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What is Volume Three of Madārij al-Sālikīn?
Madārij al-Sālikīn is Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah's map of the spiritual journey. He wrote in the 14th century and is known for a vast body of work on the soul, love, the traps of the ego and the nature of the heart. The work moves through the stations of the soul's journey to Allah, each drawn from the verse 'You alone we worship, and You alone we ask for help', and each treated as a commentary on an earlier text he calls 'The Stations'. Volume Three is the third volume of that journey. Its question is what moves a servant toward Allah and how far that drive can go.
The volume opens with the Station of Aspiration. The author of 'The Stations' introduces it with a verse from Sūrat al-Najm, 'The sight did not swerve, nor did it transgress', which Ibn al-Qayyim reads as a picture of the Prophet's aspiration, fixed on what he witnessed and reaching no further. Aspiration, he explains, grows out of concern: concern begins intention, aspiration completes it. He quotes Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah on a divine tradition, 'I do not look at the words of the wise; rather, I look at their aspiration', and the saying that a person's value lies not in what they excel in but in what they seek.
Aspiration, in this account, is the force that moves a person toward their goal purely, without the power to turn away from it, and when a servant's aspiration is sincerely directed toward the Truth, the Exalted, it becomes a high aspiration. That is what the opening asks of the reader before any further station is reached: not more words, but a higher aim. The rest of the volume, at about 19.5 hours in all, works that aim out through the stations that remain.
Is there an English audiobook of Madārij al-Sālikīn, Volume Three?
Yes. Joyful Muslims publishes the complete Madārij al-Sālikīn, Volume Three as an English audiobook (about 19.5 hours), translated from the Arabic, with a word-synced bilingual transcript. It is the third volume of Ibn al-Qayyim's masterwork on the stations of the soul's journey to Allah.
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.
How long is it?
About 19.5 hours. It continues through the stations of 'You alone we worship, and You alone we ask for help', opening with the Station of Aspiration.
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.
Hear the classical answer.
- What is iḥsān? What does it mean to worship Allah as if you see Him?
- What is tawḥīd? The core of Islamic belief, explained.
- What did al-Ghazali say about envy (ḥasad)?
- How do I love Allah? What did the scholars teach about maḥabbah?
- Why did the scholars emphasise remembering death?
- What is Paradise (Jannah) like in Islam?
