Al-Ghazali on Proper Conduct for Reciting the Qur’an : Book VIII of the Revival of the Religious Sciences

Al-Ghazali on Proper Conduct for Reciting the Qurʾan is the eighth chapter/book of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali’s magnum opus, the Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya ulum al-din), a monumental work of classical Islam written by the renowned theologian-mystic Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111). In this Book of the Revival, after establishing the pre-eminence of the Qur’an and of those who are devoted to its recitation (Chapter One), Ghazali outlines the outer proper conduct for recitation of the Qur’an (Chapter Two): the state of the reciter; the quantity of recitation; properly dividing the recitation; manner of writing; measured recitation; weeping while reciting; giving the verses their proper due; what to say before, during and on finishing one’s recitation; reciting aloud and beautifying one’s recitation.Ghazali then proceeds to identify the inner actions while reciting the Qur’an (Chapter Three): understanding the grandeur of the Speech; venerating the Speaker; maintaining presence of heart; contemplation; striving to understand; ridding oneself of barriers to understanding; self-reference; reacting to what one reads; ascension and self-negation.In the fourth and final Chapter, Ghazali deals with an issue which continues to be a source of contention today: the problem of the permissibility of generating new interpretations of the Qurʾan based on personal opinion (tafsir bi’l-ra’y).This translation of Book VIII also includes a translation of Imam Ghazali’s own Introduction to the Revival of the Religious Sciences which gives the reasons that caused him to write the work, and which gives the structure of the whole of the Revival and places each of the forty Books in the context of the others.