Children’s Author Aisha Gray Henry, the charismatic founder of the Ghazali’s Children Project, talks to our children about the timeless teachings of Al Ghazali in this two-part pre-Ramadan workshop series:
- April 2: the special things about fasting that you never knew
- April 9: a surprise story about how children can participate in Zakat (charity)
Sundays | 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. | Free | Register at mcceastbay.org/ghazali
Sponsored by Fons Vitae and MCC
Watch: ‘Polishing the Heart’ – a major new documentary on the Ghazali Children’s Project documentary and Muslim children’s education.
- Trailer: (2 mins) YouTube.com/watch?v=Czwvo-pERRk
- Documentary: (29 mins) https://conta.cc/3bHoUh2
- https://youtu.be/Sly38fCkeb0
- More Sister Virginia Gray Henry: https://mcceastbay.org/aisha
Parents are encouraged to join with their children. Children of any age may join. The sessions are especially recommended for children 6 to 9. Sr. Aisha also highly encourages parents to have “The Book of Knowledge for Children” on hand during these sessions. Purchase the series here.
Shaykh Hamza Yusuf says about this book: “This work can help our Muslim children have a more humane and universal understanding of the ethics and teachings of Islam through Imam al-Ghazali. I believe the work is highly relevant and very likely life-altering for those who will be exposed to it early.”
- Watch Sister Aisha’s visit to the MCC Sunday School here.
About the Author
Aisha Gray-Henry is the Founder and Director of the charitable foundation and publishing company Fons Vitae. Fons Vitae is currently engaged in the monumental task of bringing out Ghazali’s Ihya in readable English for parents and teachers as well as adapting it to accommodate children’s workbooks, school curricula, and an instructional DVD. The Book of Knowledge and The Principles of the Creed educational sets are available and in use internationally with Purity and Prayer nearing completion. Included is a children’s interactive website www.GhazaliChildren.org, a pilot school project and prison program. Translations into Urdu, Arabic, and Malay are underway. The Fons Vitae Ghazali Project has been launched with great acclaim in Morocco, Canada, Indonesia, England, and the USA so far.
Who is Al Ghazali?
An alchemist is a person who can create gold from base metals. It is a quest as old as legend. The truth is that alchemy exists, but not of base metals, but of the human heart.
Imam al-Ghazali (1058-1111 CE) is probably one of the greatest alchemists of all time. And in an epoch where the human condition is in its direst straits, never more has there been a need for the chemistry of Imam al-Ghazali.
A theologian, jurist, philosopher, mystic and polymath, Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali is not only ranked amongst Islam’s finest scholars, but is one of mankind’s finest students of the human condition. Known as Algazel to the mediaeval world, he was born in Tus, the Khorasan province of ancient Persia.
When he had the academic world at his feet in his early thirties, he spurned fame and fortune to go into a mode of self-denial and spiritual seclusion that lasted for many years.
Already an acknowledged master of Holy Law, he re-entered society a practiced Sufi – a true gnostic. A genius, Imam al-Ghazali was fully proficient in Greek and Roman philosophy, and he debunked its central tenets, proving that Revelation was always going to be superior to human reason. Human thinking could never evolve, he wrote, in an existential vacuum.
It was all of this that prompted him to write his magnus-opus, the Ihya ‘Ulumad-Din (the Revival of the Religious Sciences). It is today regarded as one of the classic works on the human psyche. In the Ihya the author explains step-by-step how to turn one’s base instincts and desires into the golden ideal.
Today’s modern world – devolved of spirituality and fraught with destructive ills such as materialism, multi-national greed and violence – is in need of people like Imam al-Ghazali. This is because Imam al-Ghazali teaches a way to balance the body and the soul, thus allowing us to reconcile modernity with spirituality in its very broadest, and most universal, sense. (Source: Dome Publishers)
Questions? events@mcceastbay.org