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The Path of Muhammad: A Book on Islamic Morals & Ethics
In our day, which is characterized by a great misunderstanding of Islam, this work outlines the ideal of an Islamic society at the time of the Prophet Muhammad.
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1573
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 28, 2017
Speaking as a Christian, it's sometimes difficult to gauge, but I suspect many Muslim readers would agree that this is one book any and every Muslim would benefit from reading. It's passionate, spiritual (in the popular sense of the term), detailed, and versatile.
The volume contains two works, both produced during the sixteenth century AD / tenth century AH.
The first printed, the Vasiyyetname, was impressive enough - it's a brilliant overview of Imam Birgivi's teaching, covering the nature of God ("He was before always, and will be after the after, forever" [3]), the angels, the revealed scriptures, the prophets ("perfect human beings who are spiritually, morally, intellectually, and physically superior to all others" [7]), Adam, Muhammad (including his purported miracles, a biographical sketch from birth to death, and his appearance, habits, likes, dislikes, and modes of religious devotion), the rightly-guided caliphs, the end of the world and the Day of Judgment, and destiny; and then a survey of the pillars of faith (the profession of faith, praying, fasting, the 'poor rate,' and pilgrimage), finally closing on a brief discourse about the nature of shari'ah ("It is an obligation for every Muslim to know what to do, how to behave, how to lead his life, even if he does not know or consider why," and yet "whoever follows the shari'ah blindly is held to be remiss, for he has not made an effort to know the reason, the cause, and the source of what he is doing" [56]).
His treatment of the pillars of faith is somewhat mystical, drawing on divine ahadith and traditions about the Light of Muhammad to explain the shahadah (and strikingly familiar reflections on how "all creation is created from ... God's love for Himself" (37). He speaks of the motions performed in salat as mirroring "the motion that caused existence" (43). He takes an expansive view of fasting that includes the fasting of the soul, i.e., "to keep it from wanting even the beauties of Paradise and the eternal life of bliss," such that "the soul becomes blind to anything but truth" (46). And he indulges in a detailed consideration of the spiritual significance of each action performed during the hajj (47f.).
All this is but the tip of the iceberg, because the bulk of the volume holds a larger treatise, Al-Tariqah al-Muhammadiyyah, which ultimately contains essentially what one finds in the Vasiyyetname but more. Each chapter being bolstered by ayat from the Qur'an and an array of ahadith, Imam Birgivi covers plenty of ground, starting with the necessity of both scripture and prophetic tradition, a balanced treatment of bid'ah, and so forth; but he moves on to a variety of highly practical topics like hypocrisy, ambition, arrogance, envy, anger, greed, haste, hopelessness, and the rightful use of the tongue, the ears, the eyes, the hands, eating, drinking, sexuality, and an assortment of social offenses.
Throughout his consideration of various vices, he typically utilizes medical imagery - i.e., the vice is categorized as "another sickness of the heart and cause of faithlessness," and so Imam Birgivi assesses its classification, symptoms, and how one contracts it before turning to consider the cure or antidote (e.g., "Patience is the antidote to the poison of haste and the failure and despair it causes" [216]).
The volume contains two works, both produced during the sixteenth century AD / tenth century AH.
The first printed, the Vasiyyetname, was impressive enough - it's a brilliant overview of Imam Birgivi's teaching, covering the nature of God ("He was before always, and will be after the after, forever" [3]), the angels, the revealed scriptures, the prophets ("perfect human beings who are spiritually, morally, intellectually, and physically superior to all others" [7]), Adam, Muhammad (including his purported miracles, a biographical sketch from birth to death, and his appearance, habits, likes, dislikes, and modes of religious devotion), the rightly-guided caliphs, the end of the world and the Day of Judgment, and destiny; and then a survey of the pillars of faith (the profession of faith, praying, fasting, the 'poor rate,' and pilgrimage), finally closing on a brief discourse about the nature of shari'ah ("It is an obligation for every Muslim to know what to do, how to behave, how to lead his life, even if he does not know or consider why," and yet "whoever follows the shari'ah blindly is held to be remiss, for he has not made an effort to know the reason, the cause, and the source of what he is doing" [56]).
His treatment of the pillars of faith is somewhat mystical, drawing on divine ahadith and traditions about the Light of Muhammad to explain the shahadah (and strikingly familiar reflections on how "all creation is created from ... God's love for Himself" (37). He speaks of the motions performed in salat as mirroring "the motion that caused existence" (43). He takes an expansive view of fasting that includes the fasting of the soul, i.e., "to keep it from wanting even the beauties of Paradise and the eternal life of bliss," such that "the soul becomes blind to anything but truth" (46). And he indulges in a detailed consideration of the spiritual significance of each action performed during the hajj (47f.).
All this is but the tip of the iceberg, because the bulk of the volume holds a larger treatise, Al-Tariqah al-Muhammadiyyah, which ultimately contains essentially what one finds in the Vasiyyetname but more. Each chapter being bolstered by ayat from the Qur'an and an array of ahadith, Imam Birgivi covers plenty of ground, starting with the necessity of both scripture and prophetic tradition, a balanced treatment of bid'ah, and so forth; but he moves on to a variety of highly practical topics like hypocrisy, ambition, arrogance, envy, anger, greed, haste, hopelessness, and the rightful use of the tongue, the ears, the eyes, the hands, eating, drinking, sexuality, and an assortment of social offenses.
Throughout his consideration of various vices, he typically utilizes medical imagery - i.e., the vice is categorized as "another sickness of the heart and cause of faithlessness," and so Imam Birgivi assesses its classification, symptoms, and how one contracts it before turning to consider the cure or antidote (e.g., "Patience is the antidote to the poison of haste and the failure and despair it causes" [216]).
December 1, 2017
Thank you Sheikh Tosun Bayrak for making this classic text available to the English readers. We benefit a lot from it. But the book is not based the original structure in the Arabic text (al-Tarīqah al-Muhammadiyyah wa al-Sīrah al-Ahmadiyyah). To cite the content, I commit myself to the arabic version of Imam Birgivi's Tariqah Muhammadiyyah.
December 22, 2015
Haven't fully read this. But I used it as a secondary work for some of my studies.
The content is great, it's just a shame about cover depicting a picture like that...
Best to cover the picture as my Shaykh told me.
The content is great, it's just a shame about cover depicting a picture like that...
Best to cover the picture as my Shaykh told me.
July 5, 2013
A Must Read!!!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews