The Creed of Imam al-Tahawi: Translated by Hamza Yusuf

About the Book: The Creed of Imam al-Tahawi is the first book published by Zaytuna Institute for its Curriculum Series. Translated, annotated, and introduced by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, it is a simple yet profound expression of the essential points of Muslim belief. Imam al-Tahawi’s creed has achieved an unusual degree of acceptance in the Muslim world, as it avoids involuted theological issues and systematically presents the most fundamental aspects of dogmatic theology. Studied throughout the Muslim world and increasingly in the West, The Creed of Imam al-Tahawi serves as a sound basis for Islamic faith and is the most reliable of the early articulations of Muslim belief.

About Imam al-Tahawi: Born in Taha in Upper Egypt in 239 AH/853 CE, Imam Abu Ja’far al-Tahawi lived until 321/933. A first-rate jurist, a brilliant grammarian and philologist, and an erudite man of letters, Imam al-Tahawi is best known for his eponymous creed. Known as “al-Azdi,” in reference to the Yemeni clan known as “Azd al-Hajar,” Imam al-Tahawi was a descendent of a people about whom the Prophet Muhammad said, “Faith is Yemeni.” It is altogether fitting that the man who penned such a unifying creed descended from the land of which faith itself is a descendant. Providing seekers of knowledge with a luminous set of simple and sound statements, his creed is a beacon of certainty in the darkness of doubt and ambiguity.

About the Translator: Hamza Yusuf is an American convert to Islam who studied for several years under leading scholars in the Muslim world. He is the co-founder of the Zaytuna Institute in California and has translated into modern English several classical Arabic texts and poems, including the latest rendering of the thirteenth-century devotional poem, The Burda: The Poem of the Cloak. His most recent works include Purification of the Heart, a translation with commentary of a nineteenth-century text that examines the spiritual conditions and treatments of the heart; and The Content of Character, a collection of sayings from the Prophet Muhammad regarding the essence of character and behavior. The Creed of Imam al-Tahawi is the first text in the Zaytuna Curriculum Series. http://www.zaytuna.org/tahawibook.asp