62The God-intoxicated Sufi who stands aloof from the theological controversies of the age, saves and spiritualises both the aspects of existence, and looks upon the whole Universe as the self-revelation of God - a higher notion which synthesises the opposite extremes of his predecessors. "Wooden-legged" Rationalism, as the Sufi called it, speaks its last word in the sceptic Al-Ghazali, whose restless soul, after long and hopeless wanderings in the desolate sands of dry intellectualism, found its final halting place in the still deep of human emotion. His scepticism is directed more to substantiate the necessity of a higher source of knowledge than merely to defend the dogma of Islamic Theology, and, therefore, marks the quiet victory of Sufiism over all the rival speculative tendencies of the time.
Al-Ghazali's positive contribution to the Philosophy of his country, however, is found in his little book - Mishkatal-Anwar -where he starts with the Quranic verse, " God is the light of heavens and earth "and instinctively returns to the Iranian idea, which was soon to find a vigorous expounder in Al-Ishraqi. Light, he teaches in this book, is the only real existence; and there is no darkness greater than non-existence. But the essence of Light is manifestation: "it is attributed to manifestation which is a relation"(1). The Universe was created out of darkness on which God sprinkled (2) his own light, and made its
1 Mishkatal-Anwar, fol.
3a.
2 In support
of this view Al-Ghazali quotes a tradition of the Prophet, Ibid. fol.
10a.