The spiritual life in Islam begins with 'riyadat al-nafs', the inner warfare against the ego. Distracted and polluted by worldliness, the lower self has a tendency to drag the human creature down into arrogance and vice. Only by a powerful effort of will can the sincere worshipper achieve the purity[...]

The eleventh chapter of "The Revival of the Religious Sciences" begins the section dealing with man and society. In this volume concentrating on the manners relating to eating, Ghazali first discusses what a person must uphold when eating by himself: that the food is lawful, that both the person and[...]