Al-Ghazali on the Manners Relating to Eating (Ihya Ulumuddin Series No. 11)
Author: Imām Al-Ghazali
Translator: Denys Johnson-Davies
Publisher: Islamic Texts Society
Year of Publication: 2015
Print Length: 108 pages
Genre: Islamic Studies / Quranic Studies; Theology, Ethics and Philosophy; Islamic Law & Jurisprudence, Science; Qur’anic Reflection, Supplication & Prayers; Non-Fiction / Religious Studies
Topic: Islam, Qur’an, Ethics & Morality, Eating & Drinking
The eleventh chapter of the Revival of the Religious Sciences begins the section dealing with man and society. In this volume, concentrating on the manners relating to eating, Ghazali first discusses what a person must uphold when eating by himself: that the food is lawful, that both the person and the surroundings should be clean, that one must be content with what is available, and how the person should conduct himself while eating and after eating. Ghazali then proceeds to discuss eating in company and says that to all the above should be added the necessity of courtesy, conversation and the proper presentation of food. Finally, Ghazali expounds the virtues of hospitality and generosity and the conduct of the host as well as that of the guest. Other topics that are discussed are: abstention from food, fasting and general health.
In this new edition, the Islamic Texts Society has included a translation of Imam Ghazali’s own Introduction to the Revival of the Religious Sciences which gives the reasons that caused him to write the work, the structure of the whole of the Revival, and places each of the chapters in the context of the others.
Table of Contents
al-Ghazāli’s Introduction to the Revival of the Religious Sciences
Abbreviations
Prologue
Introduction
THE BOOK OF MANNERS RELATING TO EATING
Prologue
Chapter 1. What is Necessary for the Person Earing Alone
Before the Food is Served
When One is Eating
When the Meal is Over
Chapter 2. Additional Manners of Eating When in Company
Chapter 3. Manners to be Adopted When Presenting Food to Visiting Brethren
Chapter 4. The Manners of Hospitality
A Section Combining Miscellaneous Good Manners and Legal Prohibitions
Notes
Appendix: Persons cited in text
Index to Qur’ānic Quotations
Bibliography
General Index
Imām Abu Hamid al-Ghazali is a 11th century Muslim scholar. He was one of the most prominent and influential philosophers, theologians, jurists, and mystics of Sunni Islam. Al-Ghazālī was born at Ṭūs (near Mashhad in eastern Iran) and was educated there, then in Jorjān, and finally at Nishapur (Neyshābūr), where his teacher was al-Juwaynī, who earned the title of imām al-ḥaramayn (the imam of the two sacred cities of Mecca and Medina). He was active at a time when Sunni theology had just passed through its consolidation and entered a period of intense challenges from Shiite Ismâ’îlite theology and the Arabic tradition of Aristotelian philosophy (falsafa). Al-Ghazâlî understood the importance of falsafa and developed a complex response that rejected and condemned some of its teachings, while it also allowed him to accept and apply others. His great work, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn or Ihya Ulumuddin (“The Revival of the Religious Sciences”), made Sufism (Islamic mysticism) an acceptable part of orthodox Islam.
Source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/al-ghazali/
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Denys Johnson-Davies is an Arabic-to-English literary translator, born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He studied Oriental languages at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge. He was a pioneer of translating Naguib Mahfouz and other Arabic writers in the time when Arabic literature, described by Edward Said, as “unknown and unread in the west”. His seven-decade career of translating began when he went to Cairo in 1946 for the British Council. He became friends with Arab writers, read a great deal of contemporary Arabic fiction and embarked on translating it into English.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/18/denys-johnson-davies-obituary
More from Denys Johnson-Davies in this library, click here.