The Alchemy of Happiness
- Language:
- English
- Translation:
- Claud Field
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text · 1 illegible passages, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~25,100 words · 119 passages
Cite this work
- APAAl-Ghazali. (n.d.). The Alchemy of Happiness. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/al-ghazali/the-alchemy-of-happiness
- MLAAl-Ghazali. "The Alchemy of Happiness." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/al-ghazali/the-alchemy-of-happiness.
- ChicagoAl-Ghazali. The Alchemy of Happiness. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/al-ghazali/the-alchemy-of-happiness.
What it is about
The summary al-Ghazali made in Persian of his own major work, addressed to those who did not read technical Arabic.
Context and history
Al-Ghazali's great work is the 'Ihya ulum ad-din', the revival of the religious sciences, forty books in Arabic. This is its short version in the language of the country, written so that it might reach people outside the trade. It begins with four kinds of knowledge — of oneself, of God, of this world and of the next — and goes on to practice: the body, marriage, work, music, friendship, sincerity. The word alchemy is not an ornament: the idea is that there is an art which transforms the base metal of the soul, and that this art is known and can be described. Of al-Ghazali's books it is the easiest to begin with and the most widely read outside his own world. It should be known that in English it often circulates in partial versions, translating only a portion of it.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
rpHE object of the Editors of this series is a -L very definite one. They desire above ail things that, in their humble way, these books shall be the ambassadors of good-will and understanding between East and West — the old world of Thought and the new of Action. In this endeavour, and in their own sphere, they are but followers of the highest example in the land. They are confident that a deeper know¬ ledge of the great ideals and lofty philosophy of Oriental thought may help to a revival of that true spirit of Charity which neither despises nor fears the nations of another creed and colour. Finally, in thanking press and public for the very cordial reception given to the “ Wisdom of the East ” Series, they wish to state that no pains have been spared to secure the best specialists for the treatment of the various subjects at hand. L. CRANMER-BYNG. S. A. KAPADIA. Northbrook Society, 185 Piccadilly, W. Renan, whose easy-going mind was the exact antithesis to the intense earnestness of Ghazzali, calls him “ the most original mind among Arabian philosophers.” 1 Notwithstanding this, his fame as a philosopher has been greatly overshadowed by Avicenna, his predecessor, and Averroes, his successor and opponent. It is a significant fact that the Encyclopcedia Britannica devotes five columns to each of the others and only a column and a half to Ghazzali. Yet it is doubtful whether it is as a philosopher that he would have wished to be chiefly remembered. Several of his works, it is true, are polemics against the philosophers, especially his Tehafot-al-falasifa, or “ Destruction of the Philosophers,” and, as Solomon Munk says in his Mela?iges de philosophise Juive et Arabe, Ghazzali dealt “ a fatal blow ” to Arabian philosophy in the East, from which it never recovered, though it revived for a while in Spain and culminated in Averroes. Philosopher and sceptic as he was by nature, Ghazzali’s chief work was that of a theologian, moralist, and 1 Renan :