The Mysteries of Purification

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali
M. Abdurrahman Fitzgerald, M. Fouad Aresmouk

In the The Mysteries of Purification (Kitāb asrār al-ṭahāra), the third of the forty books of the Revival of the Religious Sciences (Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al‐dīn), Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī explains the fundamentals of the purification that is necessary in order to perform the five daily prayers. The book begins with an introduction to the general topic of purity. Al-Ghazālī explains the ḥadīth “Purification is half of faith,” and reminds readers that, for the earliest Muslims, inner purification was much more important than outer purification.

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  • 9781941610312
  • 112

Product Description

In chapter 1, he considers purification from impurities: What are the impurities and how should they be removed? Over the following chapters, al-Ghazālī examines the lesser ablution (wuḍūʾ), the greater ablution (ghusl), and the “dry ablution” (ablution without water, or tayammum). He discusses the etiquette of the bathhouse and outlines exactly how to clean the body of external things and natural growths; finally, he discusses the beard and practices related to it.

Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 1111) was a leading scholar, jurist, and theologian of the golden age of Islam, and he remains its truest advocate in modern times. As a teacher of both inward and outward faith, he recorded these practical teachings in his forty-book compendium of Islamic knowledge.

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