God has sent on earth prophets to teach men the prescription of happiness. This alchemy may be briefly described as turning away from the world to God, and its constituents are the knowledge of self., the knowledge of God, the knowledge of this world as it really is, and the knowledge of the next world as it really is.

"This man, if ever any have deserved the name, was truly a 'divine, ' and he may be justly placed on a level with Origen, so remarkable was he for learning and ingenuity, and gifted with such a rare faculty for the skilful and worthy exposition of doctrine. All that is...

The Book of Knowledge is the foundation of the forty books of the Revival of the Religious Sciences, Imam al-Ghazali s magnum opus. In the Book of Knowledge, he defines knowledge, its relation to faith, theology, and jurisprudence. The book deals with the virtue of knowledge from both rational and traditional points of view. It elucidates the types of knowledge and the nature of people s obligation to seek knowledge. Imam al-Ghazali defines jurisprudence and theology as branches of Islamic knowledge, then outlines those fields that people incorrectly consider to be Islamic disciplines, and...