The Straight Path: A Sociological Perspective

After exploring the sociological theories of the Right and Left, we turn now to the Islamic scholarly and spiritual tradition to see how our own scholars have observee and theorized society.

In this episode, we briefly mention the main concepts of the theories of both Imam Raghib al-Asfahani (d.1108 CE) and Ibn Khaldoun (1332-1406 C.E), before embarking on a fairly detailed explanation of Imam al-Ghazali's Book 26 of the Ihya 'Ulum al-Din.

Book 26 is called Dhamm al-Dunya, The Condemnation of Worldy Life. In it, he outlines the physical needs of the human, the skills and trades that developed to make the tools and implements required to process natural resources into fulfilling human needs, and the states of the heart that a human must seek to endow him/herself with in order to live in this world, without losing sight of the real purpose of life - the worship of Allah Ta'ala and the ultimate meeting with Him that awaits in the next life.