Muḥāsaba and Murāqaba

Muḥāsaba is taking oneself to account; murāqaba is watching, the awareness that one is being watched. Al-Ghazālī pairs them in a chapter of the Alchemy of Happiness whose title joins “self-examination” with “the recollection of God.” The first rests on a saying of the Caliph ʿUmar:

It was a saying of the Caliph Omar’s, “Call yourselves to account before ye be called to account”

— Al-Ghazali, The Alchemy of Happiness, Chapter VI

The spiritual ledger

Al-Ghazālī’s governing image is commercial:

The saints have always understood that they have come into this world to carry on a spiritual traffic, the resulting gain or loss of which is heaven or hell. They have, therefore, always kept a jealous eye upon the flesh, which, like a treacherous partner in business, may cause them great loss.

— Al-Ghazali, The Alchemy of Happiness, Chapter VI

The practice follows from the image. A wise man, he says, spends an hour after the morning prayer making a reckoning with his soul, and again in the evening:

Every evening he should examine his heart as to what he has done to see whether he has gained or lost in his spiritual capital. This is the more necessary as the heart is like a treacherous business partner, always ready to cajole and deceive; sometimes it presents its own selfishness under the guise of obedience to God, so that a man supposes he has gained, whereas he has really lost.

— Al-Ghazali, The Alchemy of Happiness, Chapter VI

The point of the last sentence is that the examination has to catch the self flattering itself. Al-Ghazālī’s second image makes the same point about time: at the resurrection, he says, “a man will find all the hours of his life arranged like a long series of treasure-chests.” One chest, “full of light,” holds an hour spent in doing good; another is pitch-dark; a third is empty, the hour “in which he did neither good nor evil,” and the sight of it brings “remorse and confusion like that of a man who has been the possessor of a great treasure and wasted it.” The hours cannot be recovered, so the accounting must be done while they are still being spent.

Watchfulness

The second half of his chapter is the recollection that makes the account honest, which consists in “remembering that God observes all his acts and thoughts. People only see the outward, while God sees both the outer and the inner man.” His illustration is a sheikh who tested his disciples by giving each a fowl to kill where no one could see. Every one but the favourite killed his and brought it back. The favourite brought his back alive, saying, “I have found no such place, for God sees everywhere.” The sheikh said the youth “has attained to the constant remembrance of God.” (Chapter VI)

Nicholson explains the same discipline under the name murāqaba, rendered “meditation”:

In ‘meditation’ (murāqabat) we recognise a form of self-concentration similar to the Buddhistic dhyāna and samādhi. This is what the Prophet meant when he said, “Worship God as though thou sawest Him, for if thou seest Him not, yet He sees thee.” Any one who feels sure that God is always watching over him will devote himself to meditating on God, and no evil thoughts or diabolic suggestions will find their way into his heart.

— Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam, Chapter I

He gives two anecdotes. “Nūrī used to meditate so intently that not a hair on his body stirred. He declared that he had learned this habit from a cat which was observing a mouse-hole, and that she was far more quiet than he.” And “Abū Saʿīd ibn Abi ’l-Khayr kept his eyes fixed on his navel.” The Studies in Islamic Mysticism describe the same Abū Saʿīd in his cell: “At the same time he never ceased to watch over his inmost self (muráqabat-i sirr), in order that no thought except of God might cross his mind.” (Chapter I) In the Awārif the word appears in a list of what retreat involves: “Constant murakiba (fearful contemplation).” (Chapter V)

Related entries: Dhikr (what the watching is often filled with), Khalwa and Ṣuḥba (where it is usually practised), Nafs and Rūḥ (the partner under audit), and Tawba (what the audit leads to).