Khutab al-Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazali fi Shu'un al-Din wa-al-Hayat

Khutab al-Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazali fi Shu'un al-Din wa-al-Hayat ("Sermons of Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazali on Matters of Religion and Life") collects the Friday sermons Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazali gave at the Mosque of 'Amr ibn al-'As in Cairo. ^{3 4} It was compiled by Qutb 'Abd al-Hamid Qutb, revised by Dr Muhammad 'Ashur and published by Dar al-I'tisam in Cairo. ⁵

The compiler says the book began in 1980, when he heard al-Ghazali lecture at the Lawyers' Syndicate in Cairo on "the ruler's responsibility in Islam" and began collecting his recorded sermons and lectures. Encouraged by his teacher Ahmad 'Isa 'Ashur, he resolved to transcribe "the recorded tapes" for fear they would be lost, and he wrote his preface on 8 Ramadan 1407 AH/6 May 1987. ⁶ He hopes the sermons will become documents for historians of the issues of the period they lived through. ⁷

Volume 1 includes a chapter al-Ghazali wrote about himself. He was born in 1336 AH/1917, the eldest of seven brothers. His father, a merchant, had him memorise the Qur'an and moved with him from the village of Nikla al-'Inab in Buhayra to Alexandria so that he could enter al-Azhar at ten. He says his name came after a dream his father had, inspired by Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, and that he draws on the legacy of Abu Hamid and of his opponent Ibn Rushd alike. ⁸ He mentions the influence of 'Abd al-'Azim al-Zurqani, his portrait of Hasan al-Banna, and his graduation from al-Azhar in 1360 AH/1941. He describes what he calls "my own school" as drawing on all the intellectual currents and legal schools and on the modern human sciences, blended with the understanding of the Qur'an and Sunna. ⁹ He holds that the gravest danger to Islamic work is "corrupt religiosity", and names among his books on it Laysa min al-Islam and al-Da'wa al-Islamiyya Tastaqbil al-Qarn al-Khamis 'Ashar. ¹⁰

Al-Ghazali sets out guidance for the Friday sermon, including: ¹¹

• a single topic, not scattered;
• parts that follow one another in logical order;
• no very weak reports, let alone forged ones, since the sound and good reports and the Prophet ﷺ's life are enough;
• no disputed questions and no partisanship for a narrow view, because "the mosque gathers and does not divide";
• a connection with current events and with the listeners, as the Qur'an came down in stages in answer to events.

The sermons are dated by the day they were given. The first, "To the mosque", is the Friday sermon at the Mosque of 'Amr ibn al-'As on 23/2/1972. ⁴ Titles in volume 1 include "Only Islam will stop the Jewish advance", "The Jews in Medina", "Sufism: its merits and faults", "Causes of victory and causes of defeat", "The Qur'an, an everlasting miracle", "The graph of Islamic history", and "Reflections" on the suras al-Tawba, al-Nur, Muhammad, al-Fath and al-Mumtahana. ¹² Individual sermons have not yet been given records of their own.