Ihya Ulum al-Din, Book 1: The Book of Knowledge

The Book of Knowledge is the first book of al-Ghazālī’s Revival of the Religious Sciences, the work after which the rest of the Iḥyāʾ was built.

Before prayer, before law, before the later volumes people quote, he asked what knowledge is for — and what it does to the person who seeks it for display. He distinguishes the learning a Muslim is obliged to seek from the sciences that only look sacred, sets the manners of teacher and student, and names the difference between the scholar of the hereafter and the scholar of this world.

This English is taken from the classical Arabic of the Iḥyāʾ, not rebuilt from an older translation. It can be read straight through, or studied beside the original. Each chapter closes with a key point and a note on practice.

Start where he started.