Al-Ghazālī and Marriage from the Viewpoint of Sufism

Abstract

This paper analyzes Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111)'s Book on the Manners of Marriage (Kitab Adab al-Nikah) in his The Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din), and examines the relation between the ideal married life and the practices of Sufism. In studies until now, the contents of this book have been often examined from the viewpoint of sexuality and the problem of women in Islam; however, not much attention has been paid to al-Ghazali's evaluation of marriage within Sufism in these studies. Rather, in studies of marriage, women, and sexuality in Sufism, the focus has usually been on the ideas on sexuality of Ibn al-'Arabi (d. 1240), while few studies of al-Ghazali's Sufism analyze his discussion of marriage. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to examine al-Ghazali's discussion of marriage from the viewpoint of Sufism and to clarify its originality in the history of Sufi thought, comparing it with that of Abu Talib al-Makki (d. 998), a Sufi who influenced al-Ghazali considerably and discussed marriage in detail.Al-Ghazali argues that there are many advantages in living with a wife in marriage, and he demonstrates that a man can devote himself to the worship of God and lead an ideal Sufi life with the help of marriage. On the other hand, al-Makki maintains that celibacy is preferable, at least in his time. Most of his discussion is fragmentary and not as developed as al-Ghazali's, though he does treat marriage more comprehensively than the Sufis before him. Al-Ghazali demonstrates that for practicing the remembrance of God which leads to seeing God in the hereafter, marriage is better than celibacy. It is concluded that al-Ghazali's theoretical discussion of marriage is an effort toward the popularization of Sufism.