26: Faith in Divine Oneness & Love and Intimacy – Renewing Religion: An Overview of Ghazali’s Ihya – Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

In this lesson of Renewing Religion, Shaykh Faraz gives an overview of the chapters on faith in Divine Oneness and trusting in Allah as well as the chapters on love, longing and intimacy from Imam Ghazali’s Ihya.

Shaykh Faraz begins by explaining that knowing Divine Oneness in its true meaning entails certitude within your heart and trust and reliance upon Allah when it comes to dealing with all that happens. This begins by realizing that Allah is the necessary existant and everything else is dependent on Him. As such everthing in existance is necesserily in a state of slavehood to Allah; this is the essence of Tawheed and understanding Divine Oneness. This understanding should lead one to complete reliance on Allah.

Shaykh Faraz reminds us that reliance on Allah is not limited to times of difficulty rather it is only if one relies on Allah in all their times including those of ease can they truly rely on Him during times of difficulty. The Prophet, peace be upon him, says know Allah at the times of ease and He will know you in difficulties. You can know Allah both through consciousness of Him and trust in Him. The action required to actualize this is to continually remember Allah in all of your actions and continually engage in words of remembrance.

In this brief overview of Imam Ghazali’s opus magnum, Ihya Ulum al-Din (Renewing the Religious Sciences), this series will serve as blueprint for how the believer can bring to life their religion. It will aim to help the believer to not just practice the form of the religion properly, but to also practice it with excellence.

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