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In this work, here presented in a complete English edition for the first time, the problem of knowing God is confronted in an original and stimulating way.
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In this work, here presented in a complete English edition for the first time, the problem of knowing God is confronted in an original and stimulating way.
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About The Book
In this work, here presented in a complete English edition for the first time, the problem of knowing God is confronted in an original and stimulating way. Taking up the Prophet’s teaching that ‘Ninety-nine Beautiful Names’ are truly predicated of God, the author explores the meaning and resonance of each of these divine names, and reveals the functions they perform both in the cosmos and in the soul of the spiritual adept.
Although some of the book is rigorously analytical, the author never fails to attract the reader with his profound mystical and ethical insights, which, conveyed in his sincere and straightforward idiom, have made of this book one of the perennial classics of Muslim thought, popular among Muslims to this day.
This volume won a British Book Design and Production Award in 1993.
A Selection from the Table of Contents
1. | Explaining the Meaning of ‘Name’, ‘Named’, and ‘Act of Naming’. |
2. | Explanation of Names Close in Meaning to One Another. |
3. | On the One Name which Has Different Meanings. |
4. | On Explaining that a Man’s Perfection and Happiness Consist in Being Moulded by the Moral Qualities of God. |
5. | On Explaining the Meaning of God’s Ninety-nine Names. |
6. | An Explanation of How these Many Names Resolve to the Essence. |
7. | An Explanation of How these Attributes Resolve to a Single Essence, according to the School of the Mu’tazilites and the Philosophers. |
8. | Explaining that the Names of God Are Not Limited to Ninety-nine. |
9. | Explaining the Benefits of Enumerating Ninety-nine Names Specifically. |
10. | Are the Names and Attributes Applied to God Based on Divine Instruction, or Permitted on the Basis of Reason? |
Aim of The Book
The Beginning of The Book
As for the first part, it includes (1) explaining the truth of what is to be said concerning the name, the named, and the act of naming, (2) exposing the errors into which most groups have fallen regarding this matter, and (3) clarifying whether it is permitted for those names of God which are close to one another in meaning—like al-Azim (the Immense), al-Jalil (the Majestic), and al-Kabir (the Great)—to be predicated according to a single meaning so that they would be synonymous, or must their meanings differ? Furthermore, (4) it explains about a single name which has two meanings: how does it share these two meanings? Is it predicated of both of them, as a general predicate of the things it names [as ‘animal’ is said of a lion and a lamb], or must it be predicated of one of them in particular? Finally, (5) it explains how man shares in the meaning of each of the names of God—great and glorious.
The second part includes (1) the clarification of the meaning of the ninety-nine names of God and (2) the explanation how the people of the Sunna reduce them all to an essence with seven attributes, and (3) how the doctrine of the Mu’tazilites and the philosophers reduces them to a single essence without multiplicity.
The third part explains (1) that the names of God most high exceed the ninety-nine by divine instruction, and explains (2) how it is permissible to describe God most high by whatever may qualify Him even if no permission or divine instruction be found—so long as it is not prohibited. Finally, it explains (3) the advantage of the enumeration and specification of the one hundred-minus-one names.
About The Author
Imam Abu Hamid Muhammad Al-Ghazali was born in 450 AH (1058 A.D) in the Iranian town of Tus, studied Islamic law and theology at the Seljuq College in Nishapur, and became a distinguished professor at the famous Nizamiyya University in Baghdad.
Despite his glittering success, he was inwardly dissatisfied, so he abandoned his career for the life of hardship, abstinence and devotion to worship. During ten years of wandering, he experienced a spiritual transformation, in which the Truth came to him at last, as something received rather than acquired.
Blessed with an inner certainty, he then applied his outstanding faculties and vast learning to the task of revitalizing the whole Islamic tradition. Through his direct personal contacts, and through his many writings, he showed how every element in that tradition could and should be turned to its true purpose.
Imam al-Ghazzali was fondly referred to as the "Hujjat-ul-lslam", Proof of Islam, he is honoured as a scholar and a saint by learned men all over the world and is generally acclaimed as the most influential thinker of the Classical period of Islam.
He passed away in 505 AH (1111 A.D).
David Burrell is Theodore M. Hesburgh Professor of Philosophy and Theology at the University of Notre Dame, USA.
Nazih Daher is Chairman of the Department of Asian and African Languages at the Foreign Service Institute of the United States Department of State.
EAN 13 / ISBN | 9780946621316 |
Binding | Paperback |
Author | Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali |
Translator | David Burrell & Nazih Daher |
Publisher | Islamic Texts Society |
Pages | 216 |
Year Published | 1999 |
Height | 9.2 inches |
Width | 6.0 inches |
Length | 0.7 inches |