Imam al-Ghazali and the Bandit

Seeking Spiritual Knowledge that Cannot Be Stolen.

March 19, 2023

Seeking Spiritual Knowledge that Cannot Be Stolen.

Artistic depiction of Abû Hâmid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazâlî

Abû Hâmid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazâlî — al-Ghazali for short — is one of Islam’s greatest jurists, theologians, and Sufi mystical thinkers. In his book, “The Jewels of the Qur’an,” Imam al-Ghazali (1058–1111) uses personal stories to invite readers to develop a deeper spiritual relationship with the sacred text.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, president of Zaytuna College, shares one particular story about the possession of knowledge, for the holy month of Ramadan:

Read along with the video:

After studying with a man, al Ghazali is on his way back.

And he tells this story, where these brigands come. And they basically rob the caravan — this was quite common in those days.

And they robbed the caravan. And so Imam al Ghazali — I mean, you can imagine, he’s 19 years old, and he’s just studied and he’s mastered all of this knowledge that he’s learned, but he hasn’t memorized it.

So the thief takes his bag of books, and the imam runs after him and begs him:

“Please, don’t take my knowledge from me!”

And at that point the thief laughs at him. And the thief says to him,

“What kind of knowledge is it, that a wretch like me could steal it from you. Can you really call that knowledge?”

And Abu Hamid (al-Ghazali) says,

“I knew then that Allah made him say that, for me to know that that is not knowledge. If it can be stolen from you by a thief, it’s not knowledge.”

And so al-Ghazali goes back to Tus, and spends the next three years memorizing everything he had learned by rote so that nobody could ever take it from him again.

What does this experience mean to you personally? How does the possession of spiritual knowledge relate to the religious vocation of voluntary material poverty?