This is a short book based on the teachings of classical scholars such as Ibn Qayyim and Ibn al-Jawzi. It teaches how to discipline our soul, resist our desires, and follow the straight path of Islam. This book is written for the person who is desirous of becoming a good Muslim. For the one who needs the tools to discipline himself. For the person who has sinned but wants to repent to his Lord. This book is for all Muslims - the newly converted and for those who have been Muslims since birth. This book serves as a source of light in the darkness of temptations that surround us. You will learn how to experience true faith when you read this book. It contains authentic events, advice, and stories that will inspire you to move to the next level in your journey towards the Hereafter. If you have been desiring to have a loving relationship with your Lord, then this book is written so that you can achieve this goal with ease.This is not just a self-help book but is a manual of your journey towards becoming a good Muslim. This book will keep your heart from becoming hard and dark. It is a book of hope and forgiveness. You can heal your heart and improve yourself no matter where you have started this journey. This book can serve as a source of your awakening and returning to the Islamic version of yourself. By reading this compact but comprehensive book with a pure intention and attentive heart, you can cultivate your love for Allah and the Messenger (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and live a life of gratitude and contentment.

The spiritual life in Islam begins with riyadat al-nafs, the inner warfare against the ego. Distracted and polluted by worldliness, the lower self has a tendency to drag the human creature down into arrogance and vice. Only by a powerful effort of will can the sincere worshipper achieve the purity of soul which enables him to attain God's proximity. This translation of two chapters from The Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din) details the sophisticated spiritual techniques adopted by classical Islam. In the first step, On Disciplining the Soul, which cites copious anecdotes from the Islamic scriptures and biographies of the saints, Ghazali explains how to acquire good character traits, and goes on to describe how the sickness of the heart may be cured. In the second part, Breaking the Two Desires, he focusses on the question of gluttony and sexual desire, concluding, in the words of the Prophet, that 'the best of all matters is the middle way'. The translator has added an introduction and notes which explore Ghazali's ability to make use of Greek as well as Islamic ethics. The work will prove of special interest to those interested in Sufi mysticism, comparative ethics, and the question of sexuality in Islam.

This book consists of six sections in the following order: * Our Spiritual Life * Knowing the Soul * Moods of the Soul * Soul Combat * Secrets of the Soul * Wonders of the Soul. The author distributes the curriculum in this book into twenty studies, consisting of fifty five numbered lessons, including the questions and exercises presented at the end of each unit. He reminds our spiritual scholars not to employ the instructional method of dictating spiritual knowledge to their students. They should instead turn their faces to individual study of the signs and facts of natural horizon, so that they can perceive the mystical core of these natural phenomena and its citation. Students in our societies are of pressing need for practical spiritual experience. There is no doubt, the eminent writer has made a lot of effort at ensuring that this book helps to achieve the ultimate goal of our spiritual education.

Sexual desire has long played a key role in Western judgments about the value of Arab civilization. In the past, Westerners viewed the Arab world as licentious, and Western intolerance of sex led them to brand Arabs as decadent; but as Western society became more sexually open, the supposedly prudish Arabs soon became viewed as backward. Rather than focusing exclusively on how these views developed in the West, in Desiring Arabs Joseph A. Massad reveals the history of how Arabs represented their own sexual desires. To this aim, he assembles a massive and diverse compendium of Arabic writing from the nineteenth century to the present in order to chart the changes in Arab sexual attitudes and their links to Arab notions of cultural heritage and civilization. A work of impressive scope and erudition, Massad’s chronicle of both the history and modern permutations of the debate over representations of sexual desires and practices in the Arab world is a crucial addition to our understanding of a frequently oversimplified and vilified culture. “A pioneering work on a very timely yet frustratingly neglected topic. . . . I know of no other study that can even begin to compare with the detail and scope of [this] work.”—Khaled El-Rouayheb, Middle East Report “In Desiring Arabs, [Edward] Said’s disciple Joseph A. Massad corroborates his mentor’s thesis that orientalist writing was racist and dehumanizing. . . . [Massad] brilliantly goes on to trace the legacy of this racist, internalized, orientalist discourse up to the present.”—Financial Times

What happens when authorities you venerate condone something you know is wrong? Every major religion and philosophy once condoned or approved of slavery, but in modern times nothing is seen as more evil. Americans confront this crisis of authority when they erect statues of Founding Fathers who slept with their slaves. And Muslims faced it when ISIS revived sex slavery, justifying it with verses from the Quran and the practice of Muhammad. Exploring the moral and ultimately theological problem of slavery, Jonathan A.C. Brown traces how the Christian, Jewish and Islamic traditions have tried to reconcile modern moral certainties with the infallibility of God’s message. He lays out how Islam viewed slavery in theory, and the reality of how it was practiced across Islamic civilization. Finally, Brown carefully examines arguments put forward by Muslims for the abolition of slavery.

Part travelogue, part autobiography, "The Road to Mecca" is the compelling story of a Western journalist and adventurer who converted to Islam in the early twentieth century. A spiritual and literary counterpart of Wilfred Thesiger and a contemporary of T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), Muhammad Asad journeyed around the Middle East, Afghanistan and India. This is an account of Asad's adventures in Arabia, his inner awakening, and his relationships with nomads and royalty alike, set in the wake of the First World War. It can be read on many levels: as a eulogy to a lost world, and as the poignant account of a man's search for meaning. It is also a love story, defying convention and steeped in loss. With its evocative descriptions and profound insights on the Islamic world, "The Road to Mecca" is a work of immense value today.