Self-delusion (ghurur)

For al-Ghazali, self-delusion (ghurur) is "the soul's resting in what agrees with desire and appeals to its nature, on the basis of a false proof and a deceit of Satan": whoever believes himself to be in a good state, now or later, on the strength of a corrupt proof is deluded. ² It is the tenth and last book of the quarter of destructive things in Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din, and al-Ghazali calls it "the mother of miseries and the source of destructive things". ^{3 4 1}

Al-Ghazali holds that everything said in praise of knowledge and in censure of ignorance is also a censure of self-delusion, because delusion is one kind of ignorance: ignorance is to believe a thing to be other than it is, and delusion is a particular ignorance driven by desire and by a doubtful argument that its holder takes for a proof when it is not. ^{5 2} He says most people are deluded, in different classes and degrees, and that the plainest and most serious delusion is that of unbelievers, then that of sinners. ²

He illustrates the delusion of those beguiled by this world with their reasoning: this world is cash and the hereafter is credit, and cash is better than credit; the pleasures of this world are certain and those of the hereafter doubtful, and certainty is not given up for doubt. He calls these "corrupt syllogisms" resembling the reasoning of Iblis. ^{6 7} The cure is either accepting faith on trust, as Dimam ibn Tha'laba accepted the Prophet ﷺ's word, which is "the faith of the common people" and is enough to escape delusion, or knowledge by demonstration. ^{7 8}

He then takes the syllogism apart. The first premise, "this world is cash and the hereafter credit", is true; the second, "cash is better than credit", is where the confusion lies, because cash is better only when it equals the credit. A merchant gives one dirham to receive ten later, and a sick man gives up fruit for fear of pain to come; both have accepted credit. The longest human life bears no comparison with the span of the hereafter, and the pleasures of this world are clouded while those of the hereafter are pure. ^{9 10}

Al-Ghazali says the groups of the deluded are many but fall into four classes: scholars, worshippers, Sufis and the wealthy. Among the ways delusion enters he lists seeing wrong as right, like one who decorates a mosque with unlawful money; failing to distinguish what one does for oneself from what one does for God, like the preacher who seeks acceptance; neglecting obligations for supererogatory acts; and leaving the kernel for the husk, like one whose whole concern in prayer is correct pronunciation of the letters. ^{1 11}

People of learning

The first group of scholars, for him, are those who mastered the religious and rational sciences but neglected watching over their limbs, thinking their knowledge would intercede for them. He answers that knowledge is of two kinds: the knowledge of conduct, sought only for action, and the knowledge of unveiling. ¹² He compares them to a sick man who learnt his remedy from a skilled physician, wrote it out in a fine copy and taught it to other patients, but never drank it; had he written a thousand copies it would not have cured him. So too the jurist who mastered the knowledge of acts of obedience and did not perform them. ^{13 14} He holds that love of leadership and status and the pleasure of boasting may blind a scholar until he thinks himself busy with his religion. ¹⁵

People of worship

Among the deluded worshippers, he says, some are deluded in prayer, some in reciting the Qur'an, in pilgrimage, in fighting or in renunciation. Some neglect obligations and busy themselves with merits until they fall into excess, like the man obsessed with doubts in ablution who will not accept water that the legal opinion declares pure, yet becomes lax when it comes to eating only what is lawful. ^{16 17}

Sufis

Al-Ghazali says delusion is "most prevalent" among the Sufis, and that one group of them, "the Sufis of our time except those God protects", were deluded by dress, manner and speech: they resembled the sincere in clothing, vocabulary and etiquette, in listening sessions and dancing, sitting on the prayer mat and bowing the head, and thought this made them Sufis, without exerting themselves in spiritual struggle and watching over the heart. ^{15 18}

The wealthy

Among them, he says, are those eager to build mosques, colleges, Sufi lodges and bridges and to write their names on them in brick so that their memory lasts. They are deluded in two ways: they build them from money gained by oppression and bribes, when the duty is to return it to its owners, their heirs, or the most pressing public needs; and they think themselves sincere, though if one of them were asked to spend a dinar without his name being written, it would be hard on him. ^{19 20}

Al-Ghazali places deliverance from self-delusion in several things, among them the intellect, which he sees as an innate gift in the original disposition; he cites reports about asking after a worshipper's intellect, which al-Iraqi notes are weak. ^{21 22} Another is knowledge, meaning that the servant knows four things: himself, in his servanthood, lowliness and estrangement from animal appetites; his Lord; this world; and the hereafter. For this he refers to the Book of Love and the Book of the Marvels of the Heart. ²²

In the Ihya' self-delusion meets the love of status, showing off and self-admiration, and al-Ghazali's distinction between the knowledge of conduct and the knowledge of unveiling. ^{12 15}

• The text is from the Shamela file of the Dar al-Ma'rifa edition; in the 1982 Dar al-Ma'rifa edition this book closes volume 3. ²³
• Al-Ghazali's criticism of Sufis, scholars and the rich is his own view, presented as his.