Al-Ghazali's Fear and Hope : New,
from the Ihya Ulum al-Din,
*[A5] Paperback - 169 pages,
by Imam al-Ghazali [d.505h],
Translated by William McKane
Published by The Islamic Books Trust
Description :
This is a translation of the third book from the fourth volume of Imam al-Ghazali's magnum opus 'The Revival of the Religious Sciences' the Ihya Ulum al-Din, concerning the means of salvation, that is, the techniques or therapies by which the cure of the soul is achieved.
The Book of Fear and Hope might well be described as an essay on the tactics of propagating the Faith to the community. The principle objective is to outline the salutary employment of fear and hope in the cure of the soul.
The book deals with a topic of pastoral psychology and is a good sample of the work of Imam al-Ghazali, in so far as it illustrates some of the reasons why he has attained so commanding a position within Islam and exercised so great an influence on the course of theological thought.
Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali is a towering figure in Islam. His enormous influence can be summarised, in the words of Annemarie Shimmel, as the one who “teaches… only to help man to live a life in accordance with the sacred law, not by clinging exclusively to its letter, but by an understanding of its deeper meaning …so that he is ready for the meeting with his Lord at any moment.”
His greatest work Ihya Ulum al-Din (Revivification of the Sciences of Religion), comprising forty books divided into four quarters of ten books each, has helped generations towards this end until today.
Table of Contents :
---Preface,
---Introduction.
---About the Text,
---The Argument of the Book,
---The Book of' Fear and Hope.'
Part [I] : Hope,
---The Essence of Hope,
---The Merit of Hope,
---The Therapy of Hope.
Part [II] : Fear,
---The Essence of Fear,
---The Degrees of Fear,
---The Divisions of Fear,
---The Merit of Fear,
---Dominance of Fear and Hope,
---Therapy for Inducing Fear,
---The Meaning of Su al-khatimah (the Evil End),
---The Fear of Prophets and Angels,
---The Fear of Companions,
------Their Students,
------The Early Muslim Community,
------The Sound in Faith.
---Index.
*Dimensions : 21.6 x 14.8cm.
