Al-GHAZALI, AHMAD B. MUHAMMAD, brother
of the more renowned Muhammad Ghazali, the Sufi and popular preacher, made his
way via Hamadan to Baghdad, and took his brothers place when the latter
retired from teaching at the Nizamiyya. He died in 520/1126 in Kazwin. He wrote
an abridged version of the K. al-Ihya of
his brother, which has not survived; an exposition in sermon form of his
confession of faith, al-Tajrid fi kalimat al-tawhid (Turkish translation
by M. Fewzi, el-Tefrid fi terjemet
el-Tejrid, Istanbul 1285); a discussion of the admissibility of sama (Sufi music and dancing), Bawarik al-ilma fi l-radd ala man
yuharimu I-sama, ed. J. Robson in
Tracts on listening to music (Or.
Transl. Fund, NS v), London 1938; a subtle psychology of love, Sawanih, ed. H. Ritter (Bibl. Islamica,
xv) 1942; (probably) the Risalat al-Tayr,
which was the inspiration for the Mantik
al-tayr of Farid al-Din Attar (see
H. Ritter, Das Meer der Seele, 8-1o);
and other minor writings which have not yet been investigated. His sermons were
very popular in Baghdad, and were collected in two volumes by Sa`id b. Faris
al-Labbani; of these however, only extracts are preserved in Ibn al-Jawzi. In
them he undertook the defense of Satan (al-taassub
li-lblis), popular in many Sufi circles since Hallaj, which was soon
afterwards further developed by Attar (see Das
Meer der Seele, 536-5o), and which presumably gave the so-called Devil
worshippers, the Yazidis, the justification for their worship of Satan (Ahmad
Taymur Pasha, al-Yazidiyya, Cairo
1352, 59-61).
Bibliography: Brockelmann, S 1, 756,
1=, 546; `Umar Rida Kahhala, Muajam
al-muallifin, Damascus 1957, iii, 147; L. Massignon, Recueil de textes inidits concernant lhistoire de la mystique en pays dIslam, Paris x929, 95-8; H. Ritter, Das Meer der Seele, Leiden 1955, index; Ibn al-Jawzi, al-Muntazam, S.
A. 520; idem, Akhabar al-kussa wa l-mudhakkirin, ms. Leiden 2156, fol. 77 a-b;
Ibn Khallikan, no. 37; Subki, Tabakat al-sufiyya, iv, 54.
(H.
Ritter)
See also: Encylopedia Iranica's article as well as Ahmad al-Ghazali (d. 517/1123 or 520/1126) and the metaphysics of love (Ahmad ibn Muhammad Ghazzali). Lumbard, Joseph Edward Barbour, PhD. YALE UNIVERSITY, 2003. 367 pp.
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