Introduction
Introduction
The references in square brackets are to the pages of the Cairo Arabic edition, and to the present English translation.
The Mishkt Al-anwar is a work of extreme interest from the viewpoint of al-Ghazzl's inner life and esoteric thought. The glimpses it gives of that life and thought are remarkably, perhaps uniquely, intimate. It begins where his autobiographical "Al-Munqidh min al-Dall" leaves off. Its esotericism excited the curiosity and even the suspicion of Muslim thinkers from the first, and we have deeply interesting allusions to it in Ibn Tufaill and Ibn Rushd, the celebrated philosophers of Western Islam, who flourished within the century after al-Ghazzl's death in 1111 (a.h. 505)--a fact which, again, increases its importance and interest for us.
[1. The "Mishkt al-Anwr" is numbered No. 34 in Brockelmann's "Geschichte der Arabischen Literatur" (vol. i, p. 423). It was printed in Cairo (matba`at as Sidq, A. H. 1322), to which edition the references in the present work are made. There is another edition in a collection of five opuscules of Ghazzl under the title of the first of the five, "Faisal al-Tafriqa".
2. The Algazal of the Schoolmen.
3. The Abubacer of the Schoolmen.
4. The Averroes of the Schoolmen.]
{p. 2}
The references in square brackets are to the pages of the Cairo Arabic edition, and to the present English translation.
The Mishkt Al-anwar is a work of extreme interest from the viewpoint of al-Ghazzl's inner life and esoteric thought. The glimpses it gives of that life and thought are remarkably, perhaps uniquely, intimate. It begins where his autobiographical "Al-Munqidh min al-Dall" leaves off. Its esotericism excited the curiosity and even the suspicion of Muslim thinkers from the first, and we have deeply interesting allusions to it in Ibn Tufaill and Ibn Rushd, the celebrated philosophers of Western Islam, who flourished within the century after al-Ghazzl's death in 1111 (a.h. 505)--a fact which, again, increases its importance and interest for us.
[1. The "Mishkt al-Anwr" is numbered No. 34 in Brockelmann's "Geschichte der Arabischen Literatur" (vol. i, p. 423). It was printed in Cairo (matba`at as Sidq, A. H. 1322), to which edition the references in the present work are made. There is another edition in a collection of five opuscules of Ghazzl under the title of the first of the five, "Faisal al-Tafriqa".
2. The Algazal of the Schoolmen.
3. The Abubacer of the Schoolmen.
4. The Averroes of the Schoolmen.]
{p. 2}
