Revival of the Religious Sciences: An Abridgement
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Translator
Mokrane Guezzou
Description
About The Book
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (450/1058–505/1111)—master jurist, mystic, philosopher, and theologian—is one of the most famous scholars in the history of Islam. After becoming an eminent professor in Baghdad at a young age, al-Ghazali was beset by a deep spiritual crisis which propelled him to abandon his career and to instead take up the life of an itinerant mystic. It was during this period that he authored his most celebrated summa of Islam, the Revival of the Religious Sciences.
Al-Ghazali sought, through the Revival, to breathe life into the religious knowledges which, by his age, had become moribund due to peoples’ concern with status, fame, and comfort instead of true spiritual understanding. The forty chapters of the book are organized into four major parts: Acts of Worship, Norms of Daily Life, Qualities Leading to Perdition, and Qualities Leading to Salvation. Through his work, al-Ghazali constructs a framework by which the reader first understands the relationship between God and man, and then learns how to lead an exemplary life in this world in preparation for the journey to the afterlife.
‘If people had no concern for any of the works authored by scholars save the Revival, it would suffice them.’ Thus did the historian and jurist Taj al-Din al-Subki emphasize the importance of studying the Revival. With its lucid prose and accessible style, the present translation—based upon the abridgement of the Syrian scholar Salih Ahmad al-Shami—makes such study eminently accessible to everyone.
This beautifully crafted cloth edition, featuring gold and black blocking, debossed with a traditional Seljuq motif, preserves the Revival as a timeless companion to be cherished for generations to come.
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.
About the translator
Mokrane Guezzou: Mokrane Guezzou is a British-Algerian scholar and translator known for rendering important works of the Islamic tradition into clear, faithful English. Much of his reputation rests on his work for the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought in Amman and Fons Vitae of Louisville, whose "Great Commentaries on the Holy Qurʾan" series set out to present leading exegetical texts in unabridged, accurate translation. For that series he translated Tafsir Ibn ʿAbbas (Tanwir al-Miqbas) and al-Wahidi's Asbab al-Nuzul, the classic compilation of the occasions of revelation, both standard references for students of Qurʾanic exegesis. Beyond tafsir, his translations reach into hadith, biography, and Sufi adab. These include A Treasury of Hadith, Ibn Daqiq al-ʿId's commentary on al-Nawawi's selection of forty-odd prophetic traditions; The Onlooker's Delight, a biography of Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qadir al-Jilani attributed to Ibn Hajar al-ʿAsqalani; and The Adab of the True Seeker by Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Buzaydi, a guide to the manners of the spiritual path. He holds a doctorate and has long been based in Jordan, where he continues to translate classical works, among them a study of Ibn ʿAtaʾ Allah al-Iskandari. His careful, readable renderings have made several primary sources accessible to English readers for the first time.
Specifications
EAN 13 / ISBN
9780992700522
Binding
Hardcover w/ Dust Jacket
Publisher
Serenity Productions
Author
al-Ghazali
Pages
577
Translator
Mokrane Guezzou
Year Published
2019
Size
W-6.2 in | H-9.4 in | D-1.4 in
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