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Images al ghazali1/6/2023 ![]() ''Know that the heart of the man who is engrossed in this world and is given to its vanities and harbours love for its appetites must certainly be neglectful of the remembrance of death.Thus failing to recall it, when reminded of it he finds it odious and shies away. ![]() ![]() Let us friends look at what al-Ghazali had said in the opening chapter of his lenghty discourse on death: I had no choice but to bury myself in al-Ghazali! Imagine Praed Street, off Edgeware Road in gay and liberal London 1981: full of young English 'roses' on the prowl,tugging on to your coat pocket asking for 'business': time was bad in London but I was much younger, vital and full of testosterone! Iman was running thin. AIDS then was still not yet on the 'radar screen'.etc etc Ironically I was then a young research registrar in cardiology, a field about prolonging the human life, 24/7,364 days a year.Cardiologywise, heady days: Andreas Gruntzieg, a radiologist from Zurich just discovered angioplasty,Spurrel et al at St Bartholomews down the road from St Mary's, able to put wires in people's hearts with palpitaion problem and burning their 'naughthy extra circuits' with radio-frequency sound wave.'gay' young men dying left ,right and centre in Southern California from 'godknowswhatdisease'. I got my English copy of the book some 26 years ago at a small book store off busy Praed Street London, near St Mary's Hospital. ![]() It represent a key section of al-Ghazali's Revival of the Religious Sciences,, widely regarded as the greatest work of Muslim spirituality. When I think deeper on the subject of Death, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali's treatise, 'The Remembrance of Death and the Afterlife' come to mind. Giving the subject of Longevity some further thought, I cannot but come to the paradoxical conclusion that if one wants to live a long, fruitful,carefree, less'kufr'' and ideally 'kufr'less life, one invariably has to think a lot about one's imminent death.Paradoxical indeed: If one can readily accept this life's impermanence, one's stress level cascade would significantly decrease, and that contributes to longevity! I found a third discourse superfluous as the subject matter I want to discuss was already fairly well covered in ' Exercise: Mixing the Profane and the Sublime', Health section, Friday, March 20th, 2009. I was browsing through my old 'blog' perspective on the issue of 'Longevity' while thinking to write further on the subject, with some philosophical bent.
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