Love, Longing, Intimacy & Contentment | Shaykh Yahya Rhodus

Shaykh Yahya Rhodus delivers a workshop giving practical and spiritual insights about "Imam Ghazali's Book 36 of The Revival of the Religious Sciences" (Ihya' Ulum al-Din).

More Shaykh Yahya: http://mcceastbay.org/yahya

This seminar was delivered at the Muslim Community Center - East Bay (MCC East Bay) in Pleasanton, California on June 22, 2013.

About Shaykh Yahya:
One of the most well-respected Muslim scholars in the Western world, Shaykh Yahya Rhodus has spent the best part of two decades studying at some of the most prestigious learning institutions in the Muslim and Western world.

Having embraced Islam at the age of 19 in Santa Clara, California, he immediately began his study of the Islamic sciences with Shaykh Hamza Yusuf and visiting Mauritanian scholars, such as Shaykh Khatri Wuld Bayba, and Shaykh Abd Allah Wuld Ahmadna. Shortly thereafter, he traveled to Mauritania to pursue a full-time course of study where he was able to learn from one of Mauritania’s greatest scholars, Murabit al-Hajj. Following an interim period of study in Damascus, Syria, Shaykh Yahya went on to spend the best part of seven years in Tarim, in the Hadramawt Valley of Yemen. There, he studied at the reputable school, Dar al-Mustafa, with the renowned scholars Habib Umar bin Hafiz and Habib Ali al-Jifri.

He is the Founding Director of al-Maqasid where he is a full-time scholar and teacher. Al-Maqasid's mission is to cultivate holistic learning environments rooted in knowledge, devotion, and service by providing full-time, part-time, online, and community programs.

Imam al-Ghazali (1058–1111 CE) of Tus in Iran was one of the greatest scholars in the history of Islamic thought. He made outstanding contributions in logic, philosophy, jurisprudence, legal theory, and mysticism.

Al-Ghazali on Love, Longing, Intimacy & Contentment is a translation of the thirty-sixth chapter of 'The Revival of the Religious Sciences' (Ihya' Ulum al-Din). This chapter falls in the last of the four sections of the Ihya, the section dealing with the virtues or what is conducive to salvation. The text starts by elucidating the love of God for humanity and the love of man for God, and proceeds to discuss the deepening of this love to include different degrees of longing, intimacy and contentment.

In this book, Imam Ghazali takes the reader on a convincing journey to not only the possibility of love for Allah, but the necessity of it. He attempts to counter those who say love has nothing to do with Islam or Allah. He breaks down the conceptual understanding of love, what it is, its causes, and an explanation of the meaning of human love for Allah. The result of this discussion that of a master weaver, constructing convincing arguments which are supported through the proof-texts from revelation, bringing the reader to acknowledge, understand and appreciate the position of love in the religion of Islam and with Allah.

Once Imam Ghazali breaks down the concepts of love, how humans love and why, he enumerates them, and then he takes the discussion to Allah, his attributes; proving that Allah above all created things is the most worthy of love, is the only one capable of completely fulfilling all the reasons for love. In other words, if these are the qualities that cause one to love, then know that Allah is most perfect in those qualities, thus most worthy of love. Imam Ghazali delivers this incredible case for love in a very practical manner and the book is full of examples. One of the aims of Imam Ghazali’s writing is to strive for simplicity and clarity, and he achieves that in this book with ease. After love, he also discusses pleasure, and how the best pleasure is that of attaining knowledge, and the best of knowledge is knowledge of Allah, His attributes, His actions, His providential design, His book and His messengers. Imam Ghazali states:

Moreover, the pleasure of knowledge is stronger than other pleasures; stronger, that is, than the pleasures of appetite, anger or the rest of the five senses.

Imam Ghazali also discusses seeing the world, and increasing one’s love for Allah thereby it:

The world in its totality is the handiwork – the writing – of God. The common man knows and believes this, but the discerning observer studies the minute particulars of God’s craftsmanship in this world until he perceives in a gnat an example of the prodigies of His craft such that his mind is bedazzled and his reason cast into confusion. As a result, God’s might and majesty and the perfection of His attributes are magnified within his heart, and his love for Him increases.

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