Combat with the Self

The true spirit of Islamic spiritual and ethical teachings is reflected in this inspiring collection of sayings from the Prophet Muhammad and the twelve Shi‘a Imams. Humility, moderation, faith, and mercy are among the teachings conveyed in this careful, eloquent translation. The main theme of the book is the ‘greater jihad’, or fighting against one’s own self. These sayings form the core of Islamic ideals of spiritual and moral perfection, and students of Islamic ethics are often advised to implement one saying per day from this book.

The volume itself is an excerpt from the monumental seventeenth-century hadith collection Wasa’il al-Shi‘ah, and it is the first selection from Wasa’il al-Shi‘ah to have been translated into English. As such, it is an excellent primary source for any library on Shi‘i hadith.

Born in Lebanon, the renowned seventeenth-century scholar al-Hurr al-‘Amili migrated to Iran to participate in the Safavid renaissance in Shi‘i scholarship. An outstanding jurisprudent, he left behind numerous influential scholarly works, including his comprehensive encyclopaedia of jurisprudential hadith, Wasa’il al-Shi‘ah (The Tools of the Shi‘a). He is buried in Mashhad, Iran