Key To The Garden : Understanding Abu Hamid al-Ghazali

My first brush with theologian, thinker,sufi shaykh, hujjatul-Islam, writer, scholar par excellence Abu Hamid al-Ghazali must be some 27 years ago.  In my early days as a young internist, just back from London, I was so excited when  I was'seconded' to Tabung haji Board' for 4 months, heading the medical team looking after  the health and safety of some 25 to 30 thousand Malaysian pilgrims in Saudi . Apart from having to read everything under the sun about heat stroke, meningitis, pneumonia etc etc and etc, I had to arm myself with some knowledge about Islam and Haj.

Read Ali Shariati's "Hajj" [' Howk,  jange baca benda2 ugamo kalu tak berguru!...nanti sesat !!'..my sister in law quipped anxiously, her Qur'an ,all well stacked up high on the cupboard, untouched for 30 over years,.... 'so very afraid of being lost!']. I  started on Hamka's tafseer and  for safe measure, bought the four volume Ihya, an Indonesian translation work.[ Our so-called ulama' are all sleeping  or back-biting each other!, but this 'topic' is for another day, another blog.........]

Now 27 years later, as for  Hamka's ten volume 'Tafsir Azhar', I have gone through three times over. I found out Ali Shariati's  very short 'Hajj' one of the best treatise on the Haj. Not easily available in the bookstore , since , remember, he is a shiah.... but the four-volume Ihya still remained in my library, untouched......collecting dust.

After listening to Hamza Yusuf now, I have made a mental note to start attacking 'it' sometime before the year's end. He is after all the 'Hujjatul Islam'. His ' Dzikr al- Mawt amma ba'du ' or 'Remembrance of Death and the Aftrelife', beautifully translated by TJ Winter and published by Fons Vitae, I have finished cover to cover twice over...a bloody good read. Highly recommended reading to tie down our  overbulging 'naf', and this increasing, unquenched love for this 'dunya'.

"Allahumma inni au' zubika min  sarri nafsi"
[ Oh Allah, protect me from the horrors of my own naf ]


Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson on ' Understanding Al-Ghazali ',

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJezFjbn-6M&feature=related







thanks to lina joy, she started me blogging and resulted in the 'birth' of 'pearls & gem'; ...and subsequently 'tafseerkoran.blogspot.com'

http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2008/05/lina-joy-case-what-it-meant-to-us-as.html