Islamic law is a legal tradition entrenched within a religious context; it is one of the most intriguing and fascinating areas of Islamic Studies. Many practitioners of Islam believe that their lives should be governed by a divinely revealed and sanctioned form of law that affects every aspect of their daily routines. Thus, whether it be a conventional religious act such as prayer, a customary practice such as marriage, or commercial activities such as trade, all these activities are determined by their legal validity within the Islamic law. Islamic law has developed over many centuries of...

Purification of the soul is a principle that is central to understanding Islamic spirituality but despite this, relatively little has been written explicitly in the Islamic tradition regarding this discrete method of spiritual purification. This book examines the work of a scholar of this discipline, al-Hārith al-Muhāsibī, who lived and worked during the classical Islamic period under the Abbāsids.

Although al-Muhāsibī was well known for his skills in many disciplines, including the Qur'ān, Prophetic narration and scholastic theology, it is his...