A Forgery in al-Ghazālī's Mishkāt?

W. Montgomery Watt

doi:10.1017/S0035869X00102461

A Forgery in al-Ghazālī's Mishkāt?

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011

W. Montgomery Watt

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The importance of the Mishkāt al-Anwār for a full understanding of the thought of al-Ghazālī was long ago recognized by Goldziher. He impressed this on W. H. T. Gairdner, when, in 1911, he was guiding him into the higher reaches of Islamic studies; and in due course Gairdner produced an article on Al-Ghazālī's Mishkāt al-Anwār and the Ghazālī-Problem and a Translation of the opuscule accompanied by a thought-provoking Introduction. On the whole the problems there raised have not received from subsequent writers the attention which Gairdner's discussion of them merits and their own importance warrants.

Type: Articles
Information: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 81 , Issue 1-2 , April 1949 , pp. 5 - 22

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00102461 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1949

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^{page 5 note 1} Der Islam, v (1914), 121–153Google Scholar.

^{page 5 note 2} London, 1924 (Asiatic Society Monographs, XIX). References to the Mishkāt are to the Cairo edition of 1322 (whose pages are given in the translation in square brackets), followed by the pages of the translation in round brackets. I have generally used Gairdner's translation without alteration.

^{page 6 note 1} Introduction, p. 29. Wensinck, is also aware of the contrast between the Veils-section and al-Ghazālī's usual doctrine (La Pensée de Ghazzali, p. 13)Google Scholar.

^{page 6 note 2} Mishkāt, 54 (95).

^{page 6 note 3} Der Islam, v, 126.

^{page 7 note 1} Ed. Muḥyi 'l-Dīn Ṣabrī 'l-Kurdī, Cairo, 1357/1938, p. 249.

^{page 7 note 2} Ed. al-Kurdī, Cairo, n.d., part ii, ch. 3, “On the Attributes of God,” fourth type, p. 152. Cf. Najāh, p. 251.

^{page 7 note 3} Mishkāt, 53 (94).

^{page 7 note 4} Cf. Strothmann, art. “Tashbīh” in EI.

^{page 8 note 1} Mishkāt, 24 (65); 7 (48).

^{page 8 note 2} Mishkāt, 34 (76).

^{page 8 note 3} Ibid., 56 (97).

^{page 9 note 1} Ibid., 12 (52).

^{page 9 note 2} Ibid., 13 (54).

^{page 9 note 3} Ibid., 14 (55); cf. 22 (63).

^{page 9 note 4} Ibid., 39 (81) ff.; 43 (84) ff.

^{page 10 note 1} Ibid., 42.

^{page 11 note 1} Ibid., 56 (97).

^{page 12 note 1} Ibid., 47 (88).

^{page 12 note 2} Ibid., 10 (51).

^{page 12 note 3} Ibid., 7 (48).

^{page 12 note 4} Ibid., 26 (67 f.).

^{page 13 note 1} There is an interesting reference to the Seventy Veils at the end of Part III of the Ihḥyā' (K. dhamm al-ghurūr, third ṣanf, last firqah, ed. Cairo, 1316, p. 330)Google Scholar. The point made there is that as each veil is removed before a man he imagines that he has reached the final state, the “presence”. The first veil is the nafs or sirr al-qalb, because in the heart are manifested or revealed ḥaqīqat al-Ḥaqq kulli-hi and ṣūrat al-kull; thereupon Divine light shines in it, and the man, may be misled into extravagant ideas and even into extravagant words, such as Ana 'l-Ḥaqq. This passage follows a different line of thought from both those just considered, but is not incompatible with either. It is perhaps closest to the treatment found in the Veils-section, but differs from that in that the deception is due to the failure to realize that a brighter light lies beyond, whereas in the Veils-section there is a combining of the light apprehended with the darkness of sense, etc. Perhaps the most significant point about the passage in the Iḥyā' with regard to the present discussion is that there is no mention of “veils of darkness” but only of “veils of light”. I have not come across the “veils of darkness” anywhere in the authentic works of al-Ghazālī, whereas he frequently refers to the “seventy veils of light”, cf. Iḥyā' i, 87; ii, 220 (ed. 1316)Google Scholar; or i, 90; ii, 247 (ed. 1348).

^{page 14 note 1} I use “Neoplatonic” as a convenient way of rererring to the school of al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā.

^{page 14 note 2} Al-Kashf 'an Manāhij al-Adillah, ed. Müller, , p. 71Google Scholar, ed. Cairo, p. 59 (I quote from Gairdner's article, p. 133).

^{page 14 note 3} The Arabic is: taṣrīh min-hu bi-' ‘'tiqād madhāhib al-hukamā’ fi 'l-'ulūm al-ilāhīyah (loc. cit.).

^{page 15 note 1} Der Islam, v, 137–145.

^{page 15 note 2} Mishkāt, 23 (64); I have made some alterations in the translation of the last part of the first sentence.

^{page 15 note 3} Ibid., 20 (61); I have substituted “affirmation of unity” as a translation of tawḥid for Gairdner's “unification”, following Nallino, , Raccolta di Scritti, ii, 234Google Scholar.

^{page 16 note 1} Iḥyā', iv, al-Tawḥīd, K. . . ., Bayän Haqīqat al-Tawḥīd . . . (ed. Cairo, 1316, p. 200)Google Scholar.

^{page 16 note 2} Raccolta, ii, 233 n.

^{page 17 note 1} Al-Risālah al-Ladunīyah, chs. v, vi; cf. DrSmith's, Margaret Introduction to her Translation, JRAS., 1938, 179 ffGoogle Scholar.

^{page 17 note 2} Cf. Munqidh, discussion of ṭabī'īyāt and ilāhīyāt in the section on the philosophical sciences, ed. Damascus, , 1939/1358, pp. 95 fGoogle Scholar.

^{page 17 note 3} Mīzān al-'Amal, ed. Cairo, 1342, p. 107Google Scholar.

^{page 18 note 1} Ibid., 162 ff.

^{page 21 note 1} 35–8 (77–80).

^{page 22 note 1} 7 (48).

^{page 22 note 2} 51 (92); 56 (97).

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A Forgery in al-Ghazālī's Mishkāt?

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