Islamic Movies & Documentaries & Multimedia: Al-Ghazali: The Alchemist of Happiness

(A verse from the holy Qur'an under it Persian tile work, the photo is taken by Elias Pirasteh)

Al-Ghazali: The Alchemist of Happiness is a very good documentary made by Matmedia Productions about the footsteps of Abu Ḥamed Muḥammad Al-Ghazali; one of Islam's greatest Scholars, thinkers and mystics. He used to be called Hujjatul Islam, meaning "Proof of Islam" and His influence exceeds the Islamic World.

Watch the Documentary Online in English:
(Run Time: 56 min)

Quotes

Quote from speech of the Prince Charles, Prince of Wales at at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.

"if there is much misunderstanding in the West about the nature of Islam, there is also much ignorance about the debt our own culture and civilisation owe to the Islamic world. It is a failure which stems, I think, from the straitjacket of history which we have inherited. The medieval Islamic world, from Central Asia to the shores of the Atlantic, was a world where scholars and men of learning flourished. But because we have tended to see Islam as the enemy of the West, as an alien culture, society and system of belief, we have tended to ignore or erase its great relevance to our own history."

Read the whole speech: www.princeofwales.gov.uk

George Bernard Shaw says:
If a man like Muhamed were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness.

Mahatma Gandhi, speaking on the character of Muhammad, (pbuh) says in (Young India):
"I wanted to know the best of one who holds today's undisputed sway over the hearts of millions of mankind....I became more than convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet, the scrupulous regard for his pledges, his intense devotion to this friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle. When I closed the 2nd volume (of the Prophet's biography), I was sorry there was not more for me to read of the great life."

Michael H. Hart says:
"My choice of Muhammad to lead the list of the world's most
influential persons may surprise some readers and may be
questioned by others, but he was the only man in history who
was supremely successful on both the religious and secular
level."

Michael H. Hart
The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History,
New York: Hart Publishing Company Inc. 1978, p 33.

Annie Besant says:
"It is impossible for anyone who studies the life and character
of the great Prophet of Arabia, who knows how he taught and
how he lived, to feel anything but reverence for that mighty
Prophet, one of the great messengers of the Supreme. And
although in what I put to you I shall say many things which
may be familiar to many, yet I myself feel whenever I re-read
them, a new way of admiration, a new sense of reverence for
that mighty Arabian teacher."
Annie Besant
The Life and Teachings of Muhammad, Madras 1932, p 4

W. Montgomery Watt says
"His readiness to undergo persecution for his beliefs, the high
moral character of the men who believed in him and looked up
to him as leader, and the greatness of his ultimate
achievement all argue his fundamental integrity To suppose
Muhammad an impostor raises more problems than it solves.
Moreover, none of the great figures of history is so poorly
appreciated in the West as Muhammad."
W. Montgomery Watt
Mohammad At Mecca, Oxford, 1953, p 52.

Lamartine says:
"If greatness of purpose, smallness of means, and astounding
results are the three criteria of human genius, who could dare
to compare any great man in modem history with Muhammad?
The most famous men created arms, laws and empires only
They founded, if anything at all, no more than material powers
which often crumbled away before their eyes This man moved
not only armies, legislation, empires, peoples and dynasties, but
millions of men in one-third of the then-inhabited world; and
more than that he moved the altars, the gods, the religions, the
ideas, the beliefs and souls.... His forbearance in victory, his
ambition which was entirely devoted to one idea and in no
manner striving for an empire, his endless prayers, his mystic
conversations with God, his death and his triumph after deathall
these attest not to an imposture but to a firm conviction
which gave him the power to restore a dogma. This dogma was
twofold: the unity of God and the immateriality of God; the
former telling what God is, the latter telling what God is not;
the one overthrowing false gods with the sword, the other
starting an idea with the words. Philosopher, orator, apostle,
legislator, warrior, conqueror of ideas, restorer of rational
dogmas, of a cult without images; the founder of twenty
terrestrial empires and of one spiritual empire, that is
Muhammad. As regards all standards by which human
greatness may be measured, we may well ask, is there any
man greater than he?"
Lamartine
Histoire de la Turquie, Pans 1854, Vol. 11, pp. 276-77.

"It is not the propagation but the permanency of his religion
that deserves our wonder; the same pure and perfect
impression which he engraved at Mecca and Madina is
preserved, after the revolutions of twelve centuries by the
Indian, the African and the Turkish proselytes of the Koran...
The Mahometans have uniformly withstood the temptation of
reducing the object of their faith and devotion to a level with
the senses and imagination of man. I believe in One God and
Mahomet is the Apostle of God' is the simple and invariable
profession of Islam. The intellectual image of the Deity has
never been degraded by any visible idol; the honors of the
prophet have never transgressed the measure of human virtue;
and his living precepts have restrained the gratitude of his
disciples within the bounds of reason and religion."
Edward Gibbon and Simon Ocklay
History of the Saracen Empire, London 1870, p 54.

Bosworth Smith says:
"He was Caesar and Pope in one; but he was Pope without Pope's
pretensions, Caesar without the legions of Caesar: without a
standing army, without a bodyguard, without a palace, without
a fixed revenue. If ever any man had the right to say that he
ruled by the right divine, it was Mohammad, for he had all the
power without its instruments and without its supports."
Bosworth Smith
Mohammad and Mohammadanism, London 1874, p 92.

James A. Michene says:
"Muhammad, the inspired man who founded Islam, was born
about AD. 570 into an Arabian tube that worshipped idols.
Orphaned at birth, he was always particularly solicitous of the
poor and needy the widow and the orphan, the slave and the
downtrodden. At twenty he was already a successful
businessman, and soon became director of camel caravans for a
wealthy widow. When he reached twenty-five his employer,
recognizing his meet, proposed marriage. Even though she was
fifteen years older, he married her, and as long as she lived
remained a devoted husband. Like almost every major prophet
before him, Muhammad fought shy of serving as the
transmitter of God's word, sensing his own inadequacy But the
angel commanded Read'. So far as we know, Muhammad was
unable to read or write, but he began to dictate those inspired
words which would soon revolutionize a large segment of the
earth: "There is one God." In all things Muhammad was
profoundly practical. When his beloved son Ibrahim died, an
eclipse occurred, and rumors of God's personal condolence
quickly arose. Whereupon Muhammad is said to have
announced,' An eclipse is a phenomenon of nature. It is foolish
to attribute such things to the death or birth of a humanbeing."
At Muhammads own death an attempt was made to
deify him, but the man who was to become his administrative
successor killed the hysteria with one of the noblest speeches
in religious history: 'If there are any among you who
worshipped Muhammad, he is dead. But if it is God you
worshipped, He lives for ever'."
James A. Michene
"Islam: The Misunderstood Religion,"
Reader's Digest (Amencan ea.) May 1955, pp. 68-70.

Prof. Ramakrishna Rao says:
"The personality of Muhammad, it is most difficult to get into the whole truth of it. Only a glimpse of it I can catch. What a dramatic succession of picturesque scenes! There is Muhammad, the Prophet. There is Muhammad, the Warrior; Muhammad, the Businessman; Muhammad, the Statesman; Muhammad, the Orator; Muhammad, the Reformer; Muhammad, the Refuge of Orphans; Muhammad, the Protector of Slaves; Muhammad, the Emancipator of Women; Muhammad, the Judge; Muhammad, the Saint. All in all these magnificent roles, in all these departments of human activities, he is alike a hero."

John Austin says:
"In little more than a year he was actually the spiritual, nominal and temporal rule of Medina, with his hands on the lever that was to shake the world."
John Austin "Muhammad the Prophet of Allah," in T.P.'s and Cassel's Weekly for 24th September 1927.

John William Draper says:
"Four years after the death of Justinian, A.D. 569, was born at Mecca, in Arabia the man who, of all men exercised the greatest influence upon the human race . . . Mohammed . . ."
John William Draper, A History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, London 1875, Vol. 1, pp. 329-330.

Thomas Carlyle in his (Heroes and Heroworship), was simply amazed as to:
"how one man single-handedly, could weld warring tribes and wandering Bedouins into a most powerful and civilized nation in less than two decades."

In the words of Prof. C. Snouck Hurgronje:
"The league of nations founded by the prophet of Islam put the principle of international unity and human brotherhood on such universal foundations as to show candle to other nations." He continues: "The fact is that no nation of the world can show a parallel to what Islam has done towards the realization of the idea of the League of Nations ."

Sarogini Naidu, the famous poetess of India says about Islam: "It was the first religion that preached and practiced democracy; for in the mosque, when the call for prayer is sounded and worshippers are gathered together, the democracy of Islam is embodied five times a day when the peasant and king kneel side by side and proclaim: 'God Alone is Great'… I have been struck over and over again by this indivisible unity of Islam that makes man instinctively a brother."(S. Naidu, Ideals of Islam, video Speeches and Writings, Madras, 1918, p.169).

"But do you mean to tell me that the man who in the full flush of youthful vigour, a young man of four and twenty (24), married a woman much his senior, and remained faithful to her for six and twenty years (26), at fifty years of age when the passions are dying married for lust and sexual passion? Not thus are men's lives to be judged. And you look at the women whom he married, you will find that by every one of them an alliance was made for his people, or something was gained for his followers, or the woman was in sore need of protection."
Dr Annie Besant (Dr. Annie Besant in 'The Life and Teachings of Mohammad,' Madras, 1932)

"Wenn Islam Gott ergehen heißt in Islam leben und sterben wir alle"

Goethe in West-östlicher Divan

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Thursday, November 1, 2012

Al-Ghazali: The Alchemist of Happiness

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