Imam al-Ghazali, may Allah have mercy on him, is the only person in our history of fourteen hundred years who is Mujaddid-e-il-Ilam. The situation of his becoming Mujaddid-e-ul-Ilam happened in such a way that at the age of twenty-one, he reached Nizamiya University in Baghdad. It was the most unique and the largest educational institution of its kind in the history of Islam, which was established by the famous Seljuq Prime Minister Nizam al-Mulk al-Tusi. Imam Ghazali came to Nizamiyyah as a Dea and left within a few months. It was not that some other seminary had offered him a better position and a handsome salary, or that he thought that the fun of doing religious work could be found in asking for donations in nothing else. So he decided to ask for donations and establish his seminary, where Sheikh Al-Hadith and the moderators will remain poor, but he and his children will enjoy luxury.
Seeing the situation of Nizamiyyah, Imam Ghazali faced a major internal crisis. One can estimate the severity of this by the fact that when he left Nizamiyyah, he went straight to the blessed grave of Hazrat Ibrahim (Peace Be Upon Him) in Hebron. And there some words containing this meaning were given.
“O Khalil of Allah! A big mistake has been made by us. Religion has been left out of our religious education. Now I will use my life to change this situation, take me by the hand.”
From here Imam Ghazali went straight to his village Tus. There he pledged allegiance to his younger brother Ahmed Ghazali and made him his mentor. And in the village itself, he started teaching Nazra Quran to the children. Just see if you say to a Sheikh of today that you have to teach Nazra Quran Majeed next year. He will say if you do not enlighten your fourteen classes. Not only those fourteen classes will enlighten, but the news will spread like wildfire in all the religious institutions at the city level that a great Shaykh of Hadith has been insulted by being formed into a Nazra class. As if service is the most elementary rank of the Holy Qur’an, it is insulting to a Sheikh al-hadith.
Hajjat al-Islam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali continued to teach Nazra Quran Majeed in Tus for two years. And then one day they got up and the second time Nizamia reached Baghdad. Once again became Dean and with full authority. Within a short period of time, the entire educational structure of this institution was changed. No time for long details, but you can guess from just one rule what was the reason for making this rule and what were its effects. The principle is that the criteria for being promoted in the specialization levels will not be based on how much the student has understood the books of the class he has read. Rather, it will be that what is the level of the student’s engagement in nawafil, zikr and azkar, and recitation of the Holy Quran? It is as if Imam Ghazali combined the seminary and the monastery.
And the reason for this was that Imam al-Ghazali used to say plainly that the religion of Allah is no longer existential. That is, as a result of the religious education of that period, the religious scholar had religion in his mind that if he asked to describe it, the ocean of knowledge would overflow, but according to Ghazali, religion had been excluded from his practice. And these were the people who were far superior to today’s scholars in matters of action. So, Imam Ghazali had set the goal that by putting religion in the mind into action, the scholar of religion is to make the religion “the embodiment of religion” so that any of his actions are an expression of the exact order of religion.
Along with changing the Jamia Nizamiya system, Imam Ghazali wrote Tahafta al-Filasafah. This sixty-page book is so powerful that today’s modern West is based on the philosophy of Rene Descartes and Hume. In Tahafa, Imam Ghazali wrote that Greek philosophy stands on 20 principles. And see the wonder that the first person to discover these twenty principles of Greek philosophy is Imam Ghazali. Go back from Ghazali to Socrates, you will not even find the phrase “There are twenty principles of Greek philosophy” then Ghazali, while cross-examining these twenty principles, has proved the first three principles to be disbelief. And it is clear that if these principles are removed, Greek philosophy cannot survive. So there is no room for improvement. The result is that the scholarly taste of the Islamic world, which had been based on uni philosophy for a long time, has completely changed. The Sunni school of thought kicked out Greek philosophy and replaced it with philosophy.
What Ghazali did was that the Fatimid concept of spirituality was becoming dominant over the spirituality of the Islamic world of that period. So, by writing Ahya Uloom al-Din, Ghazali also addressed that issue. Not only remedy, but uprooted all its roots from the heart of the Islamic world. Thus, when Ghazali left the world at the age of only 51 years, he created a scientific revolution. But the sad thing is that our religious circle is again facing the situation. Religion once again ceased to exist. The entity that this education system has neglected the most is none other than Allah himself. Relationship with Allah is not found even with deception.
The relationship with Allah is not a joke. This is established only when the correct recognition of Allah is available. Don’t we see that these gentlemen present the Lord who loves more than seventy mothers like Allah as a cruel and terrifying entity? Those whose concept of monotheism is based on the fact that you should come close to Allah because if you do not come, He will turn you away, how can he claim that he is religious and is connected with religious work?
The question is, how does one know whether there is a relationship with Allah or not? The only measure of relationship with Allah is posthumous worship. According to our religious community, Hassan Basri or Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani reach the position of Wilayat as a result of obligatory worship. How many imams of our mosques are there who can be seen in the mosque till dawn? How many imams are there who are seen reciting while sitting in the mosque? If someone says that we perform posthumous worship at home, then you should read the rules that Imam Abu Yusuf wrote for Imams.
