The Mishkat al-Anwar (The Niche for Lights) & The Alchemy of Happiness

The Mishkat al-Anwar (The Niche for Lights)

[1924]

by Al-Ghazzali , translated by W.H.T. Gairdner

THE MISHKÂT AL-ANWAR is a work of extreme interest from the viewpoint of al-Ghazzâlî's[2] 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-Dalâl 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-Ghazzâlî's death in 1111 (A.H. 505)--a fact which, again, increases its importance and interest for us.


The Alchemy of Happiness
by Al-Ghazzali, tr. by Claud Field [1909].

The Kimiya-yi Sa'adat (Alchemy of Happiness) was written towards the end of Abu ?amid Mu?ammad ibn Mu?ammad al-Ghazali's life shortly before 499/1105. During the time before it was written the Muslim world was considered to be in a state of political as well as intellectual unrest. al-Ghazali noted that there were constant disputes regarding the role of philosophy and scholastic theology and Sufi's became chastised for their neglect of the ritual obligations of Islam. Upon its release, the Kimiya-yi sa'adat allowed al-Ghazali to considerably reduce the tensions between the scholars and mystics.