A Moslem Seeker after God

Jesus, the very thought of Thee / With sweetness fills my breast; / But sweeter far Thy face to see, / And in Thy presence rest. / Nor voice can sing, nor heart can frame, / Nor can the memory find, / A sweeter sound than Thy blest name, / O Saviour of mankind! / O hope of every contrite heart! / O joy of all the meek! / To those who fall, how kind Thou art! / How good to those who seek! / But what to those who find? Ah! this / Nor tongue nor pen can show: / The love of Jesus-what it is / None but His loved ones know. / -_Bernard of Clairvaux-almost / a contemporary (1091-1152)._

Jesus Christ is the Touch-Stone of character, the Master of all spiritual leaders and the one supreme and infallible Judge who can pronounce an unerring verdict concerning the truth of any religious system or teaching. What place has Jesus in the teaching of the greatest of all Moslem theologians, what place had He in the heart of this great mystic, this seeker after God, who, whatever else he may have been, was utterly sincere in his search? Al-Ghazali, as a student of the Koran, must have noticed that in this book Christ occupies a high place; no fewer than three of the chapters of the Koran, namely, that of Amram's Family (Surah III), that of The Table (Surah V), and that of Mary (Surah XIX), derive their names from references to Jesus Christ and His work. The very fact that Jesus Christ has a place in the literature of Islam, and is acknowledged by all Moslems as one of their greater prophets in itself therefore challenges comparison between Him and Mohammed. Did Al-Ghazali ever meet this challenge and in how far did he compare Mohammed with Christ? It is our purpose in this chapter to answer the question by collating all the important references in the _Ihya_ and his other works and then to draw some conclusions both as to his sources and his opinions. The reader may judge for himself how far Al-Ghazali is a schoolmaster to lead Moslems to Christ.