ABSTRACT
on al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) and the book from which this passage is taken, al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl (‘Deliverance from error’), see above, Section 6.4. As was suggested above, the entire treatise is probably better understood as a work of epistemology. The aim is to show that right knowledge will deliver one from error. Here, he speaks autobiographically about the knowledge of the Ṣūfīs, the last group whom he describes on his quest for knowledge. It is therefore with the Ṣūfīs that al-Ghazālī finds his thirst for certain knowledge of the truth satisfied. He describes the practical steps necessary for purifying one’s heart, and the importance of direct experience, or ‘taste’, for mystical knowledge. Al-Ghazālī discovers that the path of the Ṣūfī saints can bestow on the seeker direct experiences that are comparable with the experiences of prophets, in this way providing irrefutable proof of the truths of religion. Following the discussion provided here, he is able to argue for the reality of prophecy in general, through a faculty of perception grounded in the soul, which can be verified by non-prophets through ‘taste’ (i.e. direct experience) on the path of the Ṣūfīs.
