Al-Ghazali on Disciplining the Soul and on Breaking the Two Desires

The spiritual life in Islam begins with riyadat al-nafs, the inner warfare against the ego. Distracted and polluted by worldliness, the lower self has a tendency to drag the human creature down into arrogance and vice. This translation of two chapters from The Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din) details the sophisticated spiritual techniques adopted by classical Islam.