The Decent Orientalist

William Montgomery Watt's body of work continues to educate and inspire. A Scottish clergyman, Watt was, nonetheless, a sincere student of Islamic history and traditions. It was Watt's translation of Ghazali's "spiritual autobiography" (the Munqidh min al-Dallal or That Which Delivers From Error) that I read in Paris in 1995 and, through reading it, came to recognize al-Ghazali's religious genius.

Watt's mastery of the Arabic language and his deep appreciation of the Qur'anic kerygma make his scholarship invaluable; the latter facet no doubt emerged from his critical embrace of Christianity: having understood the gospel message, he could see how Muhammad's preaching was both a continuation of New Testament trends and re-directions of them.

The volume which contained Watt's translation of the Munqidh also contained his translation of another work by Ghazali: Bidayah al-Hidayah (The Beginning of Guidance). When I finished reading the Munqidh, I moved on, with great anticipation, to read Bidayah--only to be quite perplexed. The Bidayah is a manual for daily living that is so detailed (not to mention medieval in its assumptions about the actual activities of daily living) that one cannot help but wonder of what practical use it could possibly be.

Watt's brief summary of the Bidayah (actually contained in his Islamic Surveys, vol. 1) puts Ghazali's little book into historical perspective:

"In the spiritual crisis of 1095 [Ghazali] turned again to sufism, but quickly realized that an intellectual understanding of it was not enough, and that he must begin to put it into practice in his life. It was with this thought in mind that he abandoned his post in Baghdad and divested himself of his wealth. Some idea of the outward manner of his life may be gained from a short work The Beginning of Guidance. It was really a kind of monastic rule, and the band of disciples he gathered round him at Tus had the makings of a monastic community" [p. 120].

The final sentence of that paragraph contains an insight that would be unavailable to most scholars who lack training in church history: for it calls to mind the small community of like-minded pietists that coalesced on the family estate (in Thagaste) of Augustine (later of Hippo). Augustine's own early experiments in monastic living inspired writings (of disputed provenance) that have collectively come down to us as his "monastic rules." Familiarity with those rules (and others from Christian monasticism and, one might venture, Buddhist) permit one to see how Ghazali's Bidayah might actually function as a manual of practice in early 12th century Iran.

Watt, the decent Orientalist who passed away in October 2006, will be sorely missed.