The Self as Enemy, the Self as Divine: A Crossroads in the Development of Islamic Anthropology

Abstract

Towards the end of his life the Muslim theologian, jurist, and mystic Abū Ḥāmid Muhạmmad al-Ghazālī (1058–1111 CE) composed a streamlined version of his principal work, The Revivification of the Religious Sciences (Iḥyā’ ‘ulūm al-dīn). The original title of the work, written in Ghazālī’s native Persian, is The Chemistry of Happiness: yet the common European custom of translating the first word as “alchemy” is not entirely out of place. Ghazālī’s stated intention, after all, is to isolate the human being’s most valuable component from amidst the many things out of which the individual is composed. He likens this procedure to the process whereby base metals are transmuted into gold.1