al-Ghazzali Alchemy of Happiness 2 Vol. set (Great Books of the Islamic World) - Softcover

Imam Muhammad Al-Ghazzali

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1567446744 ISBN 13: 9781567446746

Publisher: Kazi Publications, Inc., 2007

Synopsis

The first complete English translation of The Alchemy of Happiness, this is Imam Ghazzali s Persian summary of his famous Arabic treatise on morality and ethics in Islam, The Revival of Religious Sciences. In this work, Ghazzali details the many pitfalls, snares, and distractions internal and external that lie in wait to divert the traveler of the Way from attaining the goal which Ghazzali calls spiritual happiness. But there are also defenders, guides, and helpers which the traveler may enlist in his aid if he recognizes them. In The Alchemy, Ghazzali has provided the traveler of the Way with a critique of faith and a detailed guidebook to guide him safely to that goal. If he follows its counsels, he will successfully pass through the awesome tribunal of the Resurrection to achieve everlasting salvation, the highest degree of which is that state in which there remains neither fear of the terrors of hell nor appetite for the pleasures of Paradise. It is the pure ecstasy of the loving Divine Presence: Absolute spiritual happiness.

About this title

About the Author

Al-Ghazâlî (c.1056 1111) was one of the most prominent and influential philosophers, theologians, jurists, and mystics of Sunni Islam. He was active at a time when Sunni theology had just passed through its consolidation and entered a period of intense challenges from Shiite Ismâ îlite theology and the Arabic tradition of Aristotelian philosophy (falsafa). Al-Ghazâlî understood the importance of falsafa and developed a complex response that rejected and condemned some of its teachings, while it also allowed him to accept and apply others. Al-Ghazâlî's critique of twenty positions of falsafa in his Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahâfut al-falâsifa) is a significant landmark in the history of philosophy as it advances the nominalist critique of Aristotelian science developed later in 14th century Europe. On the Arabic and Muslim side al-Ghazâlî's acceptance of demonstration (apodeixis) led to a much more refined and precise discourse on epistemology and a flowering of Aristotelian logics and metaphysics. With al-Ghazâlî begins the successful introduction of Aristotelianism or rather Avicennism into Muslim theology. After a period of appropriation of the Greek sciences in the translation movement from Greek into Arabic and the writings of the falâsifa up to Avicenna (Ibn Sînâ, c.980 1037), philosophy and the Greek sciences were naturalized into the discourse of kalâm and Muslim theology (Sabra 1987). Al-Ghazâlî's approach to resolving apparent contradictions between reason and revelation was accepted by almost all later Muslim theologians and had, via the works of Averroes (Ibn Rushd, 1126 98) and Jewish authors a significant influence on Latin medieval thinking.
-- Griffel, Frank, "Al-Ghazali", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)

Edition details

• Publisher: Kazi Publications, Inc.
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1567446744
• ISBN 13: 9781567446746
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 1260