A spiritual teacher purifies the heart, guides it towards God. So teaching is the finest mode of worship.
– Imam al-Ghazali rahimahu Llah –
09 Sunday Jun 2019
Posted Al-Ghazzali
inA spiritual teacher purifies the heart, guides it towards God. So teaching is the finest mode of worship.
– Imam al-Ghazali rahimahu Llah –
12 Tuesday Mar 2019
Posted Al-Ghazzali, Reflection, Sayyiduna 'Umar al-Khattab, Sufism
inPeople count with self-satisfaction the number of times they have recited the name of God on their prayer beads, but they keep no beads for reckoning the number of idle words they speak. The caliph `Umar (radi Allahu ‘anhu) said, “take account of yourselves before you are taken account of”.
– Imam al-Ghazali rahimahu Llah –
18 Tuesday Dec 2018
Posted Al-Ghazzali, Quotes
inWhen morning dawns on the slave, he should contemplate upon the darkness of the night and brighthness of the day, and recognise the arrival of one brings about the arrival of the other. So too with the light of proximate knowledge: when it appears, it extinguishes the darkness of sin from the limbs.
– Imam Ghazzali rahimahu Llah –
08 Friday Jun 2018
Posted Al-Ghazzali
inYou possess only whatever will not be lost in a shipwreck.
– Al-Ghazali rahimahu Llah –
04 Sunday Jun 2017
Posted Al-Ghazzali, Al-Quran
inReciting the Qur’an disciplines the soul in many respects. It teaches man what he is required to do and stirs in him what he needs to purify his soul. Reciting the Qur’an enlightens the heart and reminds it of every proper conduct. In this… way, it aids the other duties of Islam bringing forth their fruits, such as the Prayer, alms-giving, fasting and the pilgrimage. Reciting the Qur’an is more likely to be effective if one ponders over the meanings with humility and contemplation
The Ten Inner Prerequisites of Reciting the Qur’an are:
– Imam al-Ghazzali rahimahu Llah –
03 Saturday Jun 2017
Posted Al-Ghazzali, Ramadhan
inOf what use is the fast as a means of conquering God’s enemy and abating appetite, if at the time of breaking it one not only makes up for all one has missed during the daytime, but perhaps also indulges in a variety of extra foods? It has become the custom to stock up for Ramadan with all kinds of foodstuffs, so that more is consumed during that time than in the course of several other months put together.
It is well known that the object of fasting is to experience hunger and to check desire, in order to reinforce the soul in piety. If the stomach is starved from early morning till evening, so that its appetite is aroused and its craving intensified, and it is then offered delicacies and allowed to eat its fill, its taste for pleasure is increased and its force exaggerated; passions are activated which would have lain dormant under normal conditions.
– Hujjat’ul-Islam Imam al-Ghazzali (rahimahu Llah) –
19 Sunday Jun 2016
Posted Al-Ghazzali, Rabia al-Basri
inSayyiduna Rabia al Basri (radi Allāhu ‘anha) was asked about Jannah, she replied,
The Owner of the house comes before the house.
– Hujjat-ul-Islam Imam al-Ghazali rahimahu Llah –
15 Sunday May 2016
Posted Adab, Al-Ghazzali
inEvery act of worship – be it prayer or alms-giving or fasting – has been made obligatory from time to time. But seeking knowledge is obligatory in every state.
— Imām al-Ghazālī rahimahu Llah –
28 Sunday Jun 2015
Posted Al-Ghazzali
in20 Wednesday May 2015
Posted Al-Ghazzali
inKnow that, if you seek friendship, look for Three qualities in a person:
The first is: Intellect. There is no benefit in friendship with a foolish person. An intelligent enemy is sometimes better than a foolish friend.
The second is: Good Character. Do not befriend someone who cannot restrain their anger or control their desire. Nor, someone who is a liar or who is greedy for this world.
The third is: Righteousness. Do not befriend someone who persists in major wrongdoings, for witnessing such actions on a regular basis makes wrongdoings seem insignificant.
These qualities rarely exist together. Keep interactions with your friends proportionate to the level of these qualities within them.
– Imam al-Ghazzali rahimahu Llah –
14 Saturday Feb 2015
Posted Al-Ghazzali, Allah
inPraise be to Allah; whose compassion is all-embracing and Whose mercy is universal; Who rewards His servants for their remembrance (Dhikr Allah) with His remembrance (of them) Verily Allah ta’ala has said;
Remember Me, and I will remember you.
– Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali rahimahu Llah) in Ihya ulum ad-Deen
10 Saturday Jan 2015
Posted Al-Ghazzali
in08 Thursday Jan 2015
Posted Al-Ghazzali
inThus heart is the place of Divine Glance (Al-Nadhr)…how strange! A person is more concerned about looking after the face which is the place of the glances of the creation (ie which is seen by the people), he washes it and removes dirt from it and he tries his best to beautify it so that people do not see any defects (of the face). However, he is careless regarding the heart which is under the Divine Glance. He doesn’t clean it, nor does he beautify it for Allāh’s sake. Rather he leaves it full of dirt (dirty) so much so that if people were to become aware of the dirt of his heart they would leave him and reject him….
– Imām al-Ghazālī rahimahu Llah –
09 Sunday Nov 2014
Posted Al-Ghazzali
in21 Sunday Sep 2014
Posted Al-Ghazzali
in21 Sunday Sep 2014
Posted Al-Ghazzali
inIn his Iḥyā ʿulūm al-dīn, Imam al-Ghazālī (rahimahu Llah) also said:
The aspirant requires a shaykh and teacher to emulate and to guide him to the balanced way. The way (sabīl) of religion is obscure (ghāmiḍ), and the ways of Satan are numerous and apparent. Who does not have a shaykh to guide him, Satan leads him to his paths. So who seeks the plain way of destruction with no sentinel, let him ponder alone and destroy himself. The independent one (mustaqil) alone is like a tree that sprouts by itself, because it agitates the neighbors. Even if it remains long enough to grow leaves, it does not bear fruit. The aspirant must cling to his shaykh and hold tightly to him.
12 Saturday Apr 2014
Posted Adab, Al-Ghazzali
inSayyiduna Dawud {Peace be upon him} relates that Allah Most High says:
If an ‘Alim {a learned scholar} prefers worldly desires to My love, the least I do to him is that I deprive him of the bliss of having communion with Me, he cannot experience the sublime joys inherent in the remembrance of Allah Most High and in supplications to Him. O Dawud! Have no regard for an ‘alim who has been intoxicated by his lust for this world, for he would lead you astray from My love. Such people are robbers.
O Dawud, if you find someone who really seeks My countenance, become his servant. O Dawud, if anyone comes to me running, I record his name as a sane wise person and I do not punish such a man.
{The Revival of the Islamic Sciences ~ Ihya Ulum ad-Deen}
18 Tuesday Mar 2014
09 Thursday Jan 2014
Posted Al-Ghazzali
in03 Friday Jan 2014
Posted Al-Ghazzali
in03 Friday Jan 2014
Posted Al-Ghazzali
in21 Thursday Nov 2013
Posted Al-Ghazzali, Imam Haddad
inThe Proof of Islam (may God’s mercy be on him) wrote in his book The Beginning of Guidance [Bidayat al-Hidaya], in the chapter “Preparing for the Ritual Prayers”:
You should not neglect your time or use it haphazardly; on the contrary, you should bring yourself to account, structure your litanies and other practices during each day and night, and assign to each period a fixed and specific function. This is how to bring out the spiritual blessing [baraka] in each period. But if you leave yourself adrift, aimlessly wandering as cattle do, not knowing how to occupy yourself at every moment, your time will be lost. It is nothing other than your life, and your life is the capital that you make use of to reach perpetual felicity in the proximity of God the Exalted. Each of your breaths is a priceless jewel, since each of them is irreplaceable and, once gone, can never be retrieved. Do not be like the deceived fools who are joyous because each day their wealth increases while their life shortens. What good is an increase in wealth when life grows even shorter? Therefore, be joyous only for an increase in knowledge or in good works, for they are your two companions who will accompany you in your grave when your family, wealth, children, and friends stay behind.
[Imam al-Ghazali] also wrote (may God’s mercy be on him),
Know that a night and a day comprise twenty-four hours; therefore do not sleep more than eight hours, for it should suffice you, for if you were to live sixty years, for instance, you would have wasted twenty, which is one third.
And he said:
If you do [remember death and prepare for its coming], you will know endless joy when death arrives. Whereas if you are complacent and procrastinate, death will come to you at an unforeseen moment and you will know regrets without end. At dawn people are grateful for the traveling they did by night. With death, certainty comes to you; you will surely have its experience, in time.
This book, though shorter than many lengthier treatises dealing with the same matter, contains what should be enough for the intelligent alert believer who is active in worship. A Shadhili scholar once said:
What Imam al-Ghazali (may God have mercy on him) has included in ‘The Beginning of Guidance‘ is sufficient for a sufi beginner; what he has included in ‘The Way of the Worshippers‘ [Minhaj al-‘Abidin] suffices the one in the middle; and ‘The Revival of the Religious Sciences‘ [Ihya’ ‘Ulum al-Din] is enough for the one near the end of the path.
The matter is this way for whoever is fair in his judgment and aims to adorn himself with the best of virtues and attributes. God grants success, there is no other Lord. How excellent are the poet’s words:
Gather provision for the inescapable.
Mankind has an appointment at the Resurrection.
Will it please you to be with those whose
provision is abundant while yours is amiss?
Also the famous poem which begins:
I see that daylight illumines for you
the upright road from which you swerve.
And where he says:
We fall prey to the illusion of the green branches
of hope, which never bear fruit.
This is a blessed poem belonging to a certain man from Yemen. Our master Shaykh ‘Umar al-Mihdar ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman used to like it and so did Shaykh Fadl ibn ‘Abdallah al-Tarimi al-Shihri, may God have mercy on them and spread their benefit and that of all virtuous servants of God.
-Imam Abdallah al-Haddad, Knowledge and Wisdom
21 Thursday Nov 2013
Posted Adab, Al-Ghazzali
in… your effort in your preaching should not be for the people in your congregation to roar or show hysteria and tear at their clothes, so that it is said, ‘What a gathering that was!’ For all this is worldliness, and that is produced by indifference. Rather your zealous intentions must be to lead men from the world to the hereafter, from recalcitrance to obedience, from acquisitiveness to renunciation, from stinginess to generosity, from doubt to certainty, from indifference to vigilance, and from illusion to God-consciousness. You should evoke in them love of the afterlife and loathing for the world. You should teach them about worship and asceticism. Do not allow them to be complacent due to the kindness of God the Exalted (Glorious and Majestic!) and His mercy, since predominating in their natures is disinclination from the path of the Law, drive in what displeases God the Exalted, and getting tripped up by bad morals. Put fear into their hearts, alarm them and put them on their guard regarding the dangers they will face. Perhaps their inward qualities will be transformed, and their outward behavior exchanged – ‘acquisitiveness’ and an ‘appetite’ for obedience, and for repentance from disobedience, will appear.
p 52 of “Letter to a Disciple” by Imam al-Ghazzali rahimahu Llah
21 Thursday Nov 2013
Posted Adab, Al-Ghazzali
in… if you read or study knowledge, your knowledge must improve your heart and purge your ego – just as if you learned that your life would only last another week, inevitably you would not spend it in learning about law, ethics, jurisprudence, scholastic theology and suchlike, because you would know that these sciences would be inadequate for you. Instead, you would occupy yourself with inspecting your heart, discerning the features of your personality, giving worldly attachments a wide berth, purging yourself of ugly traits, and you would occupy yourself in adoring God the Exalted, worshipping Him, and acquiring good qualities. And not a day or night passes for [any] worshipper without his death during it being a possibility.
(p 56 of “Letter do a Disciple” By Imam al_Ghazzali rahimahu Llah
16 Saturday Nov 2013
Posted Al-Ghazzali
in20 Sunday Oct 2013
Posted Al-Ghazzali, Al-Quran
in19 Saturday Oct 2013
Posted Al-Ghazzali
in21 Saturday Sep 2013
Posted Al-Ghazzali
in07 Saturday Sep 2013
Posted Al-Ghazzali
in25 Sunday Aug 2013
Posted Al-Ghazzali
inLight upon Light
Allah has encompassed all things in knowledge (65:12)
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