The first Muslim Testimony of Faith (Shahāda), “There is no deity but God,” is the essence and the highest principle of Islam. Key to the Garden is a multi-faceted exposition of how the whole spectrum of Islamic thought and worship unfolds from those few words. The first part of the book deals with the basic beliefs of Islam, the second with aspects of the faith that are widely misunderstood, and the third provides guidance for those wishing to tread the spiritual path. Dr Mostafa Badawi’s fluent English translation, first published in 1990, and its annotations and appendices have been extensively revised for this new edition.

The author, ḤabÄ«b Aḥmad MashhÅ«r ibn Ṭāhā al-Ḥaddād, was one of the great 20th century spiritual figures of the Bā ‘AlawÄ« tradition, centered on the Hadramawt valley, Yemen. A direct descendant of the Blessed Prophet, he was both a leading exponent of the Shāfi‘Ä« school of jurisprudence and a master of the Sufi science of spiritual realization (taḥqÄ«q) who followed and taught the way of Imām ‘Abd Allāh ibn ‘AlawÄ« al-Ḥaddād and other illustrious predecessors.