Deliverance from Error & Mystical Union with the Almighty

Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali’s ‘Deliverance from Error and Attachment to the Lord of Might and Majesty’ successfully allows the reader a concise and informative window into the life of a great scholar. Deliverance from Error translated from the Arabic al Munqidh min ad-Dalal by W. Montgomery Watt is an autobiographical account of Ghazali’s struggle during a period of spiritual unrest in his life that begins with him as a teacher at a prestigious academic institution at the age of thirty-three continues through his ascetic wanderings and concludes upon his return to his teaching career but now as a complete God-orientated man rather than a person “on the plain of native and second-hand belief (sic)”. The book opens with Ghazali replying to a colleague who had questioned him regarding “the aims and inmost nature of sciences and the perplexing depths of the religious systems” and the reasons for Ghazali’s actions at this stage of his life. He is an enquiring man who subjects all to his scrutinising eye. This habit and custom he describes as a God-given nature a matter of temperament and not of my choice or contriving”. With this outlook he starts to question the different types of knowledge around him. He systematically and diligently tackles each science which influences man’s spiritual/religious mindset covering the four main sciences of the time: theology authoritative instruction philosophy and mysticism all of which continue to play significant roles today.The analysis is carried out in detail unbiased and authoritatively (as Ghazali studied and authored in most of the fields of his investigation). He dissects each science like a skilled surgeon and then delivers his post-surgery evaluation with accuracy and precision.