Al-Ghazali on Love, Longing, Intimacy & Contentment

The Book of Love, Longing, Intimacy and Contentment is the thirty-sixth chapter of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali’s Revival of the Religious Sciences. This was the first treatise which established not merely the possibility but the necessity for the love of God. Ghazali argues that all the virtues and spiritual stages that precede love, like repentance, patience and thankfulness, lead to love; and all the spiritual stages that follow on from love are a result of it.

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058-1111) is the most famous theologian-mystic of Islam and the equivalent of Thomas Aquinas in Christianity and Maimonides in Judaism. His contribution to the formation of Islamic thought and mysticism is incalculable. Professor Eric Ormsby was Professor of Islamic Studies and Director of the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. He is at present Professor of Islamic Studies at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, UK.