Repentance: Being a Translation of Kitab at-Tawbah of Al-Ghazzali’s Ihya Ulum al-Din (Revival of Religious Sciences)

Author: Al-Ghazali

Translator: M. S. Stern

Publisher: Dar Al Wahi Publication

ISBN: 9789671153994

Pages: 220 pages

Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali(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 creer 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 the 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 purpose.

This is the translation of the thirty first book of Al-Ghazali’s The Revival of the Religious Science, vis., Kitab at-Tawba in which he defines what constitutes true ‘Repetance’, its relation to religious faith, and the method for achieving it.