Excerpt from The Alchemy of Happiness Knowledge of self is the key to the knowledge of God, according to the saying He Who knows himself knows God, 1 and, as it is written in the Koran, We will show them Our signs in the world and in themselves; that the truth may be manifest to them. Now nothing is nearer to thee than. Thyself, and. If thou knowest not thyself how canst thou know anything else If tho'u sayest I know myself, meaning thy outward shape, body, face, limbs, and so forth, such knowledge can never be a key to the knowledge of God. Nor, if thy knowledge as to that which is within only extends so far, that when thou art hungry thou eatest, and when thou art angry thou attackest some one, wilt thou progress any further in this path, for the beasts are thy partners in this. But real self-knowledge consists in knowing the. Following things; What art thou in' thyself, and from whence hast thou come? Whither 1 Traditional saying of Muhammad. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The book was originally written by Imam Ghazali in Persian. It is a compendium of some chapters of his main work "Ihya' `Ulum al-Din". If one consults the corresponding chapters in the Ihya', one would find that many of the arguments presented here also discussed there in details. Source: Ghazali, Kimya' al-Sa`ada = The Alchemy of Happiness.

The importance of this treatise lies in the fact that it is the earliest systematic presentation of the theory of Sufi experience, written by a practicing Sufi. Beginning with the idea of Sidq or truthfulness, the author develops his theme to include “stations” of fear, hope, trust, love, shame, longing, intimacy, all of which the mystic must pass on his path to God. Throughout the discourse the author constantly refers, typically as a mystic, to higher degrees of the various stations which cannot be described in written language. In a style which foreshadows the practice of later writers, the author begins with Qur’anic sanctions, and follows these by references to the Sunnah and the lives of the saints.