Sayings of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali: Sufi quotations
Contents
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058-1111), “Proof of islam”, left his chair in Baghdad for spiritual retreat and then wrote the Ihya’ ’ulum al-din, which reconciled the Law and the path.
al-Ghazali: whoever dispenses himself from worship is the most wretched…
…To know (at every instant) the spiritual occupation of the moment, inwardly as well as outwardly. For whoever believes he can dispense with worship is truly the most wretched of the poor. Allah said: “Say: if you truly love Allah, follow me; Allah will then love you and forgive you your sins. Allah is clement and merciful.”
Ahmad al-Ghazali: la ilaha illa Allah
If you say “La ilaha illa Allah” (there is no God, no reality, but God) while you worship your passions, your dinars, the lower world, what answer will you receive? You lie! Why do you say what you do not do? “Why do you say what you do not do? To act thus is greatly hateful in God’s sight” (Qur’an 61, 3). Why do you say it, while you worship your desires? “Have you not seen him who takes his passion for a deity?” (Qur’an 45, 23) As long as you say “La ilaha illa Allah” while putting your trust in a family, relatives, a homeland, possessions, a dwelling, you say nothing true. If your affirmation of the divine oneness meant anything in your heart, why do you take refuge with one man, flee to another, hope for the help of a third and fear a fourth? …If you say “La ilaha illa Allah” and that word remains on your tongue, with no effect upon your heart, you are a hypocrite.
Ahmad al-Ghazali
You must offer up your soul and annihilate your existence. For either it is We, or it is you. You yourself are your own veil. So long as the veil is not lifted, there is neither We nor you: you are not Ours and We are not yours. If the existence that is yours leaves you, We shall make you subsist by an existence that is Ours. For it is incumbent upon God to let the one who loses himself in God find himself again.
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali
And no one has the right to think ill of another and believe it, unless that evil shows itself beyond all possibility of interpretation.
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali
Know that suspicion (thinking ill of someone) is forbidden just as slander is. Thus, just as you are forbidden to speak ill of a person before others, so you are not permitted to think ill of her within yourself, nor to suspect or distrust the person of a brother.