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Al-Ghazzali’s Mishkat al-Anwar (“The Niche for Lights”)

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali · tr. W. H. T. Gairdner · c. 1100 (tr. 1924) · 33,808 words

Al-Ghazali’s great treatise on the Light-Verse of the Qur’an: God as the Light of the heavens and the earth, the ladder of lights, the science of symbolism, and the seventy thousand veils.

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Author's Preface

I AM so conscious that my general equipment was insufficient to warrant my having undertaken an introduction to this treatise (in addition to the translation), that my utmost hope is this,—that what I have written may be regarded by lenient Orientalists as something to elicit—provoke, if you will—the necessary supplementing and formative criticism; or as useful materials to be built into some more authoritative and better informed work: and that they may from this point of view be inclined to pardon what otherwise might seem an unwarrantable piece of rashness and indiscretion.

A still greater presumption remains to be forgiven, but this time on the ground of the great human simplicities, when I venture to inscribe this work, in spite of everything, to the beloved memory of

IGNAZ GOWZIHER

—that golden-hearted man—who in 1911 introduced me to the Mishkât; and to join with his

{p. viii} name that of

Duncan black macdonald who first introduced me to the Mishkât's author. Of these twain, the latter may perhaps forgive the lapses of a pupil because of the filial joy with which, I know well, he will see the two names joined together, howsoever or by whomsoever it was done. As for the former,... in Abraham's bosom all things are forgiven.

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Contents

  1. Author's Preface
  2. Introduction
  3. I. Date, Object, and General Contents
  4. II. Mysteries Left Veiled in This Treatise
  5. III. A Ghazzalian Philosophy of Religion
  6. IV. Ghazzali Problems Raised by the Foregoing
  7. V. The Problem of the Vicegerent in Ibn Rushd and Ibn Tufail
  8. VI. One Solution of the Problem of the Vicegerent
  9. VII. Another Solution
  10. VIII. Al-Ghazzali and the Seven Spheres
  11. IX. Anthropomorphism and Theomorphism in Al-Mishkat
  12. X. Pantheism and Al-Ghazzali, in Al-Mishkat
  13. Translation
  14. Part I: Light, and Lights: Preliminary Studies
  15. Part II.--The Science of Symbolism
  16. Part IIi.--The Application to the Light-Verse and the Veils Tradition

About this edition

Source: Internet Sacred Text Archive

Public domain: Public domain in the US (published 1924); Gairdner died 1928, so it is also public domain where copyright lasts 70 years after the author’s death.

What’s included: Gairdner’s preface, his introduction and the complete translation.

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