Work · Philosophy in the Islamic World
The White Path: A Refinement of the Revival
Shiʿi recension of al-Ghazali’s Revival of the Religious Sciences, completed in 1636: Fayd Kashani keeps the four quarters on worship, customs, what destroys and what saves, but removes what he regarded as foreign to Islamic teaching and unreliable hadith and adds reports from the Shiʿi imams.
Introduction
Muhsin Fayd Kashani completed “The White Path: A Refinement of the Revival” (al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ fī tahdhīb al-Iḥyāʾ) in 1636. It is a recension of al-Ghazali’s Revival of the Religious Sciences for Shiʿi readers: Fayd admired al-Ghazali’s ethical psychology and keeps the four quarters of the Revival – worship, customs, the vices that destroy and the virtues that save – but he removes what he regarded as foreign to Islamic teaching, replaces unreliable hadith and adds reports from the Shiʿi imams. The book shows how a Shiʿi scholar trained in Mulla Sadra’s philosophy could take up a Sunni classic. It became a standard book of ethics among Shiʿi scholars and was printed in eight volumes in the twentieth century.
Connections
Builds on
- The Revival of the Religious Sciencesc. 1097 · al-Ghazali
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