The Foundations of the Articles of Faith

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Imam Abū _amid Mu_ammad al-Ghazālī (450-505 /1058-1111) is justly described as “Hujjatul Islam”. He was born in the Iranian town of Tus, studied Islamic law and theology at the Seljuq College in Nishapur, and became a distinguished professor at the famous Nizamiyya University in Baghdad.

Despite his glittering success, he was inwardly dissatisfied, so he abandoned his career for the life of hardship, abstinence and devotion to worship. During ten years of wandering, he experienced a spiritual transformation, in which the Truth came to him at last, as something received rather than acquired.

Blessed with an inner certainty, he then applied his outstanding faculties and vast learning to the task of revitalizing the whole Islamic tradition. Through his direct personal contacts, and through his many writings, he showed how every element in that tradition could and should be turned to its true purpose.

This is the translation of Book II of the first quarter of Al-Ghazzālī’s The Revival of the Religious Sciences, vis., Kitāb Qawā‘id al-‘Aqā‘id (The Foundations of the Articles of Faith).

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