3-minute preview · Hear the full audiobook in the app.
Adam is our opening voice — more natural narrators arriving in the app, insha'Allah.
What is Book 27 of the Iḥyāʾ?
Condemnation of Miserliness and Love of Wealth is Book 27 of Imam al-Ghazālī's Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn, written in the 11th–12th century, and the seventh book of the quarter on the Destructive Vices. The opening says the trials of the world are many in their branches and wide in their scope, but wealth poses the greatest of them. Allah has alternated people between ease and hardship, wealth and poverty, stinginess and generosity, as a test of their deeds. The question the book answers is how to keep a balanced and generous relationship with material possessions, and how to treat miserliness where it is found.
There are six chapters. The first censures wealth and the dislike of its love. The next explains the virtue of generosity, and the one after it the condemnation of miserliness. A chapter on altruism and its virtue follows. The book ends with the treatment of miserliness, so that the reader leaves with a remedy and not only a diagnosis. The order matters: the praise of generosity and altruism sits between the two condemnations, so that the cure is shown before the disease is treated.
It opens with praise of Allah, who created creation, expanded sustenance, and bestowed all kinds of wealth on the world, testing people through changing circumstances: abundance and bankruptcy, extravagance and parsimony, satisfaction with little and disdain for much. The aim of the test, the opening says, is to observe who favors this world over the Hereafter and takes the world as a reserve and protector. That is the reader's starting point.
Is there an English audiobook of Miserliness and Wealth?
Yes. Joyful Muslims publishes the complete Book 27 of the Iḥyāʾ, Condemnation of Miserliness and Love of Wealth, as an English audiobook (about 3.5 hours), translated from the Arabic, with a word-synced bilingual transcript. It examines the spiritual dangers of miserliness and excessive love of wealth and gives guidance on a balanced and generous relationship with possessions.
Is it free to listen?
The whole library is open to everyone. Every member gets five hours of listening free each month; Joyful+ removes the time limit.
What does it cover?
Six chapters: the censure of wealth and the dislike of its love, the virtue of generosity, the condemnation of miserliness, altruism and its virtue, and the treatment of miserliness. It runs about 3.5 hours.
Last updated 2026-09-11
Inside the book.
Chapters
Word-synced with the narrator.
The first three minutes are transcribed here. In the app, the Living Manuscript scrolls through the entire book in rhythm with the audio — Arabic alongside English.
Living Manuscript
Listen to the full book in the app for the complete Living Manuscript.
The full, word-synced transcript in Arabic and English is in the app.
