The Exquisite Pearl : The Journey to Allah and the Home of the Hereafter (Shaykh 'Abd al-Rahman al-Sa'di)

ISBN: 0954216601
Author: Shaykh 'Abd al-Rahman al-Sa'di
Publisher: The Jawziyyah Press (April 2002 CE / Safr 1423 AH)
Pages: 38 Binding: Paperback

Description from the publisher:

Of all the faculties man has been endowed with, none excels the heartin importance and nobility. For the heart is both the seat ofintelligence and understanding, and the locus of faith andspirituality; it is the quintessential faculty by which man may cometo know his creator, and seek nearness and intimacy with Him. Theheart's spiritual sustenance lie sin its being receptive to theeffusions of divine grace and guidance, without which the veils thatcover it will continue to corrupt its primordial purity, graduallyrendering it dysfunctional! Each veil- a metaphor for heedlessness,sins and distraction- that is melted away by the rays of faith andspiritual endeavour, allows vital qualities such as love of Allah, aswell as hope, fear, remembrance, and reliance upon Him, are referredto in the religious vocabulary as spiritual stations; only when theheart embraces these stations is it said to be truly sound. TheMajestic Qur'an informs:

'The day when wealth and sons avail not, save him who brings to Allaha heart that is sound.'

This book explains some of the main spiritual stations that the heartis required to embrace as part of its worship of Allah and itsjourneying to Him. Each chapter commences with a line of poetry whichhighlights one of these spiritual stations; each stations is thenexplained in a clear, lucid style, seasoned with insights by some ofthe pietists and spiritual masters from the early Muslims. The natureand brevity of this book is such that it may be regarded as a primerto the science of suluk, or Muslim Spirituality.