PROJECTS
Here are the MLS’s current translation projects. We greatly need your generous support to complete this work.
The Muslim Literary Society and Fons Vitae is pleased to announce that Imam al-Tirmidhi's classic literary exposition on the Prophet's lofty qualities and outward beauty, al-Shama’il al-Muhammadiyyah or The Muhammadan Virtues, will be released winter 2007 inshallah. Please note that the book cover design shown above is just one of several designs under consideration for the final version.
The MLS & Fons Vitae Translates al-Ghazali's Ihya ‘Ulum al-Din (Revival of the Religious Sciences)
MLS, in conjunction with Fons Vitae, is presently translating Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali's Ihya ‘Ulum al-Din (Revival Religious Sciences), translated by the celebrated translator of many traditional Islamic spiritual texts, Muhtar Holland.
On Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali:
The most influential Sunni thinker of Medieval Islam, and considered as the renewer of the fifth Islamic century, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (1058-1111) was at once a jurist, a logician, a theologian, and ultimately a mystic. Born in Tus, Persia, lecturing at Baghdad as the Chair of the Department of Jurisprudence at the Nizamiyyah, and leading life of a wandering dervish, al-Ghazali was the only one honored in the history of Sunni Islam with title of Hujjatul-Islam, or the Proof of Islam. In several hagiographies he has been ranked in close proximity to the some of the most honored companions of the Prophet Muhammad.
Al-Ghazali was a colossal figure that shaped the religious sciences by reorienting them through the study of their schools, evaluating their positions and arguments, and understanding them, "To refute" he said, "one must understand." He retained an indefatigable repute throughout the Islam’s legacy — respected in both the Sunni and Shi’i dimensions of Islam — during one of Islam’s most politically charged and intellectually polarized periods of history. Islam in his time appeared to be progressing in different directions to the exclusion of each other and each claimed to be the truth, "If the prophetic revelation was a concave lens which diffused knowledge from the Divine world into this, al-Ghazali was a convex lens that took the separating rays of light and refocused them."
Composing about seventy books, his literary output quiet literally, single-handedly, reconfigured the discourse of Islam in almost all its dimensions. For the jurists he was primarily a jurist, for the theologian was primarily a theologian, for the philosopher he was primarily a philosopher, and for the mystic he was primarily a mystic; the eye that looked upon his work reflected their own attitudes towards and emphasis on the religion. His al-Munqidh min ad-Dalal (Deliverance from Error) is about his search for knowledge and certitude, his Tahafut al-Falasifah (Incohrence of the Philosophers) is his refutation of the peripatetic philosophical method to achieve truth and certitude, his Kimiya as-Sa’adah (Alchemy of Happiness) is a work on spiritual ethics and practices, and his Mishkat al-Anwar is his mystical work; however, it is al-Ghazali’s Ihya ‘Ulum al-Din (Revivification of the Sacred Disciplines) that cuts across various inward themes, concerning the spirit and intellect, and outward themes, concerning the practices of Sacred law. Thus, the ink of his quill brings each discipline in greater harmony with each other and a more unified portrayal of the religion arises, the affects of his quill ripples through nearly all subsequent studies in classical Islam by his successors.
Whether it was al-Ghazali’s deconstructing of the peripatetic philosophers or his quick rise and recognition as the lead jurist in Sunni Islam’s heart of learning, the city of Baghdad, or his quest for certitude following his intellectual crisis, al-Ghazali’s thought, work, and life, echoes through the legacy of Islam and finds pertinence in today’s politically charged and intellectually polarized climate. And there is probably no clearer and expansive exposition of al-Ghazali’s thought and practices of Islam than his life’s culminating masterpiece the Ihya ‘Ulum al-Din, the Revivification of the Sacred Disciplines.
The Revival of the Religions Sciences (Ihya ‘Ulum al-Din) is widely regarded as the greatest work of Muslim spirituality, and has, for centuries, been the most read work after the Qur’an in the Muslim world.
The Revival of the Religious Sciences is divided into four parts each containing ten chapters. The first part deals with knowledge and the requirements of faith—ritual purity, prayer, charity, fasting, pilgrimage, recitation of the Qur’an, etc.; part two concentrates mostly on people and society—the manners relating to eating, marriage, earning a living, friendship, etc.; parts three and four are dedicated to the inner life of the soul and discuss first the vices that people must overcome in themselves and then the virtues that they must strive to achieve.
