Kimia Kebahagian by Imam al-Ghazali (a translation of Kimya as-Sa'aadah)

This is a book of tasawwuf; an embellishing part of Islam. It's not the core principle of Islam, but one usually learns tasawwuf with the aim to improve themselves as a human being, and servant of Allah.

I remember buying this book when I was in my teens, but I couldn't comprehend the contents and stopped reading. Now that the new semester is about to begin in just two days, I read it again yesterday, for the sake of cleansing my heart before embarking on yet another journey of learning.

The book is translated from Farsi (Persian), and I don't know how others would feel about the translation, but I personally feel that it was still rather hard for laypeople to read. It's very poetic, as expected of tasawwuf books, but perhaps anyone used to reading them, or any other works by Imam al-Ghazali, can easily get the message.

It's a small book of 119 pages and focuses on how we can achieve happiness. For a Muslim, happiness is more than just for the dunya (world), but also and more importantly, the akhirah (hereafter). And so the book gives us a few ways of attaining happiness;

1. By knowing who we are, and what our purpose of life is;

2. By knowing Allah, our God, our Creator and Sustainer;

3. By knowing the dunya, its nature, temporariness, and its trickeries - without which we may not know how we should live life in it;

4. By knowing the akhirah, its nature and eternity, so that we be reminded of what we are preparing for during life in this dunya;

5. By knowing the right forms of entertainment in life;

6. By making muhasabah (self check) and dzikr (remembrance of Allah) a habit;

It also touches on how marriage plays a role in helping one become a better person, and how it can also be an encumbrance against that.

Finally, it cites love for Allah as the key to happiness.

At a glance, it can be hard to understand how some of these can help us be happy, but the explanations in the book has really enlightened me.

Apart from answering the question of how we can be happy, the author gives us many touching and eye-opening reminders, so it really helps us do muhasabah. ❤️