Etiquette as Spiritual Nourishment: The Adab of the Student According to al-Ghazali and al-Isfahani

Etiquette as Spiritual Nourishment: The Adab of the Student According to al-Ghazali and al-Isfahani
بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ
Introduction
This essay is devoted to the etiquette (adab) of the student as understood by two classical Islamic ethicists of the eleventh century, al-Iṣfahānī (d. 1040) and al-Ghazālī (d. 1111).
1
For them, adab as a mode of practice is aimed at knowledge of God (maʿrifah). The term maʿrifah, according to lexicologists, is synonymous with ʿilm.
2
But for al-Iṣfahānī, there are distinctions in meaning. Maʿrifah is apprehending a thing by reflection upon its effects, a more particular kind of knowledge than ʿilm. One does not say, yaʿlamu Allāh (he knows God), as that would imply that he knows God’s essence, but does say yaʿrifu Allāh, because he knows the effects of God in creation.
3
Thus, maʿrifah indicates knowledge of God that is not only cognitive and inferential, but also experiential and intuitive. In classical Islamic ethics, adab is the key to maʿrifah, and scholars such as al-Iṣfahānī and al-Ghazālī emphasize the intuitive dimension of maʿrifah, which is based on the purification of the soul.
Al-Ghazālī did not abandon philosophy after he left Baghdad; he recognized it as a valid way of knowing God. However, after his conversion to Sufism, he seemed to have placed greater emphasis on attaining direct, experiential knowledge of God through the disciplining of the soul. Consider al-Ghazālī’s Scale of Action, where he acknowledges two ways of knowing God: the way of the Sufis and the way of the theoreticians (nuẓẓār). The purification of the soul is important for them both, but the Sufi approach is less focused on learning the sciences and more on asceticism, remembering God, and cultivating virtue. Sufis stress the importance of muʿāmalah (praxis), though the attainment of direct, intuitive knowledge of God is ultimately dependent on divine Grace.
4
This brings us back to adab, which facilitates maʿrifah through praxis. A key part of the process lies in the etiquette of the student. When knowledge corresponds with virtue, we attain knowledge of God through our intellect and our soul. Purification of the soul enables knowledge of the self, and knowledge of the self enables experiential knowledge of God. If the soul is subject to desire, it will descend away from God; but if driven by faith, it will ascend towards Him.

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Ainan Ahmed

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