The Alchemy of Happiness

One of the great works of mystical religious literature, the Kimiya-i-Sa'adaat strove to bring man closer to understanding God by helping him understand himself. These excerpts from that work, by a strikingly original thinker on Islam who lived and wrote in the 11th century, were first published in 1910. They serve as a potent reminder of how powerful an influence Al-Ghazzali had upon religious philosophers of the Middle Ages, both Christian and Islamic. With its wise and warmly humanistic outlook, this little book may well foster a new measure of understanding in the current philosophical battle between the religious traditions of East and West.

Also available from Cosimo Classics: Field's Shadows Cast Before and Jewish Legends of the Middle Ages.

ABU HAMED MUHAMMAD IBN MUHAMMAD AL-GHAZZALI (1058-1111)was a Persian Islamic philosopher, theologian, psychologist, and mystic, known today as one of the most famous Sunni scholars in history, sometimes cited as next-in-importance only to Muhammad. Born in Tus, Al-Ghazzali was a pioneer of methodic doubt; his work The Incoherence of Philosophers shifted early Islamic philosophy from metaphysics to the theory of occasionalism, an Islamic doctrine that states cause-and-effect is controlled by God. He also succeeded in bringing orthodox Islam in contact with Sufism. The author of more than 70 books on various subjects, his influence continues to stretch far and wide even today.