Corpus: Pseudo Works

Ghazālīan Corpus: Pseudo Works

Note that these works are of suspect attribution to Imam al-Ghazālī and some have been a source of contention between scholars as to the validity of attributing these works to al-Ghazālī.

1. Sirr al-ʿālamīn wa khasf mā fī al-dāriyyan (Secret of the two worlds and unvieling what  is in the two houses =worlds). [M:214; A:67,91; GAL no 31]
2. Mukāshafat al-qulūb (Unveiling of the Hearts) [M:239; A:239]
3. al-Maḍnūn al-ṣaghīr,  [M:107; A:40, 119] (Smaller [book] of secrets) also called:
   • al-Naffakh wal-taswiya (Breathing (life) and Formation (of creation). [M:107; A:107]
   • al-ʾAjwaba al-Ghazāliyya ʿala al-masāʾil al-ʾakhrawiyya. (Ghazālīan Answers to Questions concerning the Hereafter.) [M:108; A:40]
4. *al-maḍnūn bihī ʿala ghayr ahlihī  [M:A:39].
5. *maʿārij al-qudus fī madārij maʿrifit al-nafs. [M:76; A:76].
6. al-risāla al-ladunīa.  [M:50, 193; A:90] (translated by Prof. Alan Godlas)
7. Minhāj al-ʿārafīn (Methodology of the Sufis) [M:356;  A:77, A:356]
8. Minhāj al-ʿābidīn ʾila Jannāti Rabbi l-ʿālamīn (Methodology of the Worshipful Servants to the Garden of the Lord of All the Worlds) (possibly a summary of the Ihya’) (planned translation by al-baz publishing, also published in India) [M:64; A:72]
9. al-Faraʾd al-laʾali min rasaʾil al-Ghazzali majmuʿah mushtamilah ʿalā Miʿrāj al-sālikīn wa-Minhāj al-ʿārifīn wa-Rawḍat al-ṭālibīn, wa-hiya min ʾanfas ma katabahu al-Ghazālī / [taṣḥīḥ] al-Shaykh Muḥammad Bakhīt, [Cairo] : Faraj Allāh Zakī [al-Kurdī], 1344 [1925]
10. Risalāt al-ṭayr  (Epistle of the Birds) See article: Al-Ghazzali’s Epistle of the Birds. N. A. Faris (PDF). [M:189; A:75]
11. al-Radd al-jamīl ʿala ṣarīḥ al-Injīl (The polite answer to the evident in the Gospels) (Arabic PDF) See article: “Al-Ghazali and the Arabic versions of the Gospels” Padwick, G. J., Muslim World 29(1939), pp. 130-140. Also in German: Al-Ghazalis Schrift wider die Gottheit Jesu (Redd ül cemil), Franz-Elmar Wilms, Leiden, 1966. [M:194; A:83]
12. Anwar hikmit [M: 91, A:103] (in Persian)
13. al-Durrah al-fākhirah fī khasf ʿulum al-ʾakhira.  [M:62; A:66]
    1. Critical edition: Le Perle Precieuse de Ghazali, ed. Leon Gauthier. (pdf)- reprinted Beirut, 1997.
    2. The Precious Pearl: A Translation from the Arabic by Jane Idleman Smith. (Scholars Press: Missoula, USA. 1979). PDF.
    3. Die Kostbare Perle über todund Jenseits, übersetzt von M. Brugsch. Hannover, 1924.
14. A poem by al-Ghazali in Arabic.  al-Qaṣida al-munfarija [M:255; A:255, 122, 434, 435]
    • Last words of al-Ghazali. (link)
15. Works on magic, talisman, witchcraft, litanies, dream interpretations, secrets of letters and numbers, etc. See A. Badawi’s mūʾalafāt al-ghazālī pp. 277-302 (Numbers 96-127) for more information.

NOTE:

*Prof. Mashhad al-Allaf has written a postscript to A. Badwaī’s work giving detailed reasons why the above works (1-9) are not works by al-Ghazālī. He list reasons such as: (1) no mention of al-Ghazālī’s other works when discussing a topic that was covered by al-Ghazālī in his other works. Al-Ghazālī is well known to send readers to his other works when discussing previously dealt with topics; (2) issues of language that is used in these works is not the norm that al-Ghazālī uses in his works; and (3) most critically is the mention of works by people that were born years after al-Ghazālī had died; further (4) the use of terminology that al-Ghazālī never used in his other works; a further point (5) is the use of crude language that scholars such as al-Ghazālī would never mention in their works. For more information see his paper.

The numbers listed above in square brackets refer to M = Bouyges, Maurice. Essai de chronologie des oeuvres de al-ghazali(Algazel). Edited by Michel Allard. Beirut: L’Institue de Lettres Orientales de Beyrouth, 1959; A = Badwaī,ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Mūʾallafāt al-Ghazālī. 2nd ed. Kuwait: Wakalāt al-Muṭbuʿat, 1977- numbers as listed of al-ghazali’s works. There are many more the above list is not nearly comprehensive for more information see the Bibliography page.