Travelling Light : Imam al Ghazali's Revival of the Religious Sciences with Sidi Idris Watts Book 39 On Meditation (DVD)

Publisher/Manufacturer: Muslim Academic Trust (2013)
Product specifications: Islamic Lecture on DVD - Approximate Running Time 80 Minutes
Item type: Lecture DVD

Product description:

Book 39 Of the Ihya On Meditation SERIES VII with Sidi Idris Watts // Bifröst, Iceland Imam al-Ghazali (d.1111), known as the 'Proof of Islam', authored over a hundred books on all the Islamic scholarly disciplines. Famed as a jurist, theologian and teacher at the Nizamiyya madrasa in Baghdad, he mastered the swirling intellectual currents of his day to articulate the importance and harmony of Islamic orthodoxy with compelling and renewed clarity. Despite his achievements and renown, he became disillusioned with his academic career. He abandoned his comforts and prestige in Baghdad and embarked on a ten-year period of wandering and self-purification. In his autobiography he recorded: The desires of this world pulled at me and entreated me to remain, while the voice of faith called out: Go! Go! Only a little of your life remains, yet before you lies a lengthy journey. All the knowledge and works that are yours today are but an eye service and deceit. If you do not prepare now for the Afterlife when shall you do so? The works Imam al-Ghazali composed during and after this period of spiritual quest are infused with the deep conviction of the need to relate outward forms to inward sincerity, and with the results of his own spiritual struggle. This is most clear in the work for which he is most celebrated, The Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya 'Ulum al-Din), a compendium of spiritual guidance which he wrote to revive the flagging fortunes of the Islamic world in his age. Covering every aspect of the religion, from belief, to worship, to daily life, to vice, virtue, and the final encounter with God, this text is regarded as one of the masterpieces of world sacred literature