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Ihya' Uloom Addeen
Mona
10/01/01 at 15:13:47
assalamu alaikum, Is there a good english translation to Ihya' Ullom Addeen (originally by Abu-Hamed al-Ghazali)? Any recommendations? I think our university library has an Arabic version of the book, but I doubt I will be able to understand it in Arabic even though it is my first language-as I'd imagine the author's liguistics would be too advanced for me. All input is welcome. Jazakum Allah khair. -m P.S. I have no idea what the book is really about. Just heard the name come up recently, thus my piqued interest.

Re: Ihya' Uloom Addeen
Arsalan
10/01/01 at 15:11:52
[slm] There's only one translation of the whole Ihyaa which is available at the moment.  It is by Maulana Fazlul Karim (I think).  I got my copy from Iqra at the Isna convention.  The translation is ok.  There are a lot of typos and inconsistencies in spelling (Hadis, Hadith, Ghazali, Ghazzali, etc).  The worst thing though is that none of the ahadith are documented.  That is, you don't know where the hadith is taken from (Bukhari?  Muslim?  Bayhaaqi?), let alone its grading (Sahih?  Daeef?  Marfoo?) However, the price was dirt cheap ($32 for 4 volumes), so I bought it anyway.   Wassalamu alaikum.

Re: Ihya' Uloom Addeen
deenb-4dunya
10/01/01 at 15:18:42
assalamu alaikum, by the way, their were no hadith collections at the time..no bukhari..muslim...no sahih. Therefore, Imam Ghazali used what he could, not knowing the isnad for the hadith. deenb4dunya

Re: Ihya' Uloom Addeen
Arsalan
10/01/01 at 15:25:40
[slm] Imam Ghazali was born in 1058 C.E. and died in 1111 C.E. ÿBoth Imam Bukhari (born 810 C.E.) and Imam Muslim (born 817 C.E.) had compiled their Saheehayn by then. Wallahu a'lam.

Re: Ihya' Uloom Addeen
bhaloo
10/01/01 at 15:30:35
slm You got ripped off Arsalan.  I bought mine new for $20, and the translation is in fairly bad English in some places, as is the typeset.  (islamicbookstore.com had this huge sale some time back, maybe a year or two ago, and that's when i bought it).

Re: Ihya' Uloom Addeen
se7en
10/02/01 at 14:12:42
wa alaykum as salaam wa rahmatAllahi wa barakatuh, good to hear from you Mona, where you been? :) TJ Winter (aka Abdul Hakim Murad) has also translated parts of the Ihya (published by the Islamic Texts Society, Cambridge).  I like 'em, the translation is excellent and the printing is nice. There is citation of the hadeeth and ayaat, and in the back there's this cool appendix that explains the significance of certain people that were mentioned in the text.  And of course the actual content is amazing, mashaAllah.. As for the negatives, I've heard some comments about the *way* Murad translates the text.. but every translators translates according to their own understanding and study, and Murad is no different.  With translation you are looking at a work through the scope of someone else's interpretation, and I think that's something to keep in mind no matter what you read, including the Qur'an in English.  (That's why so many of us have a desire to learn Arabic, to be able to read these works with the original author's 'flavor' -- imagine reading the words of Allah *exactly* as they were revealed?!) The books are pretty expensive (25-40 bucks each), and also the entire Ihya has not been translated, only sections or 'books' (I think in total there are something like forty books!) Here are the parts that have been translated with the Islamic Texts Society: [url=http://store.yahoo.com/islamicbookstore-com/b2988.html]On the Remembrance of Death and the Afterlife[/url] [url=http://store.yahoo.com/islamicbookstore-com/b3302.html]On Disciplining the Soul and Breaking the Two Desires[/url] [url=http://store.yahoo.com/islamicbookstore-com/b6377.html]On the Manners Relating to Eating[/url] -- not translated by TJW [url=http://store.yahoo.com/islamicbookstore-com/b3300.html]On Invocations and Supplications[/url] -- not translated by TJW Hope this has been of help inshaAllah.. Take care :) wasalaamu alaykum. ps - [url=http://store.yahoo.com/islamicbookstore-com/b3324.html]Here[/url] is the translation Arsalan and Arshad mentioned. pps - I've also heard some stuff about the 99 Beautiful Names of God, which I think is part of the Ihya, but I don't know much about it. ppps - Just so you know, I've only read "Remembrance of Death" and about half of "Breaking the Two Desires".. so I'm not some Ihya expert or somethin :P pppssquared - [url=http://mdhd.tripod.com/ghazali2.html]Here[/url] is a short bio on Ghazali.  Not sure about the rest of the site though.

Re: Ihya' Uloom Addeen
assing
10/03/01 at 18:04:26
As salaamu alaykum, imam Al-Ghazzali's book Ihya 'Ulum al-Din ranks as one of the most widely read books in Islam, having earned the praise of the scholars and the general acceptance of the Community. Among those who praised it: - Ibn al-Subki: 'It ranks among the books which Muslims must look after and spread far and wide so that many people may be guided by reading them. Seldom has someone looked into this book except he woke up on the spot thanks to it. May Allah grant us insight that shows us the way to truth, and protect us from what stands between us and the truth as a veil.' - Al-Safadi: 'It is among the noblest and greatest of books, to the extent that it was said, concerning it, that if all books of Islam were lost except the Ihya, it would suffice for what was lost.' - Fakhr al-Din al-Razi: 'It was as if Allah gathered all sciences under a dome, and showed them to al-Ghazzali.' However here are also some "mu'akhazat" about this book the scholars have mentioned, and from amongst them: 1. The Ihya was also strongly criticized for a variety of reasons, among them the number of weak or forged narrations cited in it, a list of which is provided by Ibn al-Subki, who stressed that al-Ghazzali never excelled in the field of hadith. Abu 'Abd Allah al-Maziri al-Maliki said in al-Kashf wa al-Inba. 'an Kitab al-Ihya that most of the narrations cited in it were flimsy (wâhin) with regard to authenticity, while the Maliki censor Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn al-Walid al-Turtushi (d. 420) exclaimed in his epistle to Ibn Zafir / Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Rahman ibn 'Atiyya: 'He has crammed his book full with forgeries.' 2. Ibn al-Jawzi  similarly dismisses the Ihya in four of his works: I'lam al-Ahya. bi Aghlat al-Ihya ('Informing the Living of the Mistakes of the Ihya), Talbis Iblis (an abridged version of ihya, but with mistakes and weak ahadeeth)  the  Kitab al-Qussas, and his history al-Muntazam fi Tarikh al-Muluk wal-mam. The basis of their position was also that al-Ghazzali used too many weak or baseless hadiths. Other scholars of hadith have documented almost every single hadith in the Ihya. Among these scholars: - Zayn al-Din al-'Iraqi (d. 806): al-Mughni 'an Haml al-Asfar; - His student Ibn Hajar: al-Istidrak 'ala Takhrij Ahadith al-Ihya; - al-Qasim ibn Qatlubagha al-Hanafi: Tuhfa al-Ahya. fi ma Fata Min Takhrij Ahadith al-Ihya; - Sayyid Murtada al-Zabidi al-Husayni (d. 1205): Ithaf al-Sada al-Muttaqin fi Sharh Asrar Ihya 'Ulum al-Din in ten massive volumes, each scholar completing the previous scholar's documentation. {I have personally read some of it, it is as stated a compendium of the the 'takhreej' of the ahadeeth of ihya, by these three different scholars}   3. A generation after al-Ghazzali's death, the Ihya was burnt in Andalus upon the recommendation of the qadi Ibn Hamdayn who was named Commander of the Believers in Qurtuba in 539 then fled to Malaga where he died in 548. 4. Another rallying cry of the critics of the Ihya is that it contains no exhortation towards jihad and that its author remained in seclusion between the years 488-499, at a time when the Crusaders ravaged the Antioch and al-Qudus, killing Muslims by the tens of thousands. Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi replied to these insinuations with the following words: The great Imam's excuse may be that his most pressing engagement was the reform of his own self first, and that it is one's personal corruption which paves the way for external invasions, as indicated by the beginning of Sura al-Isra. The Israelites, whenever they became corrupt and spread corruption in the earth, were subjected to the domination of their enemies. But whenever they did good and reformed themselves and others, they again held sway over their enemies. He directed his greatest concern toward the reform of the individual, who constitutes the core of the society. The reform of the individual can be effected only through the reform of his heart and thought. Only through such reform can his works and behavior be improved, and his entire life. This is the basis of societal change to which the Quran directs us by saying 'Lo! Allah changes not the condition of a folk until they (first) change that which is in their hearts' (13:11). So, in all i would concur with ibn taymiyyah as he alluded to in some of his writings where he mentioned imam Al Ghazali in a positive light as being one of the scholars of this deen, but as the imam Malik has said: everyone you accept and reject from them except the dweller of this grave, pointing to the grave of the messenger {saw}. Thus, if you can read the book in arabic with its corrections, you should do so {but this may mean some serious searching because these books are not easy to come by in an average arabic books store}. Btw, i do think these books with corrections of the ahadeeth in ihya have been tranlsated. And Allah knows best.

Re: Ihya' Uloom Addeen
Arsalan
10/03/01 at 13:36:23
[slm] [quote]but as the imam Malik has said: everyone you accept and take from them except the dweller of this grave, pointing to the grave of the messenger {saw}. [/quote]I think there is a typo in this quote.

Re: Ihya' Uloom Addeen
assing
10/03/01 at 16:58:25
Saheeh, it should be: "everyone you accept and reject from them except the dweller of this grave, pointing to the grave of the messenger {saw}. Shukran, for that pointer.
NS

Re: Ihya' Uloom Addeen
amal
10/03/01 at 17:47:33
Assalamu alaykum, Aside from the weak hadiths ,or perhaps because of them,Imam Al-Ghazali in his Ihya' Uloomu Addeen seems to have an interesting view about women and marriage to put it politely. As was said before,we can take what is good from anyone and leave what is not. People have different levels of perception and understanding which are most likely influenced by their environments. It's important to seek knowledge and read books but we have to keep in mind that the material presented to us is often filtered through the colored glasses of one's personal beliefs and as such we can agree or disagree with them except that which is authenticated from the sayings of our beloved prophet(saw) and the Qur'an.

Re: Ihya' Uloom Addeen
boy
10/10/01 at 22:27:31
i got it for 8 bucks nuff said

Re: Ihya' Uloom Addeen
Mona
10/12/01 at 12:00:29
assalamu alaikum my dear madina dwellers :) much belated thanks to your valued input into my query. i've been meaning to write this for ages, but what can i say - phd and life were getting in the way.   se7en, hey there sista! i'm still around - mostly in the background (i.e. lurking :) ) i'll fill you in soon, check you madina messages tonight! wassalam mona - who is up to here ears with things to do!

Re: Ihya' Uloom Addeen
*sofia*
10/25/01 at 15:33:12
Assalaamua alaikum wa rahmatullah Weirdly, I just bought this at the Islamic Bookstore for $20, the whole set.  Other than the type-set issue (old-school bound in India or Pakistan, can't remember which), it's not a bad deal, and probably well worth it once I actually read it, insha'Allah.  And yes, I've also read some questionable things regarding the status of women by Ghazzali, but he's otherwise, well, a classic. :-)
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