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Ghazali_Letters_To_Statemen, page : 85
than to an original inclination of the mind. They should be told that the soul has an eye,
just as the body has, by which we may know the sovereign truth and learn to love the
sovereign goodness which is Allah. This type of truth can be attained from mystics who
have been liberally educated in the science of Allah. "Question the people of the
Remembrance, of which you do not know." Koran, Chapter 16 verse 43.
Just as a physician knows through his reasoning faculty and experience that man lives
up to a certain age and that he eats different foods to keep him healthy. He also knows
that poison brings death to a man. Similarly, we know that man is destined to live an
eternal life which death cannot take away and that his salvation lies in forgetting all
earthly things, even himself, so that in the enveloping light he may see marvelous things
and be filled with Divine joy.
Salvation is one thing and to be blessed with Divine Grace is quite another. No amount
of poetical imagination or religious institution of a very high order could attain to these
truths, which cannot be picked up out of books, for the soul may see more in an instant
than can be written in the voluminous references. The words are all coined to express
things which belong to the realm of space and time, and obviously they do not even fit a
reality which stands in eternity. We see, feel and know imperfectly very few things in the
just as the body has, by which we may know the sovereign truth and learn to love the
sovereign goodness which is Allah. This type of truth can be attained from mystics who
have been liberally educated in the science of Allah. "Question the people of the
Remembrance, of which you do not know." Koran, Chapter 16 verse 43.
Just as a physician knows through his reasoning faculty and experience that man lives
up to a certain age and that he eats different foods to keep him healthy. He also knows
that poison brings death to a man. Similarly, we know that man is destined to live an
eternal life which death cannot take away and that his salvation lies in forgetting all
earthly things, even himself, so that in the enveloping light he may see marvelous things
and be filled with Divine joy.
Salvation is one thing and to be blessed with Divine Grace is quite another. No amount
of poetical imagination or religious institution of a very high order could attain to these
truths, which cannot be picked up out of books, for the soul may see more in an instant
than can be written in the voluminous references. The words are all coined to express
things which belong to the realm of space and time, and obviously they do not even fit a
reality which stands in eternity. We see, feel and know imperfectly very few things in the