Aslam

Merits of Night Prayer 25"9

THE BOOK OF WORSHIP

PREFACE

Through the unbounded grace of the Almighty God and blessings of the greatest Apostle of God, the English version of the Book of worship of the world renowned Ihyaul Ulum (Revival of religious learning) of Imam Ghazzali, the greatest thinker of the world of Islam, the Proof of Islam, the famous Sufi and devout, has now been published in full. This book Ihya is a sea of knowledge full of reasons and arguments, full of Quranic verses, traditions of the Holy Prophet and of the companions and the famous saints of early ages. Each subject was supported by the Quran, traditions and sayings of the learned sages and wise men and established by reasons and arguments.

As the great Imam belonged originally to the Shafeyi Sunni sect, some of the religious doctrines will be found in line with that sect, but nevertheless its importance is very great. In his advanced age, the Imam was not a blind follower of sects but followed his independent thinking and as such indirectly created a sect of his own. As the world is advancing with ever new ideas and scientific discoveries, so also this work is full of novel and great ideas and scientific discoveries and thereby the Imam revived truly the religious sciences and gave them an impetus never given by his predecessors in such a manner.
He saved Islam from the currents and cross currents of devilish thoughts and pagan ideas that inperceptibly entered into Islam and clearly showed their fallacies and misconceptions. For this reason, he was given the title of Hujjatul Islam or the Proof of Islam. His thoughts prevailed upon those savants who came after him. Had not the Almighty blessed him with the necklace of reason and intellect, the true belief of Islam would have been carried away by the strong current of irreligious and misguided thoughts.

True it is that there are many weak traditions in this book, but at the same time it should be remembered that the authors of six authentic traditional books specially Bukhari and Muslim selected some few thousand traditions as most of them were not proved to have been founded by trustworthy narrators from the Holy Prophet down to the narrator or did not meet with all the rules laid down for an authentic tradition. For want of proof,

8 REVIVAL OF RELIGIOUS LEARNINGS Vol-I

many guilty persons are acquitted. For that, it cannot be said that all acquitted persons are innocent. So in this perspective, the traditions in the Ihya should be regarded. Had Imam Ghazzali not found them trusworthy, he would not have incorporated them in his book.