About The Book

In this translation of the 17th book of the Revival of the Religious Sciences, Imam Ghazali explains the different outer and inner reasons for travel. Outer reasons include the pilgrimage, the search for knowledge, and the flight from danger; while inner reasons include the acquisition of virtue and the disciplining the soul.

He then follows this with a practical chapter on the use of religious concessions while traveling and concludes with a final chapter on how the traveler is to establish the proper direction and times for prayer.

Introduction & Notes By Leonard Librande

About The Author

Imam Abu Hamid Muhammad Al-Ghazali was born in 450 AH (1058 A.D) in the Iranian town of Tus, studied Islamic law and theology at the Seljuq College in Nishapur, and became a distinguished professor at the famous Nizamiyya University in Baghdad.

Despite his glittering success, he was inwardly dissatisfied, so he abandoned his career for the life of hardship, abstinence and devotion to worship. During ten years of wandering, he experienced a spiritual transformation, in which the Truth came to him at last, as something received rather than acquired.

Blessed with an inner certainty, he then applied his outstanding faculties and vast learning to the task of revitalizing the whole Islamic tradition. Through his direct personal contacts, and through his many writings, he showed how every element in that tradition could and should be turned to its true purpose.

Imam al-Ghazzali was fondly referred to as the "Hujjat-ul-lslam", Proof of Islam, he is honoured as a scholar and a saint by learned men all over the world and is generally acclaimed as the most influential thinker of the Classical period of Islam.

He passed away in 505 AH (1111 A.D).