Al- Ghazali: The Alchemist of Happiness

The Alchemist of Happiness is a rather short film by Ten Thousand Films that explores the life of Al-Ghazali, a famous Muslim philosopher and one of the most famous philosophers produced in the world who covered many topics such as theology, economics (yes before Adam Smith!), ethics and law. Apart from the acting, there is interesting commentary given by Professor Timothy Winters of Cambridge University and Hamza Hanson of Zaytuna Institute on the situation at the time and of Al-Ghazali’s thoughts. The movie touches on a lot of themes that are understandable in the modern world and which still pose unanswered questions.

The movie is depicted in 12th century Iraq and begins with Al-Ghazali as a child losing his father, leading him to be taught by an important jurist of the time. Early on we see the different paths taken by Al-Ghazali and his brother, with the brother taking a more mystical/Sufi approach to life whilst Al-Ghazali focuses on all the sciences except Sufism.

As he grows up, we see that he is different to his peers, having a serious and critical view of life around him. He goes on to study in the leading madrassa (university) in the country and excels in his studies, taking personal tutelage under leading jurists and philosophers such as Al-Juwayni.

Through such scenes we see the questions he poses about life and society and towards his teachers and after memorising over 10,000 pages on philosophy and having mastered it and other sciences (such as law, theology, history), he goes on to teach philosophy and law. Eventually he takes the highest teaching authority in the country and his fame becomes so widespread throughout the Muslim world that people flock from faraway lands to hear and learn under him. His sincerity was astounding as he researched into every belief system and sect that he could find and sought to establish proofs for all of his beliefs.

We are then lead onto a scene in which Al-Ghazali comes across a magic show where he refuses to believe that the substitution of the stick to a snake is real even though his eyes fell for the trick. This prompts him to ask the question “if my eyes can be deceived, then how can I attain certain knowledge of the world?” and this marks a series of serious questions in his life as he focuses on epistemology and metaphysics. He starts trying to achieve certain knowledge and asks which of the sciences give him the truth? He knows that the sciences constantly change in their facts and are based on observation so he goes onto the question of the human senses.

He tries to ascertain if his touch, sight and hearing accurately portray the world but he finds out that they can give the wrong information (such as the size of the sun) and that he does not know if they are giving the correct information and cannot be certain of it. He then reaches a crisis in his life, becoming full of doubt about the world and suffering a breakdown during which he could no longer speak or eat. The doctors told him “this problem is in the heart and won’t be cured until the cause of his sadness is removed”.

Thereafter he decides to leave everything and go travelling in search of the truth. He wonders through many countries for two years, adopting the path of a Sufi since he thought that could give him answers and was the last resort on the path to truth. Sure enough he attained what he said his “words could not describe”, achieving “experiential knowledge of God” and achieving certainty in knowledge.

Thus he returns to Baghdad a changed man and resumes teaching but having come with knowledge from experiential proofs, instead of just proofs from logic and reason. He then proceeds to write some of his masterpieces such as the famous Ihya Uloom ad-Din and “The Incoherence of the Philosophers”, the latter is similar in many ways to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.