Al-Ghazali Letter to a Disciple – Ayyuha’l-Walad

Tobias Mayer

$34.95

‘Work for your terrestrial life in proportion to your location in it, and work for your afterlife in proportion to your eternity in it.’ This is part of the advice that the great theologian and mystic Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058-1111 AD) put down in his Letter to a Disciple.

  • Paperback
  • 9780946621637
  • 130

Product Description

An old disciple of al-Ghazali had studied the Islamic sciences, including the many works of his master, for most of his life. Faced with the proximity of death, he turns again to his master this time asking for a summary of all his teachings. Letter to a Disciple is al-Ghazali’s response. The emphasis in this short treatise is on religious and spiritual action and on putting into practice the knowledge that one has acquired. Letter to a Disciple can be considered as the last testament of he who is regarded as Hujjat al-Islam, the ‘Proof of Islam’. This new translation is presented here as a bilingual, English-Arabic, edition.

Reviews

The Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al‐dīn is the most valuable and most beautiful of books.
Ibn Khallikān (d. 681/1282)
Any seeker of [felicity of] the hereafter cannot do without the Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al‐dīn
Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī (d. 771/1370)
The Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al‐dīn is a marvelous book containing a wide variety of Islamic sciences intermixed with many subtle accounts of Sufism and matters of the heart.
Ibn Kathīr (d. 774/1373)
Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, the Proof of Islam (Ḥujjat al-Islām) and the Muslims, the Imām of the imāms of religion, [is a man] whose like eyes have not seen in eloquence and elucidation, and speech and thought, and acumen and natural ability.
Abd al-Ghāfir b. Ismāʿīl al-Fārisī (d. 529/1134)