One is Ayyuhal Walad (Dear Beloved Son) by Al-Ghazali. The book is advice given to a student seeking advice. It might be worth learning Arabic just to read Al-G

One is Ayyuhal Walad (Dear Beloved Son) by Al-Ghazali. The book is advice given to a student seeking advice. It might be worth learning Arabic just to read Al-Ghazali (along with Rumi, etc). Al-Ghazali's writing is amazing, but much of it gets lost in translation. It has a kind of savagery that translators tend to leave out. It's very theological and possibly hard to get into, but I'll try to summarize it a little for a more secular crowd: 1. Theologically, you have already been given all the advice you need. There's no point to asking Al-Ghazali for advice; but you, the beloved son seeking advice, refuse to read and follow God's words. When you follow your desires [1], the correct advice tastes bitter. 2. A sign that God has turned away from an individual is that the individual spends all their time on unimportant things. 3. A common form of chasing unimportant things is knowledge. Knowledge is a tool, not an achievement. It is arguably sinful to chase knowledge that is left unused. 4. Knowledge without action is insanity, action without knowledge is wasteful. They are always coupled. 5. Prayer alone does not qualify one for Heaven (plenty of Islamic citations included). It's actions that lead to Heaven, often in the form of resisting desires [1] and acting upon given knowledge. [1] Footnote on "desire": There's not really a good English word for "nafs", as it has both positive and negative connotations. Desire is not simply sexual. It includes desire for financial safety and freedom from work. Desire to sleep late into the night under a warm blanked. Desire to avoid fighting in wars. Desire to not give to charity when poor. Desire to be seen and respected as an intellectual. And so the act of working and feeding your family with honest work is the kind of action that puts one in heaven. The act of giving to charity when one is poor. The act of night/dawn prayer (there's a whole chapter on night prayer). The act of humbly receiving advice from someone of lower 'rank'. The act of not sucking up to kings or showing off. The seeking of knowledge, especially the burdensome kind of knowledge that puts responsibility on yourself.