he was basically a person who
understood that the power of the state
lies,
as much in civilization as it does in
military and economic,
power
and so,
you know, Moana will speak about him a
little bit but, Allah
have mercy on him. And his Amu Mulk,
he's essentially
the, the one who inaugurated the institutional,
the institutional form of the madrasah in the
Muslim world that it would take,
in some lands until this day.
Nizam al Mook, fostered arts and literature by
lavish patronage.
Scholars in different branches of learning had gathered
around him, and discussions on literary and other
academic topics had become an everyday affair.
Ghazali had no match for his genius, as
well as his polemical brilliance in these debates.
Impressed by his outstanding intellectual gifts, Nizam al
Mulk selected Ghazali in 484 for appointment as
professor
at the famous Nizamiyah,
Madrasah in Baghdad.
And,
Madrasah at that time was essentially like the
greatest university of the world, although the word
madrasa nowadays is oftentimes used pejoratively, but, you
know,
it means a place of study,
literally. So,
it
it means both, you know, alif Batah study
as well as university. But the Madrasa Nivamiyyah
was was was definitely
the greatest and most well funded, place of
study,
in the world at the time.
This was the most coveted
academic position of the time, although Ghazali was
not more than 34 years of age. His
renown as a as a savant,
as a Alem,
and he says a little bit of that
old school English.
Teacher and eloquent speaker spread so rapidly that
his lectures began to become overcrowded by an
ever larger number of students and scholars.
Sometimes in addition,
sometimes in addition to as many as 300
students, hundreds of nobles and chiefs attended his
lectures. Ghazali soon came to occupy on account
of his
Ghazali soon came to occupy on account of
his scholarship, intelligence, and forceful personality,
such a position of eminence in Baghdad that
that he was regarded as a compere
of the grandees and chiefs of state,
meaning he was
basically He was like a huge time celebrity.
In prestige and solemnity,
according to a chronicler of his time, Ghazali
surpassed the nobility
of Baghdad, even the caliphate,
which is not which is not hard to
hard to believe because,
those people, at the end of the day,
they're politicians.
The everyday people,
know that that one of them will kill
another and take his place tomorrow,
just like, the one who is in his
place today, killed another yesterday.
And,
you know, they
they they knew that that was just the
ups and downs of the dunya, but the
ulama, they they they counted on them to
be their najat and their manja, their salvation
for this world and the hereafter.
In 4/85, after Hijra, the Abbasi Khalifa Muqtadibillah
appointed him as his ambassador in the court
of Turhan Khatun,
who then headed
the Seljukid Empire.
Another, Abbasi Khalifa,
Mustahazir
Billah,
held Ghazali in high esteem, and it was
on his behest that he wrote a single
treatise
to refute the cult of the Ba'athinis.
He named that book the Mustahidiyah,
after the Khalifa.
And so the Ba'athinis
are,
the Ba'athinis are a heterodox group of Shias,
but they're different than the the the If
not, actually, Shias of Iran.
The Bhutanese were like,
you know, they were
the cult of Gulat that ruled Egypt at
the time and,
they basically
held that there is the Quran.
It's words are, you know, a rams. They're
like a secret code for some sort of
secret knowledge, and
like spiritually inept people will never understand what
it really means,
but the secret imam understands what it really
means. And once you understand what it really
means, you don't gotta pray anymore or follow
the sharia or whatever.
And so,
they had a great political power. They ruled
Egypt for 250 years. The Egyptians,
by and large, did not accept their interpretations
of din, and they were ousted by Sultan
Sahadin Ayubi, Allah ta'ala, exalt his rank and
forgive his sins,
but,
but, inshallah, we'll talk about that a little
bit later. But, and
the thing is the Badinis actually, they were
the ones who started the madrasa system first
before the Sunnis did,
in order to, in order to, I guess,
proselytize people,
to become their fanatic supporters
for
their project,
and
like many
weird weird things that people have been that
I did, like the early adoption of Greek
logic or the formalization
of
of of, you know, grammar or whatever. The
Sunnis will lag and adopt later on but
then they'll
master those instruments and use them in the
defense of the Sunnah
far more effectively than the people of
heterodoxy ever can.
Al Ghazali's intellectual crisis.
During this period of prosperity, worldly fame, and
brilliant achievement for which a scholar can aspire,
it was only natural that Ghazali should have
led a life of contentment as most of
the scholars usually do. But for a man
of lofty ideals, creative genius, and intellectual grit
as Ghazali was, it was unthinkable that he
should rest satisfied merely with position and prestige.
There can be no denying the fact that
this very internal conflict and disquietude,
in it, the Promethean quest made him a
renovator of the faith.
However, history can offer but few such striking
examples where one had abandoned a brilliant career,
fame, and position for the satisfaction of his
soul.
Ghazali,
has himself described the deep inner struggle which
forced him to give up all the worldly
possessions, including his teaching vocation
and to withdraw into a life of zuhud,
and solitary
contemplation.
He writes in his, Munqif Minat Balal,
deliverance from error.
From the days of my early youth, I
had a critical disposition. I met the people
belonging to every cult and creed, inquired about
their faith and tenets, which in due course
made me disregard the beaten path.
The faith I had inculcated from my childhood
was shaken for I thought the children born
to Jews and Christians too develop similar conviction
in their own religions.
The knowledge should not, as a matter of
fact, admit, of any doubt in regard to
its veracity as, for instance, I know that
10,
is more than 3. If anyone puts forward
a claim that 3 exceeds 10 and turns
a staff into a snake in support of
his claim, I would be surprised at his
feet but my conviction that 10 exceeds 3
would remain unchanged.
That's very deep, by the way.
That's very deep.
These are the people who bring us our
kalam, you know, the people with these types
of sharp insights. They're the ones who say,
the first thing that is
a wajib, an obligation on a person is
to correct their iman.
He said, if anyone puts forward a claim
that 3 exceeds 10 and then turns a
staff into a snake in support of his
claim, I would be surprised at his feet
but my conviction that, 10 exceeds 3 would
remain unchanged.
When I contemplated over the matter, I found
that true cognition was possible only
only in the realm of sense perception and
the, conceptual faculty of grasping those rational principles
which are more or less self evident.
But on further reflection, I realized that these
2 are not beyond doubt. Amongst the senses
possessed by human beings, the perception by sense
seated in the eye is the strongest but
that too commits mistakes.
Thereafter, the dubiousness in regards to the senses
increased to such an extent that I lost
all faith in the infallibility of the senses.
Then I turned to intellect but found it
even more doubtful and weaker than the senses.
For about 2 months, my skepticism led me
to doubt the possibility of
sense of satisfaction the sense of satisfaction over
conceptual cognition.
It was not, however, owing to any,
concentration of,
invoking, any reason or arguments,
but, simply on account of,
a light which Allah put into my heart.
After emerging from earlier,
states of doubt, I had 4 groups before
me who seemed to be engaged in the
search after truth.
These were the dialecticians,
the the the Mu'takkalimun, who claimed to possess
insight and wisdom.
The Ba'athinis who insisted on a hidden, true,
deeper,
knowledge vouchsafed to them through their impeachable
unimpeachable
and impeccable Imams, the philosophers who irrigated themselves
as masters of logic and reason, and the
Sufis who laid claim to be illuminated and
favored with,
beatificive vision, with with basically
divine,
vision of divine
origin.
I proceeded to explore the ideas and thoughts
with
all of them. I studied the writings of
reputed
dialecticians,
meaning the motu kalimon,
and authorities of the science, and
myself penned a few of these treatises.
I reached the conclusion that although this branch
of learning fulfilled its object,
it was not sufficient for my purpose as
it argued on the premises put forth by
its opponents. This is something really important because,
those people are the, I guess, the antagonists
of Ilmukhollam. They say that, you know, one
of the proofs against it is that it's
written in the,
it's written in the the the the Aristotelian
logic and in the style
of,
of, of people, of Kufr,
and
therefore, it's not an accurate or proper presentation
of
Din. And,
you know, the purpose of it
is to refute,
refute the people of a particular bidah
and in that sense,
that's kinda how it has to be but
it isn't the din itself.
It isn't the dean itself. So Ghazali is,
I guess,
remarking about that. He says, I
reached the conclusion that although this branch of
learning fulfilled its object,
it was not sufficient for my purpose as
it argued on the premises put forth by
its opponents.
The dialecticians,
have to rely on a number of premises
and propositions which they accept in common with
the philosophers or they are obliged to accept,
the authority of the Quran or the sunnah
or the consensus.
But these could not, be of much avail
to one who has no faith in anything
except for in the necessary principles of reason
as was the case with me.
In regard to philosophy, I thought it necessary
to make a detailed and critical study of
the science before forming my own opinion of
it. I had little time to spare from
my preoccupations of teaching
mathematics, logic, physics, politics, ethics, and metaphysics.
Of these, the first five do not either
deny or affirm religion nor is it necessarily
to necessary to reject them, for the affirmation
of religion. The precepts of physics sometimes do
come in conflict with religious doctrine,
but these are only few. In this regard,
one ought to believe
that the
natural phenomenon is not self propelled but dependent
on Allah the Almighty.
It is true that all those who, come
across the agility and,
insisiveness of the intellect of the philosophers in
these sciences are generally overawed by them and
are led to the conclusion that this would
be true of them in every branch of
learning. It is, however, not necessary that anyone
skilled in any one branch should be adept
in any other science as well. This is
also a very deep observation which is,
I believe is something that has a great
wealth of relevance to
the time and age we live in. Neil
deGrasse Tyson.
Anyways,
when people see the philosophers
denying faith and conviction, they too walk in
their shoes.
On the other hand, some brainless exponents of
Islam consider it their bound and duty to
refute whatever the philosophers say
and sometimes even go to the extent of
denying their,
researches in the field
of physics as well. A harmful effect of
it is that all those who the veracity
of the intellect search of truth and uphold
necessary principles of reason begin to have doubts
in Islam itself and become skeptics.
This is also a big problem in the
time and the age that we live in.
And,
all I can do is,
you know, complain to Allah
with regards to people's abuse of, of of
of their tongue and of their pen.
The only branch of knowledge which comes into
conflict with religion is metaphysics
as,
it is in the science that the philosophers
have generally really been misled.
As a matter of fact, the philosophers have
themselves not been able to follow satisfactorily
in this branch the laws of rigorous argumentation
that they had evolved for logical reasoning
and
that is why there are wide differences amongst
them also in its regard.
I have, therefore, arrived at the conclusion that
philosophy would not be able to satisfy me,
for the intellect cannot by itself cover the
entire field of objects and events nor unravel
all, all mysteries.
As for the Batanites,
I have
had the opportunity to make a detailed study
of their cult
for the writing of the Mustahariyah.
I had found that the veracity of their
tenants and doctrine, ultimately depends on the teachings
of an impeccable and illuminated teacher, the imam.
But, the existence of such a teacher stands
to be verified and in truth and reality,
both are extremely dubious.
Not only the mystics remain to be examined
and therefore I turned my attention to them.
Mysticism, meaning Tasso'af, is of 2 kinds, intellectual
and intuitional.
It was easy for me to look into
the first and I went through the kutul
kullub of Abu Talib Al Mekki
and the tracks of al Harith al Muhasibi,
Junaid Shiblei, Bayezid al Bustami and other Sufis.
I gather whatever knowledge of Sufism,
could be had from these books but found
that the knowledge of the essence of reality
could could be obtained not through the study
of the soul but through intuition, transport,
and ecstasy brought about by purification of the
heart.
I had already attained an unflinching faith through
speculative branches of knowledge in religious, and secular
sciences I had mastered,
on the existence of supreme reality
with the capital r and capital s and
capital r of supreme reality, prophethood,
and resurrection. This conviction was, however, not attained
through an experience or argument that could be
analyzed.
It had been firmly implanted in my heart,
that the eternal bliss
could be had only through inculcating the awe
of Allah, renunciation of the material world, wholehearted
attention to eternal life in the hereafter, and
an earnest devotion to God. All this, however,
was not possible so long as one did
not sever the attachments of possession and riches
of fame and worldly life.
I pondered over my own condition and I
realized that I was wholly immersed in worldly
temptations as tithes and attachments.
This is, by the way, while he was,
you know, renowned as one of the greatest
authorities of Dean in his age.
You know, this type of admission is very
hard to come to,
and for a person who is
actually
immersed in those things. So imagine somebody
who is just trying to root out a
very subtle thread of it from from himself
in order to attain purity,
how honest he must have been with himself
for Raimo'Allah.
I pondered over my own condition and I
realized that I was wholly immersed in worldly
temptations, its ties, attachments.
The vocation of teaching appeared to be a
noble pursuit, but as further reflection revealed, I
was paying my entire attention to those sciences
which were neither important nor beneficial for the
hereafter.
I probed into the motives of my work
as a teacher and found that instead of
any sincere
desire to propitiate
God, I was after honor and fame. I
was convinced that I was on the edge
of an abyss,
and if I did not take immediate steps
to retrieve the situation,
I should be doomed to
eternal fire. Still undecided one day, I resolved
to abandon everything and leave Baghdad.
The next day, I gave up my resolution.
6 months had passed in this state of
uncertainty.
On one hand,
the pull of temptation asked me to remain
where I was. On the other,
faith gave a call for me to get
up. It cried, up, up. And your life
is short. And you have a long journey
to make. All your pretended knowledge is nothing
but falsehood and fantasy.
Often, my carnal thoughts whispered to me, this
is a temporary yearning. God has favored you
with respect and honor. If you give it
up,
then tries to retrace your steps to come
back, you will not be able to get
it back again. Thus, I remained torn asunder
by earthly passions and religious aspirations for 6
months until
it became impossible to postpone my decision any
longer. Then Allah himself caused an impediment.
He chained my tongue and prevented me from
lecturing.
Vainly, I desired to teach my pupils who
came to me, but my mouth became dumb.
The silence to which I was condemned cast
me into violent despair.
I lost all appetite. I could neither swallow
a morsel of bread nor drink a drop
of water. I gradually became too weak and,
at last, the physicians under whose treatment I
was gave up all hope of my recovery.
They said that my heart was so severely
afflicted that no treatment would, be of any
avail until this affliction was removed.
Finally, conscious of my weakness,
and of the prostration of my soul, I
took refuge in Allah like a man who
has exhausted himself
and is, denied all means. I prayed to
him who answers,
the wronged one when he cries unto him,
and he made easy for me to sacrifice
honor, wealth and family.
So this is, inshallah, a good cliffhanger. Inshallah,
we can continue,
reading the story of Imam Khazali and,
what he made with his,
with his
incredible journey,
toward the truth and his desire
thereof,
inshallah. Tomorrow night,