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Al-Ghazali on the Remembrance of Death and the Afterlife by Abdal Hakim Murad, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali
hibatheescapeartist's review
3.0
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Oh, I have so much to say about this book. So. Much. The thoughts I have running through my head are chaotic and jumbled, so I’ll just list them out:
1. I am by no means declaring myself to be more knowledgeable than Imam Ghazali (RA)—I don’t even have a nugget of the wisdom this man possesses. However… the amount of weak Hadiths and Israelite stories used were so, so overwhelming and consequently discouraged me from continuing this book. It was really spiritually tiring to read what is made to be an authentic Hadith and have my heart connect to it only to find out that it has a weak chain or is rejected all together! At the chapter of the death of our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), I gave up entirely on reading his original text and instead opted for Dar Al Sunnah’s version of this book, which filtered out about two-thirds of his original work due to inaccuracy. (In case you would like to read it: https://www.kalamullah.com/Books/The%20Remembrance%20of%20Death%20and%20the%20Afterlife%20by%20Imam%20Qudamah%20al-Maqdisi.pdf)
2. This does not mean that Imam Ghazali wasn’t blessed with Hikmah and a beautifully striking way with words. On the occasion that he spoke about death, it was written with such eloquence, such emotion, that it was bound to enter and settle in your heart, to spread fear in it. This is the main reason I opted to read the original text instead of the filtered version by Dar Al Sunnah. However, I believe I overestimated my ability to be able to differentiate between Bid’ah and weak Ahadith through Google…
Now that I’ve put that aside, the book itself (Dar Al Sunnah’s version) was beautiful, stunning, terrifying. We take death to be something that only occurs when we’re wrinkled and grey and satisfied with life. We think that just because we are young, we are immune to death. This is a huge mistake that the Shaytaan plants in our hearts. I am not ready for death, to stand before my Lord Exalted is He and attest for what my hands have put forth. Thus, we shouldn’t be holding back on our haste to perform good deeds, on the regret and repentance after sinning.
We always forget the weight of Yawm Al-Qiyamah. We forget the Glory, the Greatness, of Who we will be standing in front of, the One who knows every single deed we have ever done, the One who knows what our minds whisper to our souls. We think simply being Muslim is enough to save us, but look at the piety of our Nabi (peace and blessings be upon him), of the Sahaba, of the Tabi’een?
It’s brings shame to me to see how the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) strived for Him Exalted is He, how they avoided sin so completely, how they followed the Sunnah of our Nabi (peace and blessings be upon him), and here we are, with our mountains of sins on our backs, ignorant as ever. This book really woke me up to our reality, to the severity, the fear, the pain of the Day of Judgement. Most importantly, it woke me up to the finite time we have on this Dunya, the fact that I could die, that He (Exalted is He) can take my soul whenever He wants, regardless of my age, my health. May He (Exalted is He) shower His mercy on us, forgiving us for our sins and allowing us entry into Jannatul Firdaus. May He (Exalted is He) grant us His Protection on the Day where there will be no Protection from Him except with Him. Aameen
(Also, I hate how I can’t type in Arabic and English at the same time without the interface completely butchering the order of my text? I had to change everything to English :/ )
Oh, I have so much to say about this book. So. Much. The thoughts I have running through my head are chaotic and jumbled, so I’ll just list them out:
1. I am by no means declaring myself to be more knowledgeable than Imam Ghazali (RA)—I don’t even have a nugget of the wisdom this man possesses. However… the amount of weak Hadiths and Israelite stories used were so, so overwhelming and consequently discouraged me from continuing this book. It was really spiritually tiring to read what is made to be an authentic Hadith and have my heart connect to it only to find out that it has a weak chain or is rejected all together! At the chapter of the death of our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), I gave up entirely on reading his original text and instead opted for Dar Al Sunnah’s version of this book, which filtered out about two-thirds of his original work due to inaccuracy. (In case you would like to read it: https://www.kalamullah.com/Books/The%20Remembrance%20of%20Death%20and%20the%20Afterlife%20by%20Imam%20Qudamah%20al-Maqdisi.pdf)
2. This does not mean that Imam Ghazali wasn’t blessed with Hikmah and a beautifully striking way with words. On the occasion that he spoke about death, it was written with such eloquence, such emotion, that it was bound to enter and settle in your heart, to spread fear in it. This is the main reason I opted to read the original text instead of the filtered version by Dar Al Sunnah. However, I believe I overestimated my ability to be able to differentiate between Bid’ah and weak Ahadith through Google…
Now that I’ve put that aside, the book itself (Dar Al Sunnah’s version) was beautiful, stunning, terrifying. We take death to be something that only occurs when we’re wrinkled and grey and satisfied with life. We think that just because we are young, we are immune to death. This is a huge mistake that the Shaytaan plants in our hearts. I am not ready for death, to stand before my Lord Exalted is He and attest for what my hands have put forth. Thus, we shouldn’t be holding back on our haste to perform good deeds, on the regret and repentance after sinning.
We always forget the weight of Yawm Al-Qiyamah. We forget the Glory, the Greatness, of Who we will be standing in front of, the One who knows every single deed we have ever done, the One who knows what our minds whisper to our souls. We think simply being Muslim is enough to save us, but look at the piety of our Nabi (peace and blessings be upon him), of the Sahaba, of the Tabi’een?
It’s brings shame to me to see how the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) strived for Him Exalted is He, how they avoided sin so completely, how they followed the Sunnah of our Nabi (peace and blessings be upon him), and here we are, with our mountains of sins on our backs, ignorant as ever. This book really woke me up to our reality, to the severity, the fear, the pain of the Day of Judgement. Most importantly, it woke me up to the finite time we have on this Dunya, the fact that I could die, that He (Exalted is He) can take my soul whenever He wants, regardless of my age, my health. May He (Exalted is He) shower His mercy on us, forgiving us for our sins and allowing us entry into Jannatul Firdaus. May He (Exalted is He) grant us His Protection on the Day where there will be no Protection from Him except with Him. Aameen
(Also, I hate how I can’t type in Arabic and English at the same time without the interface completely butchering the order of my text? I had to change everything to English :/ )
j_malik's review
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
The last chapter saved my life.
crimpinglife's review
5.0
On balance, I whole-heartedly recommend reading this translation: it was illuminating, useful and instructive. For myself, the highlights were mostly restricted to the first two and the final chapter which highlighted (a) why meditating on death is a spiritual necessity for every individual, (b) why many people forgo the meditation of death - based on what Ghazali terms "lengthy hopes/desires" as opposed to the merit of "short hopes" [this is the Chapter Two and it's a critical read] and what might help remedy this situation, and (c) Mercy as God's primary quality and the reason for continued optimism in the face of the brutal uknown of death. A lot of the intermediate chapters contain sayings and Hadiths/Sunnahs of the Holy Prophet related to Death (what happens during, after, what happens in the Afterlife etc.) and based on my readings of Jonathan Brown's Misquoting Muhammad (another book, I highly recommend), I'm not personally sure of the reliability of most of the Hadiths/Sunnahs given about Death and Afterlife. Brown's own scholarship posits that these are easily some of the most unreliable sets of Hadiths/Sunnahs recorded among the canons. Bear that in mind, but otherwise the intermediate chapters are still worth a read.
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