Tentative answer: al-Ghazali

How does the physical body fit in the path to goal of the mystics?

The physical body is quite important to the mystics, more important than it is to the philosophers, who Ghazali criticizes. He writes that the mystics' method "is brought about by a combination of knowledge and practice," and that they taught through "'tasting,' the 'state,' and a 'transformation of attributes'" (76, 77). Ghazali explains this teaching method by talking about the difference between knowing the definition of health and actually being healthy; the latter is a more bodily/physical form of knowing. In other words, the mystics believed in obtaining knowledge through (physical) experience, not just thinking—this seems like a rebuke to philosophy, which involves mostly thought exercises. Ghazali talks about the physical senses that people use to comprehend the world around them, or "apprehend the genera of existents"—touch, vision, hearing, and taste, followed by the development of intellect and the ability to see the supernatural. The author also uses the example of a blind person's inability to understand color without someone explaining it to them to describe those who deny the importance of prophecy. So not only does Ghazali describe the importance of physical experience to the mystics, but he also uses examples that deal with the physical senses to describe these concepts.