I found this quote in a book given to me by my friend and brother Andre: “Memoirs of the Saints” by Dr Bankey Behari (2nd ed. 1965).
The quote is attributed to an anonymous “great mystic” who is commenting on the Iḥiyāʾ ʿulūm ad-dīn ("The Revival of the Religious Sciences") written in the 11th century by Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazali.
You can find a discussion of this work on Wikipedia.
This great mystic notes that it was only by great spiritual purification and endeavour that al-Ghazali was able to render such splendid words. As he says:
"The cause of it is that it was written at a time when al-Ghazali was passing his days in ecstasy in the wilderness, performing much contemplation, austerities, fasts and night vigils, in solitude. He had waded through much canonical ritualistic and philosophical literature but had found no solace…. He renounced all the clamour of the world to achieve this goal of realisation. Donning a blanket he wandered alone in the wilderness and achieved this goal, the contentment of his soul, and his spiritual hunger was appeased."
The aim to write such words - and indeed the possibility that such words might even exist - has been forgotten by modern secular writers.
Writers of earnest literate fiction (a genre now called Literary Fiction, or less kindly "Booker Bait") seem to have the opposite motivation, producing reams of shelf-filler for a narrow audience with little to differentiate each book. Producing cleverness but no wisdom, artiness without true art, and a pale imitation of Love without the heat and the guttiness and the wild trans-human power of it.
Anyone who knows my fiction will know that I have different aspirations.
My (evolving) style that I call Hypnogogic (Hyp) Prose aims very explicitly to recapture some of the power of scriptural and revelatory language, adapting it towards humane themes and a modern ear.
Although the ability to write such prose may not take extreme asceticism and mortifications of the flesh, I think it does require profound confrontation with your own soul, along with the courage to Love and to Work and to Suffer (Aimer, Travailler, et Souffrir) for many years.
Of course my aspirations are merely aspirations. I am very well aware of my own human weakness and insufficiency, and that the reach of language far surpasses the grasping of a single human soul.
That is why my major aim is to encourage other writers to aspire to this kind of greatness: to give their all in a search for truth and for truthful ways of telling it, so that all of us can benefit from the changes wrought by the real majesty of language.
P. Julian
4 October 2018
Here is the quote (in full) with some context:
“The mere reading of it produces a spiritual effect in the reader. Every word cuts the heart like a dagger thrust and pierces like a lancet. Every word produces a miraculous change. One goes into ecstasy by mere perusal of the work...
... The cause of it is that it was written at a time when al-Ghazali was passing his days in ecstasy in the wilderness, performing much contemplation, austerities, fasts and night vigils, in solitude. He had waded through much canonical ritualistic and philosophical literature but had found no solace…. He renounced all the clamour of the world to achieve this goal of realisation. Donning a blanket he wandered alone in the wilderness and achieved this goal, the contentment of his soul, and his spiritual hunger was appeased."
Comments