This book is a distillation of the wisdom gained after years of study of sacred texts from the Islamic tradition. The author, Muwaffaq ad-Din al-Maqdisi, is one of the foremost scholars in the Hanbali school, and this concise and inspiring work sums up the realities of this world and the next, gathered in kernels of advice to his fellow believers.

Ibn Qudama is Abdullah ibn Muhammad ibn Qudama, Abu Muhammad Muwaffaq al-Din al-Jama'ili al-Maqdisi, born in Jama'il, Palestine, in 541/1146. A Hanbali scholar and Imam, he was educated in Damascus, and was the author of the nine-volume Al-Mughni [The enricher] in Hanbali jurisprudence as well as other works in fundamentals of Sacred Law, tenets of faith, geneology, biography, and Qur'anic exegesis. He travelled to Baghdad in 561 AH and lived there four years before returning to Damascus, where he died in 620/1223.