Painting Heaven: Polishing the Mirror of the Heart
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Best age
6–8 years
Reading level
Confident reader
Length
96 pages · 25 stories
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Description
Painting Heaven: Polishing the Mirror of the Heart is a small, quietly beautiful book built around one of Imam al-Ghazali's most enduring teachings — that the human heart is like a mirror, dulled by neglect but capable of being polished through good deeds until it reflects the Real Essence of all things. The story and its accompanying poem draw directly on his Marvels of the Heart, Book XXI of the Revival of Religious Sciences, with passages from that great work woven into the telling.
At 44 pages, this is a book meant to be shared aloud, illustrated by Demi in a style that gives the teaching room to breathe rather than rushing past it. It is written for parents and children together, the kind of text a family can return to more than once, each reading opening a little more of what Imam al-Ghazali meant by the heart's capacity to reflect truth once it is cleared of rust.
T.J. Winter of the University of Cambridge has spoken of the heart here as the unique interface between the eternal and the finite — a fitting way to describe what this slim volume attempts: taking a serious classical teaching and making it accessible without diminishing it. Published by Fons Vitae in 2015, it is available in hardcover and digital formats, a modest but thoughtful entry point into Ghazali's thought for readers of any age.
About the Contributor(s)
About the author
al-Ghazali: Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (450-505 AH / 1058-1111 CE) was born in Tus, in the Khorasan region of Persia, and is remembered as one of Islam's most influential thinkers. Losing his father young, he studied at Nishapur and was appointed, while still in his thirties, to the prestigious Nizamiyya college in Baghdad. He was Shafiʿi in law and Ashʿari in creed, and his contemporaries honored him as Hujjat al-Islam, the Proof of Islam. At the height of his fame al-Ghazali passed through a profound spiritual crisis, recounted in his autobiography al-Munqidh min al-Dalal (Deliverance from Error). He abandoned his teaching post, traveled, and devoted years to the inward discipline of the Sufis before returning to instruction with a renewed purpose. His landmark work, Ihyaʾ ʿUlum al-Din (The Revival of the Religious Sciences), reconstructs the religious life across four parts, acts of worship, social custom, the vices that ruin the soul, and the virtues that save it. In philosophy he wrote Tahafut al-Falasifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), a careful critique of the Hellenistic thinkers of his age. Bridging law, theology, philosophy, and mysticism, al-Ghazali shaped the direction of Sunni thought for centuries, and his books remain widely read and translated. His many works are available here in English translation.
Specifications
EAN 13 / ISBN
9781941610138
Publisher
Fons Vitae
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