This is a new and beautiful translation of the first book of al-Ghazali's amazing compendium Ihyaa' 'uluum al-Din. It sets the blueprint as it were for the rest of the 40 books. True knowledge is at the foundation of everything, and religious knowledge being used to manipulate people by what al Ghazali calls the "learned" of this world or "the reprehensible scholars" is what Islam and other religions have been suffering from for quite a while. Al-Ghazali also talks about the pitfalls (mainly about ego) of pursuing knowledge --- No wonder Hamza Yusuf, who wrote the foreword, told a recent conference of Muslims, "Everyone needs to read this!"
This book leads the way in Fons Vitae's al-Ghazali's project described on their website.