The Niche of Lights Quotes

“A fourth group of people climbs from ignorance and pretends to possess the rational faculty. They suppose that the highest felicity is the expansion of honor and fame, the spread of reputation, a multiplicity of followers, and the influence of the command that is obeyed. Hence, you see that their only concern is eye service and cultivation of the things upon which observers cast their glance. One of them may go hungry in his house and suffer harm so that he can spend his wealth on clothes with which to adorn himself so that no one will look at him with the eye of contempt when he goes out. The types of these people are beyond count. All of them are veiled from Allah by the sheer darkness that is their own dark souls.”
― Al-Ghazali, The Niche of Lights

“A third group of people see the highest felicity in the abundance of property and the extension of ease. After all, property is an instrument to achieve the object of appetite. Through it, the human being attains the ability to achieve wishes. Hence, these people aspire to gather property; to increase estates, land, valuable horses, cattle, and farmland, and to hoard dinars in the earth. Hence, you will see one of them striving throughout life --- embarking on great dangers in the deserts, on journeys, and in the oceans to gather possessions with which he is niggardly toward himself, to say nothing of others. These are the ones meant by the words of The Prophet: "The slave of the dirham is miserable: the slave of the dinar is miserable." What darkness is greater than that which deceives the human being? Gold and silver are two stones that are not desired in themselves. When wishes are not achieved through them and they are not spent, then they are just like pebbles, and pebbles are just like them.”
― Al-Ghazali, The Niche of Lights

“ما دُمتَ ملوثا بما سوى الله فلا بُد لك من نفي لا إله, و إذا غبتَ عن الكل في مشاهدة صاحب الكل, استرحتَ من نفي لا إله, و وصلتَ إلى الإثبات قل الله ثم ذرهم في خوضهم يلعبون”
― أبو حامد الغزالي, The Niche of Lights

“The perfect man is the one who does not let the light of his knowledge quench the light of his reverence.”
― أبو حامد الغزالي, The Niche of Lights

“والعقل يدرِك أن الصبي يتحرك في النمو والتزايد على الدوام والظل متحركاً دائماً والكواكب تتحرك في كل لحظة أميالاً كثيرة كما قال صلى الله عليه و سلم لجبريل "أزالت الشمس ؟" فقال "لا، نعم" قال "وكيف ؟" قال: "منذ قلتْ لا إلى أن قلتْ نعم قد تحركَتْ مسيرة خمسمائة عام".”
― أبو حامد الغزالي, The Niche of Lights

“For 'tis a hazardous thing to plunge into the fathomless sea of the Divine mysteries; and hard, hard it is to essay the discovery of the Lights Supernal that are beyond the Veil.”
― أبو حامد الغزالي, The Niche of Lights

“Whoever abstracts and isolates the outward from the whole is a Materialist, and whoever abstracts. the inward is a Spiritualist, while he who joins the two together is catholic, perfect.”
― أبو حامد الغزالي, The Niche of Lights

“the Pilgrim of the Way rises first of all to a degree corresponding to that of a star. The effulgence of that star's light appears to him., It is disclosed to him that the entire world beneath adores its influence and the effulgence of its light. And so, because of the very beauty and superbness of the thing, he is made aware of something which cries aloud saying, "This is my Lord?"[1] He passes on; and as he be. comes conscious of the light-degree next above. it, namely, that symbolized by the moon, lo! in the aerial canopy he beholds that star set, to wit, in comparison with its superior; and he saith, "Nought that setteth do I adore!" And so he rises till he arrives at last at the degree symbolized by the sun. This, again, he sees is greater and higher than the former, but nevertheless admits of comparison therewith, in,

[1. See for this whole passage S. 6, 75-8.]

{p. 128}

virtue of a relationship between the two. [31] But to bear relationship to what is imperfect carries with it imperfection-the "setting" of our allegory. And by reason thereof he saith: "I have turned my face unto That Who made the heavens and the earth! I am a true believer, and, not of those who associate other gods with Allah!" Now what is meant to be conveyed by this "THAT WHO" is the vaguest kind of indication, destitute of all relation or comparison. For, were anyone to ask, "What is the symbol comparable with or corresponding to this That?' no answer to the question could be conceived. Now He Who transcends all relations is ALLAH, the ONE REALITY.”
― أبو حامد الغزالي, The Niche of Lights

“ولا يبعد ايها المعتكف في عالم العقل أن يكون وراء العقل طور آخر يظهر فيه ما لا يظهر في عالم العقل - ولا تجعل أقصى الكمال وقفا على نفسك”
― Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, ‫مشكاة الأنوار‬

“L'existence peut se diviser en deux sortes : celle qui appartient à l'être du fait de sa propre existence (dhât), et celle celle qui appartient à l'être du fait d'un autre. L'existence qui appartient à l'être du fait d'un autre est une existence empruntée, et il ne subsiste pas par lui-même. Bien mieux, si l'on considère son essence en tant que telle, elle est pure non-être. Il n'existe que par sa relation à un autre. Ce n'est pas une véritable existence, comme tu l'as compris par l'exemple précédent de l'emprunt des vêtements et de la richesse. L'être véritable (al-mawjûd al-haqq) est Dieu, de même que la Lumière véritable est Dieu.”
― أبو حامد الغزالي, The Niche of Lights