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The Jewels of the Qur'an: Al-Ghazali's Theory: A Translation of Imam al-Ghazali's 'Kitab Jawahir al-Qur'an
The Jewels of the Qur'an: Al-Ghazali's Theory: A Translation of Imam al-Ghazali's 'Kitab Jawahir al-Qur'an
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Translator
Muhammad Abul Quasem
Description
About The Book
This book contains al-Ghazali's views on the Qur'an, the sacred Scripture of Islam. Al-Ghazali is acclaimed in both East and West as the greatest religious authority of Islam after the prophet Muhammad. At an advanced age when he had already composed numerous works on various Islamic intellectual disciplines and had already completed traversing the Sufi path, he freely expressed his own understanding of the Qur'an which took the form of a clear-cut and complete theory.
The nineteen chapters which constitute the first part of this book present us with al-Ghazali's views on several broad problems relating to the Qur'an as a whole, e.g. the method of its understanding, its principal aims, the process by which all diverse branches of Islamic learning have stemmed from it, the reasons why similitudes and allegories are employed in it, variance in the excellence of its surahs and verses, and the relationship between the perceptible world and the world of the unseen. Various parts of the Qur'an are compared to various types of valuables, such as jewels, pearls, rubies, red brimstones, corundums, strongest musk and aloe-wood.
The two chapters which form the second part of this book contain, in translated form, more than 1500 verses which al-Ghazali calls the jewels and the pearls of the Qur'an - verses which concern the two greatest of the six major aims of the Scripture. Such a sifting out of the most important verses from the entire Qur'an is unprecedented in the history of Qur'anic studies. These verses are translated in free-flowing, modern English in order to make the book not only scholarly but also interesting and enjoyable.
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
Muhammad Abul Quasem: Muhammad Abul Quasem was a Bangladeshi-born scholar of Islamic studies who conducted much of his academic career at the University of Malaya. He is recognized for his contributions to English-language scholarship on Imam al-Ghazali, producing careful translations and analytical studies of al-Ghazali's major works. His translation of Jawahir al-Qur'an as The Jewels of the Qur'an: Al-Ghazali's Theory made a key Ghazalian text accessible to English readers. He also authored The Ethics of al-Ghazali: A Composite Ethics in Islam, a comparative academic study. His work helped establish rigorous English-language engagement with classical Islamic spiritual and ethical literature in the latter twentieth century.
Specifications
EAN 13 / ISBN
9789675062971
Publisher
Islamic Book Trust
Author
al-Ghazali
Pages
244
Translator
Muhammad Abul Quasem
Year Published
2017
Size
W-6 in | H-9 in | D-0.6 in
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