Al-Risālat Al-Laduniyya. By Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad Al-Ghazālī (450/1059–505/1111)

Margaret Smith

doi:10.1017/S0035869X0008789X

Al-Risālat Al-Laduniyya. By Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad Al-Ghazālī (450/1059–505/1111)

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011

Margaret Smith

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The Risālat al-Laduniyya is a short treatise giving an account of al-Ghazālī's religious philosophy, in a compact form. It includes his theory of Knowledge, which is discussed very fully in regard to its nature, its different types, and the means by which it is acquired. The author gives special attention here to Revealed Knowledge and distinguishes between Revelation (), which was limited to the prophets and ceased with them, and Inspiration (), which is granted also to the saints and is, in fact, the awakening of the individual, human soul, by Universal Soul.

Type: Articles
Information: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 70 , Issue 2 , April 1938 , pp. 177 - 200

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X0008789X [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1938

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^{page 177 note 1} Numbered No. 40 in Brockelmann's, Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur (vol. i, p. 423)Google Scholar. It has been printed in Cairo (a.h. 1343) and from this edition I have made my translation, after collation with the India Office MS. 612, which gives a better reading in several instances. There are also Cairo texts printed in a.h. 1328 and a.h. 1353 (the latter in the collection entitled al-Jawāhir al-Ghawālī). It is found in MS. under the title of “Fi bayān 'ilm al-Ladunī”, Berlin, 3210. It seems to be generally accepted as a genuine work of Ghazālī and is included among his writings by Ḥājjī Khalīfa; the theory of Knowledge set forth here and the psychological doctrine are almost identical with those of the Iḥuā' 'Ulūm al-Dīn.

^{page 178 note 1} Cf. Ibn Khaldūn, i, p. 211, and D. B. Macdonald's discussion of the question in The Religious Attitude and Life in Islam, chapter iii.

^{page 178 note 2} p. 14. It is interesting to compare the view of a modern mystic (George Russell): “I do not know of any psychology which so spiritually excites me as this of the nightly return of the soul to the Divine order, that we who through the day are absorbed in petty labours do go back to an unfallen world, unto our own high magnificence and are in council with the Cosmocratores. There are many who have symbolic dreams and if they brooded on them I am sure they would come to have faith in that dweller in the innermost… how many times when I meditated before sleeping did I not seem to myself to be sinking into light. How often when waking had I not the feeling that I had been cast forth and was rejected by heaven.… I tried passionately from departing lights, fleeting visionary presences and intuition, to conjecture what wonders the soul may have known, with what beings it may have been in some high companionship.” a. e., Song and its Fountains, pp. 87, 109, 118.

^{page 179 note 1} For different interpretations of the Muṭā' cf. Nicholson, R. A., The Idea of Personality in Ṣūfism, pp. 44 ff.Google Scholar, and Gairdner, W. H. T., Der Islām, 1914, pp. 121 ff. and 144 ff.Google Scholar, and his Mishkāt al-Anwār, pp. 10 ff.

^{page 179 note 2} p. 144 (Cairo edition).

^{page 179 note 3} A doctrine of which Ibn Rushd definitely accuses Ghazālī: cf. al-Kashf 'an manāhij al-adilla, p. 57, and it is no doubt to Ibn Rushd's accusation that Ibn Tufayl refers, saying: “Some later writers have read a grave signification into the words that occur at the end of the Mishkāt, to the effect that those who Attained-to-Union are convinced that this Existent-One can be described by attributes inconsistent with pure Unity, inferring from this that al-Ghazālī asserted that the First Being, the Reality Who Alone is worthy to be glorified, admitted of multiplicity in His essence, which God forbid.” Ḥayy b. Yaqẓān, p. 14. In the Sirr al-'Ālamayn wa Kashf mā, fi'l-Dārayn, attributed to Ghazālī, the doctrine of Emanation is taught without equivocation, for there it is stated plainly: “The First Emanation from the First Cause diffuses itself (reading ) by means of a conceptual outflow () whereof our intellects cannot apprehend the essential nature. The First Emanation proceeding from the Ultimate Cause is the Active Intellect, which proceeds from it in totality, and Universal Soul is that from which (individual) souls emanate” (p. 32). This work is accepted without question as being Ghazālī's by Ahlwardt, but its authenticity is doubted by both Professor R. A. Nicholson (to whom I am indebted for the translation of this passage) and Professor D. B. Macdonald. In this passage the term is used for “emanation” and for a discussion of Ghazālī's use of this term and of cf. Gairdner, W. H. T., Der Islām, 1914, pp. 121 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 180 note 1} MS. Bodleian Pocock 263, fols. 6b–22b.

^{page 180 note 2} Fol. 11b and , both of these being terms used by Ghazālī of the Supreme Himself.

^{page 180 note 3} Ibid. Cf. also Mi'rāj al-ẓālikīn, pp. 24 ff.

^{page 180 note 4} Cf. Kīmiyā' al-Sa'āda, pp. 16, 17. “The knowledge possessed by the saints enters their hearts direct from the Creative Truth Himself.”

^{page 180 note 5} Cf. Dabistān, iii, p. 283, where it is stated that the Ṣūfīs hold that after the Absolute Being comes Universal Mind, “which encloses all realities which are (as it were) concrete in it: it is the truth of mankind and between it and the Divine Majesty there is no mediator, according to the wise.”

^{page 181 note 1} p. 162.

^{page 181 note 2} Op. cit., p. 4.

^{page 182 note 1} Ennead, v, 8, 4.

^{page 182 note 2} Ibid., vi, 9, 11.

^{page 183 note 1} For a full and most illuminating life of Ghazālī, cf. Macdonald, D. B., Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. xx, 1899, pp. 72 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 184 note 1} For an interesting recent study of al-Fārābī cf. Madkur, I., La Place d'al-Fārābī dans l'école philosophique musalmane (Paris, 1936)Google Scholar.

^{page 184 note 2} Munqidh min al-Ḍaläl, p. 11.

^{page 184 note 3} On both al-Kindī and al-Fārābī cf. de Boer, T. J., History of Philosophy in Islam (tr. Jones, E. R.), pp. 97 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 185 note 1} Munqidh, p. 19.

^{page 185 note 2} Cf. references below.

^{page 185 note 3} Cf. also Shahrastānī, , “the School of Aristotle and his followers, such as Proclus, Alexander of Aphrodisias, and Themistius, to whom moderns like al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā among Islamic followers pay allegiance,” Nihāyat al-Iqdām, p. 1 (ed. Guillaume, A.)Google Scholar.

^{page 185 note 4} Cf. pp. 196 ff., below.

^{page 186 note 1} Bey, Ẓiyā, Kharābāt, i, pp. 283, 284Google Scholar.

^{page 188 note 1} Cf. al-Hujwīrī, , “Real Unification consists in asserting the unity of a thing and in having a perfect knowledge of its unity… I declare that Unification is a mystery revealed by God to His servants and that it cannot be expressed in language at all.” Kashf al-MaẒjūb (tr. Nicholson, R. A.), pp. 278 ff.Google Scholar Cf. also Rawḥat al-Tālibīn, p. 153.

^{page 189 note 1} Cf. Iḥyā, iv, p. 216 (11. 7 ff.): “Know that there are worlds through which you must pass, the material, visible world () is the first… and this stage may be passed without difficulty. The second is the Divine World () and it is beyond me, and when you have passed beyond me, you have arrived at its stations. It contains extensive deserts and wide expanses and lofty mountains and fathomless seas, and I know not how you will be saved therein. The third is the Celestial World ()… which is like a ship moving between the land and the water and it has not the constant motion of the water, nor has it the complete immobility of the land and its stability, and everyone who walks on the land walks in the world of mulk and shahāda, and when he is strong enough to sail on a ship he is like one who walks in the world of jabarūt and when he reaches the stage of being able to walk on the water without a ship, he walks in the world of malakūt, without sinking. When you are not able to walk upon the water, then depart, for you have passed beyond the land, and have left the ship behind, and there remains before you only the limpid water.” Cf. also Mishkāt al-Anwā'r, pp. 122 ff., and A. J. Wensinck, The Relation between al-Ghazālī's Cosmology and his Mysticism.

^{page 190 note 1} Kitāb Ḥaqā'iq al-Tafsīr.

^{page 191 note 1} Cf. ‘Abd al-Razzaq's definition of “that of which the spiritual illumination has been perfected so that it has been stripped of its vices and has replaced them by virtues and it has turned its face towards the heart (i.e. the highest self), following it in ascending towards the Invisible World, having been cleansed from all defilement, being assiduous in devotion, dwelling in the highest of abodes, so that its Lord may address it face to face.” For . cf. Plotinus, , Ennead, v, 9, 7Google Scholar, and Theology of Aristotle, pp. 6, 120 ff., and also Ghazālī, al-Ma'ārif al-'Aqliyya, fols. 8a, 11b, and Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Safā, “Rational souls rejoice in knowledge and understanding. When the rational soul has awakened from the sleep of neglect, the eye of insight is opened for her and she beholds her teacher and recognizes her Maker and therewith yearns for her Creator.” iii, pp. 270, 271.

^{page 192 note 1} Sūra iii, 16.

^{page 193 note 1} Sūra xxxv, 20.

^{page 193 note 2} Sūra xxxix, 12.

^{page 193 note 3} Cf. Plotinus, , Ennead, iv, 7, 1Google Scholar; Theology of Aristotle, pp. 160 ff.

^{page 193 note 4} Cf. Ennead, iv, 8, 8, and Theology of Aristotle, p. 41.

^{page 193 note 5} Ibid., p. 42.

^{page 193 note 6} The Cairo edition reads .

^{page 194 note 1} Cf. Theol. of Aris., p. 43.

^{page 194 note 2} Sūra xvii, 87.

^{page 195 note 1} Cf. Iḥyā' iv, p. 23. “By the heart I mean the inner self which belongs to the world of amr.”

^{page 195 note 2} Cf. p. 194 above.

^{page 196 note 1} The Cairo text reads “blood”.

^{page 196 note 2} Sūra xvii, 87.

^{page 196 note 3} Sūra lxxxix, 27–30.

^{page 196 note 4} On the world of amr of. Iḥyā', iv, p, 23.

^{page 196 note 5} Cf. Theol. of Aristotle, p. 39, and Plotinus, , “The Intellectual-Principle… the offspring of God.…For here is contained all that is immortal; nothing here but is Divine Mind; all is God.” Ennead, v, 1, 4 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 196 note 6} “The Pen is that which God created to enable the hearts of men to be inscribed with knowledge.” lḥyā', iii, p. 14. Identified with Universal Mind in al-Ma'ārif al-'Aqliyya, fol. 21b.

^{page 197 note 1} Cf. Plotinus, , “Sprung from the Intellectual-Principle, Soul is intellective…its substantial existence comes from the Intellectual-Principle,” Ennead, v, 1, 3Google Scholar.

^{page 197 note 2} Sūra xv, 29; Sūra xxxviii, 72.

^{page 198 note 1} For “body” the Cairo edition reads “religion” ().

^{page 198 note 2} Cf. Plotinus, v, 3, 3.

^{page 198 note 3} Cf. Iḥyā,', iii, p. 15. “The inward eye is the eye of the soul, which is subtle, perceptive, and it is like the rider and the body like the horse, and the blindness of the rider is more harmful to him than the blindness of the horse.” Cf. also iv, p. 430. “The Invisible Divine World is not seen with the outward eye, but only with another eye, which was created in the heart of every man, but man has veiled it by his lusts and worldly pre-occupations and he has ceased to see with it.” Cf. also Rawḍat al-Ṭōlibīn, p. 164.

^{page 199 note 1} Cf. Plotinus, vi, 8. “The soul's movement will be about its Source.”

^{page 199 note 2} Cf. Theology of Aristotle, pp. 30, 41.

^{page 199 note 3} Cf. Plotinus, v, 1, 10, “that phase of the soul… having to do with the body, creating, moulding, spending its care upon it.”

^{page 199 note 4} Cf. Suras Ixxv, 2; xii, 53.

^{page 200 note 1} Sūra lxxxix, 14.

^{page 200 note 2} Sūra xviii, 44.

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Al-Risālat Al-Laduniyya. By Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad Al-Ghazālī (450/1059–505/1111)

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