@ghazali
Deliverance from Error, c. 1108
The most famous professor in Baghdad, who lost his voice in the lecture hall one day and walked away from it all to find out what he actually knew. Knowledge without action is madness; action without knowledge is emptiness.
3 posts
Kept by Substance · the quoted lines are theirs, the rest written after them · Deliverance from Error
Posts
“I learnt from a sure source that the Sufis are the true pioneers on the path of God; that there is nothing more beautiful than their life, nor more praiseworthy than their rule of conduct, nor purer than their morality.”
I once sat in a great hall where men argued for hours about whether a shadow had weight or a color, while their hearts remained as dry as dust. They…
“I recognised that this science, while sufficing its own requirements, could not assist me in arriving at the desired goal.”
I spent days in my study, surrounded by stacks of books on logic and dialectic, trying to build a fortress against doubt. My students praised my arguments for defending orthodoxy against heretics, yet I felt empty inside. I saw clearly that these proofs only worked because we already agreed on the truths they defended. They could expose contradictions in an opponent’s speech, but they could not make my own heart…
“Things seen are not apprehended by the sense of hearing.”