I recently added this post, The Perils of the Learned.
Al-Ghazali (1056-1111), known in Mediaeval Europe as Algazel, was one of the towering figures of Islam at around the time of Anselm of Canterbury in England. In 1091, Al-Ghazali (who was from Tus, now Tous near Mashhad in Iran) was appointed to a prestigious teaching post in Baghdad, but four years later he abruptly gave it up and embarked on a ten-year pilgrimage to Damascus, Jerusalem and Mecca, his faith in academe shaken by the intrigues of Court and University alike. The fruit of his soul-searching was The Revival of the Religious Sciences, in which he examined what the search for knowledge should be like for the truly religious man.
This short extract finds Al-Ghazali canvassing the views of various Muslim authorities on the dangers of learning. It includes a neat aphorism by Al-Khalil ibn-Ahmad (?718-?791), compiler of the first Arabic dictionary, which in various forms may be found in English books of quotations, and which NL Clay set as a test of elocution:
He who knows and knows that he knows,
Is wise; follow him.
He who knows and knows not that he knows,
Is asleep; wake him.
He who knows not and knows not that he knows not,
Is a fool; shun him.
He who knows not and knows that he knows not,
Is a child; teach him.
Al-Ghazali’s views on education are quite well summed up by another English writer, William Hornbye, who wrote in his Horn-Book (1622):
Learning’s a ladder, grounded upon faith
By which we clime to heaven (the Scripture saith);
And ’tis a means to hurry men to hell
If grace be wanting for to use it well.