Ihya Ulum ad-Din:Revival of Religious Sciences

It is difficult, exhausting and tiring to tread the crowded and dangerous path of the hereafter with no guide nor companion. The guides for the path are the learned men who are the heirs of the Prophets, of whom the times are short and it is only the superficial who are left, most of whom have been possessed by iniquity and overpowered by Satan.

Everyone of them was so absorbed in his immediate fortune that he came to see good as evil and evil as good, and it is for this reason that the science of religion disappeared and the minaret of the true faith extinguished all over the world.

They gave the people the false impression that there was no knowledge except such laws of government as used by judges to settle disputes when the mob dots, or such of arguments as used by the vainglorious to overcome and silence the opponents; or the elaborate and flowery language with which the preacher seeks to draw the attention of the laymen; and that's because apart from these three, they could find no other ways to snare illegal profit and get the wealth of this world.

On the other hand the science of the way to the hereafter, well-trodden by our righteous predecessors which includes what is described in Allah's Book as law, wisdom, knowledge, enlightenment, light, guidance, and righteousness, has disappeared from among men and been completely a thing forgotten.

Since this is a distress which has befallen the religion and a grave calamity which has put it in the shade, I have seen it important to address myself to the composition of this book, in order to revive the science of religion, to bring to light the exemplary lives of the deceased imams, and to show such of branches of knowledge as regarded of good use by the prophets and the virtuous predecessors.

I have based it upon four quarters: the quarter of the Acts of Worship, the quarter of the Habits of Life, the quarter of the Destructives, and the quarter of the saviors