"Another saying has it that three things are necessary to make a kindness complete: thinking little of it, doing it promptly, and keeping it out of sight."
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship
This is a brief little section from al-Ghazali, and I suspect that my commentary won't be particularly Proustian either. Here he is continuing a discussion on the implications of giving charity and more generally in sharing kindnesses. This is a small section called "Adopt Humility." As I've said many times one of the things that first drew me to Islam is the emphasis on humility. I suppose all religions share the same admonition, and maybe it's just the Muslims who pull it off more routinely. Why? I don't know the answer to that, although maybe it's a cultural thing - but since there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, and surrounding the world, that's a more difficult argument to make. Sometimes I think it's aesthetic, that is the generally stripped down nature of mosques themselves play a role, but of course not all mosques are that aesthetically spartan (I'm looking at you, Sheikh Zayed Mosque). So maybe it's within the faith itself. Humility is stressed so repeatedly throughout the Quran itself and the ahadith that it's difficult to get any other message, and it's at heart of this passage from al-Ghazali.
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship
This is a brief little section from al-Ghazali, and I suspect that my commentary won't be particularly Proustian either. Here he is continuing a discussion on the implications of giving charity and more generally in sharing kindnesses. This is a small section called "Adopt Humility." As I've said many times one of the things that first drew me to Islam is the emphasis on humility. I suppose all religions share the same admonition, and maybe it's just the Muslims who pull it off more routinely. Why? I don't know the answer to that, although maybe it's a cultural thing - but since there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, and surrounding the world, that's a more difficult argument to make. Sometimes I think it's aesthetic, that is the generally stripped down nature of mosques themselves play a role, but of course not all mosques are that aesthetically spartan (I'm looking at you, Sheikh Zayed Mosque). So maybe it's within the faith itself. Humility is stressed so repeatedly throughout the Quran itself and the ahadith that it's difficult to get any other message, and it's at heart of this passage from al-Ghazali.
No comments:
Post a Comment