This person is famous around the world under different names. The most famous and, perhaps, the deepest and the most accurate one is “Hujjat al-Islam” – “Proof of Islam”. Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali, who we are going to speak about, passed away at the age of 53. It is worth mentioning that he has been remaining one of the most prominent Muslim philosopher, theologian, jurist and mystic of Sunni Islam.
He lived a thousand years ago in the city of Tus at the time of the great Seljuk Empire and spent most of his life teaching and reviving what he considered to be “lost” in Islam. At the height of his career, if one can say so, al-Ghazali held the most prestigious and the most challenging professorial position in the Nizamiyya madrasah in Baghdad. To put it simply, no other Muslim in his time had the same power like him when it came to Islamic issues. Besides, he experienced a spiritual crisis, which was the reason of his 10-year break in science. During that break, he travelled a lot around the Muslim world. He performed hajj and spent a lot of time working on his own ego, which, in his opinion, had made him a hypocrite.
Known in the Islamic world as a jurist, theologian and one of the leading authorities of Sufism, imam al-Ghazali was born in Tabaran, in the district of Tus, Khorasan and had Persian roots. Some time after his father’s death, driven by poverty and search for food, he entered a madrasah together with his brother. His first biographer Abd al-Ghafir al-Farisi noted that al-Ghazali began to receive instruction in fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) from Ahmad al-Radhakani, a local teacher.
Later he moved to Nishapur and studied under al-Juwayni, a prominent jurist and theologian, who had the title of “the most outstanding Muslim scholar of his time”. After al-Juwayni’s death in 1085, al-Ghazali left Nishapur and joined the court of Nizam al-Mulk, the Seljuq vizier. There he became the head of the Nizamiyya madrasah and also gave lectures. But in 10 years, when the vizier was assassinated by the members of Ismailis, imam al-Ghazali began to experience a spiritual crisis. “I remembered my intention to teach and it turned out that I was not doing it purely for the sake of Allah, but for the sake of glory and honor. That’s when I made sure I was on the precipice and I could end up in Hell, if I did not fix my situation”, al-Ghazali wrote in his autobiography.
Leaving the town on the pretext of hajj, he had been having an ascetic life for 11 years. Of course, he had taken care of his family by spreading his savings.
After spending some time in Damascus and Jerusalem, having visited Medina and Mecca in 1096, he returned to Tus in order to live in solitude. He understood it as an abstinence from teaching in public institutions. However, al-Ghazali continued to publish works, receive visitors and teach in the zawiya (private madrasah) and khanaq (Sufi monastery, which consisted of a mosque and living quarters).
Vizier Fakhr al-Mulk, Nizam al-Mulk’s son, pressed al-Ghazali to return to Nishapur to teach at the Nizamiyya madrasah. In 1110 he gave up teaching again and returned to Tus, having declined the invitation from the grand vizier Muhammad I to go to Baghdad.
Shortly before his death, al-Ghazali lived in a cell and taught the young generation Sufism.
Al-Ghazali died in December in 1111 at the age of 53. During his lifetime he had written more than 70 books on fiqh, Islamic theology and Sufism. He was buried in Tus. Only in 1995 did archaeological excavations allow to find the ruins of his tomb – the structure of Haruniyeh. Some believe that Haruniyeh is a former school; others are of the opinion that this building could be a monastery. There are some people who think it was a temple of the Sasanian era, which was later transformed into a mosque. According to one more point of view, it was the burial place of the prominent Muslim theologian imam Muhammad al-Ghazali. This version is confirmed by a small memorial stone with the inscription “imam al-Ghazali”, which is located directly in the yard of Haruniyeh.
Tus is situated 30 km gar from the city of Mashhad, where the temple of Imam Reza (the eighth Shia imam), a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed, is located. By the way, Firdausi and Omar Khayyam also found their earthly rest near Mashhad.
If you decide to go to the city of Tus, you will be sadly surprised by how it looks now. The tomb of Firdausi, which can be found here, is magnificent and was clearly created under the impression of the tomb of Cyrus the Great. A long time ago, Tus was a significant point in the Greater Khorasan area. It flourished at the same time as poets, mystics, erudites and scholars appeared and grew in stature. It was here that Jabir ibn Hayyan, Asadi Tusi, Nizam al-Mulk and, of course, al-Ghazali himself earned their names.
History played its role in the destruction of the city, which was on the path of the Mongol invasion. Genghis Khan's troops passed through that city and cut and burned flowers and people, and then dug out the roots of plants and pressed them with the hooves of their horses. Anger and brute force of the Mongols were so great that they would make the stones bleed if they had any signs of Persian, Arab, or Islamic influence. That was the fate of Khorasan. The light of the East was extinguished with such incredible power that it took centuries to restore it, even though the destroyed cities were never able to achieve their former greatness. Evidence of this is the madrassah found not so long ago in Tus, which is reminiscent of a fiery storm lit 800 years ago by Mongols with every stone. Nowadays, Tus is a sad and gloomy place, the residents of which are doomed to carry sweet sorrow in their eyes throughout their earthly lives.
“Think of your contemporaries, who already died and were of your age. Remember the honor and glory that they deserved, high positions that they occupied and beautiful bodies that they had. Now they have turned into dust. They left orphans and widows behind, their wealth wasted, and their houses turned into ruins. Now there is no trace of them, and they lie in dark burrows underground. Imagine their faces in your mind and ponder" Al-Ghazali.
Ilmira Gafiyatullina