Ash‘arí proposed to Jubbá’í the case of three brothers, one of whom was a true believer, virtuous and pious; the second an infidel, a debauchee and a reprobate; and the third an infant: Story of the three brothers. they all died, and Ash‘arí wished to know what had become of them. To this Jubbá’í answered: "The virtuous brother holds a high station in Paradise; the infidel is in the depths of Hell, and the child is among those who have obtained salvation."711 "Suppose now," said Ash‘arí, "that the child should wish to ascend to the place occupied by his virtuous brother, would he be allowed to do so?" "No," replied Jubbá’í, "it would be said to him: 'Thy brother arrived at this place through his numerous works of obedience towards God, and thou hast no such works to set forward.'" "Suppose then," said Ash‘arí, "that the child say: 'That is not my fault; you did not let me live long enough, neither did you give me the means of proving my obedience.'" "In that case," answered Jubbá’í, "the Almighty would say: 'I knew that if I had allowed thee to live, thou wouldst have been disobedient and incurred the severe punishment (of Hell); I therefore acted for thy advantage.'" "Well," said Ash‘arí, "and suppose the infidel brother were to say: 'O God of the universe! since you knew what awaited him, you must have known what awaited me; why then did you act for his advantage and not for mine?" Jubbá’í had not a word to offer in reply.

Soon afterwards Ash‘arí made a public recantation. One Friday, while sitting (as his biographer relates) in the chair Ash‘arí's conversion to orthodoxy. from which he taught in the great mosque of Baṣra, he cried out at the top of his voice: "They who know me know who I am: as for those who do not know me I will tell them. I am ‘Alí b. Ismá‘íl al-Ash‘arí, and I used to hold that the Koran was created, that the eyes of men shall not see God, and that we ourselves are the authors of our evil deeds. Now I have returned to the truth; I renounce these opinions, and I undertake to refute the Mu‘tazilites and expose their infamy and turpitude."712

These anecdotes possess little or no historical value, but illustrate the fact that Ash‘arí, having learned all that the Mu‘tazilites could teach him and having thoroughly mastered their dialectic, turned against them with deadly force the weapons which they had put in his hands. His doctrine on the subject of free-will may serve to exemplify the method of Kalám(Disputation) by which he propped up the orthodox creed.713 Here, as in other instances, Ash‘arí took Ash‘arí as the founder of Scholastic Theology. the central path— medio tutissimus—between two extremes. It was the view of the early Moslem Church—a view justified by the Koran and the Apostolic Traditions—that everything was determined in advance and inscribed, from all eternity, on the Guarded Tablet ( al-Lawḥ al-Maḥfúẓ), so that men had no choice but to commit the actions decreed by destiny. The Mu‘tazilites, on the contrary, denied that God could be the author of evil and insisted that men's actions were free. Ash‘arí, on his part, declared that all actions are created and predestined by God, but that men have a certain subordinate power which enables them to acquire the actions previously created, although it produces no effect on the actions themselves. Human agency, therefore, was confined to this process of acquisition ( kasb). With regard to the anthropomorphic passages in the Koran, Ash‘arí laid down the rule that such expressions as " The Merciful has settled himself upon His throne," " Both His hands are spread out," &c., must be taken in their obvious sense without asking 'How?' ( bilá kayfa). Spitta saw in the system of Ash‘arí a successful revolt of the Arabian national spirit against the foreign ideas which were threatening to overwhelm Islam,714 a theory which does not agree with the fact that most of the leading Ash‘arites were Persians.715 Von Kremer came nearer the mark when he said "Ash‘arí's victory was simply a clerical triumph,"716 but it was also, as Schreiner has observed, "a victory of reflection over unthinking faith."

The victory, however, was not soon or easily won.717 Many of the orthodox disliked the new Scholasticism hardly less than the old Rationalism. Thus it is not surprising to read in the Kámilof Ibnu ’l-Athír under the year 456 a.h. = 1063-4 a.d., that Alp Arslán's Vizier, ‘Amídu ’l-Mulk al-Kundurí, having obtained his master's permission to have curses pronounced against the Ráfiḍites (Shí‘ites) from the pulpits of Khurásán, included the Ash‘arites in the same malediction, and that the famous Ash‘arite doctors, Abu ’l-Qásim al-Qushayrí and the Imámu ’l-Ḥaramayn Abu ’l-Ma‘álí al-Juwayní, left the country in consequence. The great Niẓámu ’l-Mulk exerted himself on behalf of the Ash‘arites, and the Niẓámiyya College, which he founded in Baghdád in the year 1067 a.d., was designed to propagate their system of theology. But the man who stamped it with the impression of his own powerful genius, fixed its ultimate form, and established it as the universal creed of orthodox Islam, was Abú Ḥámid al-Ghazálí (1058-1111 a.d.). We have already sketched the outward course of his life, and need only recall that he lectured at Baghdád in the Niẓámiyya College for four years (1091-1095 a.d.).718 At the end of that time he retired from the world as a Ṣúfí, and so brought to a calm and fortunate close the long spiritual travail which he has himself described in the Munqidh mina ’l-Ḍalál, or 'Deliverer from Error.'719 We must now attempt to give the reader some notion of this work, both on account of its singular psychological interest and because Ghazálí's search for religious truth exercised, as will shortly appear, a profound and momentous influence upon the future history of Muḥammadan thought. It begins with these words:—

"In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Praise be to God by the praise of whom every written or spoken discourse Ghazálí's autobiography. is opened! And blessings on Muḥammad, the Elect, the Prophet and Apostle, as well as on his family and his companions who lead us forth from error! To proceed: You have asked me, O my brother in religion, to explain to you the hidden meanings and the ultimate goal of the sciences, and the secret bane of the different doctrines, and their inmost depths. You wish me to relate all that I have endured in seeking to recover the truth from amidst the confusion of sects with diverse ways and paths, and how I have dared to raise myself from the abyss of blind belief in authority to the height of discernment. You desire to know what benefits I have derived in the first place from Scholastic Theology, and what I have appropriated, in the second place, from the methods of the Ta‘límites720 who think that truth can be attained only by submission to the authority of an Imám; and thirdly, my reasons for spurning the systems of philosophy; and, lastly, why I have accepted the tenets of Ṣúfiism: you are anxious, in short, that I should impart to you the essential truths which I have learned in my repeated examination of the (religious) opinions of mankind."

In a very interesting passage, which has been translated by Professor Browne, Ghazálí tells how from his youth upward he was possessed with an intense thirst for knowledge, which impelled him to study every form of religion and philosophy, and to question all whom he met concerning the nature and meaning of their belief.721 But when he tried to distinguish the true from the false, he found no sure test. He could not trust the evidence of his senses. The eye sees a shadow and declares it to be without movement; or a star, and deems it no larger than a piece of gold. If the senses thus deceive, may not the mind do likewise? Perhaps our life is a dream full of phantom thoughts which we mistake for realities—until the awakening comes, either in moments of ecstasy or at death. "For two months," says Ghazálí, "I was actually, though not avowedly, a sceptic." Then God gave him light, so that he regained his mental balance and was able to think soundly. He resolved that this faculty must guide him to the truth, since blind faith once lost never returns. Accordingly, he set himself to examine the foundations of belief in four classes of men who were devoted to the search for truth, namely, Scholastic Theologians, Ismá‘ílís ( Bátiniyya), Philosophers, and Ṣúfís. For a long while he had to be content with wholly negative results. Scholasticism was, he admitted, an excellent purge against heresy, but it could not cure the disease from which he was suffering. As for the philosophers, all of them—Materialists ( Dahriyyún), Naturalists ( Ṭabí‘iyyún), and Theists ( Iláhiyyún)—"are branded with infidelity and impiety." Here, as often in his discussion of the philosophical schools, Ghazálí's religious instinct breaks out. We cannot imagine him worshipping at the shrine of pure reason any more than we can imagine Herbert Spencer at Lourdes. He next turned to the Ta‘límites (Doctrinists) or Báṭinites (Esoterics), who claimed that they knew the truth, and that its unique source was the infallible Imám. But when he came to close quarters with these sectaries, he discovered that they could teach him nothing, and their mysterious Imám vanished into space. Ṣúfiism, therefore, was his last hope. He carefully studied the writings of the mystics, and as he read it became clear to him that now he was on the right path. He saw that the higher stages of Ṣúfiism could not be learned by study, but must be realised by actual experience, that is, by rapture, ecstasy, and moral transformation. After a painful struggle with himself he resolved to cast aside all his worldly ambition and to live for God alone. In the month of Dhu ’l-Qa‘da, 488 a.h. (November, 1095 a.d.), he left Baghdád and wandered forth to Syria, where he found in the Ṣúfí discipline of prayer, praise, and meditation the peace which his soul desired.