Chapter X: Remembrance of Death
Truthfulness 331
Chapter 8. Meditation and Introspection 334
Stages of meditation 338
Self inflictment of punishment ' 34+
Self Rebuke 360
Chapter 9. Pondering over good 370
Thoughts of God's creations 377
Chapter 10. Death and subsequent events 383
Section I
Modes of thoughts of Death 385
Death of Prophet and four Caliphs 394
Burial and matters relating to it 408
Meaning of life and death 410
Punishment of grave 413
Section 2 419
Events of Resurrection 421
Paradise and Hell 430
Vision of God and God's mercy 433
PREFACE
The Book of Constructive Virtues' is the fourth and the last volume of Imam Gazzali's world renowned master piece Ihya Ulum- id-Din or the Revival of religious learnings. This work is an attempt to translate the fourth part of the Ihya not too literally but in substance from the original written in Arabic. It consisuof two parts. 'The Book of Constructive Virtues' consists of two parts. Part II deals with love and attachment, will and intention, meditation and self examination, pondering over good, death and subsequent events, death of the Prophet and four caliphs and events before and after Resurrection and Paradise and Hell. A litteral translation is avoided in order to omit the unnecessary arguments of sects and sub-sects then prevailing in the world and also to omit the sayings of the sages of less importance. But it should be noted that no verse of the Holy Quran or the Hadis of the Holy Prophet has been ommitted in this translation.
< Translations of the other parts of Ihya will soon be out of press
very shortly by the grace of Almighty God with full details of the Ihya and a short life and activities of Imam Gazzali, the greatest thinker and philosopher of the Muslim world.
I pray to the Almighty Allah that He may guide the people of the world in accordance with the teachings of the Holy Quran and Sunnah and the spirit in which the Ihya was written by Hujjatul Islam (the Proof of Islam), a title received by Imam Gazzali and about which it has been said "If all the books of Islam were destroyed, it would be but a slight loss if only the Ihya of Gazzali were preserved."
Dacca Fazlul Karim
October, 1971
i
THE REVIVAL OF RELIGIOUS LEARNINGS
The Book of Constructive Virutes
PARTI