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Spiritual_Roadmap_by_Ghazali, page : 130
much
time and energy to the study of their sciences and methods, I mean those of the mystics, the
philosophers,
the `authoritarian instructionists‟ (ta`limiya), and the outstanding scholars (mutawassimun), that
to show up
their errors was easier for me than drinking water. As I observed all this, the impression was
formed in me:
`That is a fixed and determinate character of this time; what benefit to you, then, are solitude
and retirement,
since the sickness has become general, the doctors have fallen ill, and mankind has reached the
verge of
destruction?‟ I said to myself, however: `When will you busy yourself in resolving
these difficulties and
attacking these obscurities, seeing it is an age of slackness, in an era of futility?
Even if you were to
summon men from their worthless ways to the truth, the people of this age would be
united in showing
hostility against you. How will you stand up to them? How will you live among them,
time and energy to the study of their sciences and methods, I mean those of the mystics, the
philosophers,
the `authoritarian instructionists‟ (ta`limiya), and the outstanding scholars (mutawassimun), that
to show up
their errors was easier for me than drinking water. As I observed all this, the impression was
formed in me:
`That is a fixed and determinate character of this time; what benefit to you, then, are solitude
and retirement,
since the sickness has become general, the doctors have fallen ill, and mankind has reached the
verge of
destruction?‟ I said to myself, however: `When will you busy yourself in resolving
these difficulties and
attacking these obscurities, seeing it is an age of slackness, in an era of futility?
Even if you were to
summon men from their worthless ways to the truth, the people of this age would be
united in showing
hostility against you. How will you stand up to them? How will you live among them,