by Mahdi Lock (Translator), Muhammad Said Ramadan Al-Buti (Author) The second volume of Imam al-Buti's pinnacle papers. Most Muslims today are turning their attention towards analyzing Islam and trying to present the true state of the Muslims, but they only look at outward actions and statements. These deeds and statements are nothing but the upper floors of Islam's building; they cannot be strengthened nor consolidated unless they are relying on that humble, hidden part of the building known as the foundations. These foundations are established in the heart, so how can the foundations of Islam's building be established therein? How can a connection be made between the foundations of this building and its upper floors, such that the Muslims can guarantee that it will not be blown away by the wind or rocked by a storm, and that it will not be inundated by the forces of tyranny and base desires? The mission of this book is to answer these questions and reveal the ways to make this connection between one's Islamic life inside the heart and one's Islamic life as manifested via one's limbs and organs. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Imam Muhammad Said Ramadan al-Buti is one of the foremost Muslim theologians and legal scholars of this age. Born in 1929 in the village of Ayn Dewar in northern Syria, the imam moved to Damascus at the age of 4 with his father, the great scholar Mulla Ramaḍan al-Buṭi, where he received his primary and secondary education. In 1953, he joined the Faculty of Shari'ah at the University of al-Azhar in Cairo, Egypt, graduating with a first class in 1955. The following year he obtained a Diploma in Education from the Faculty of Arabic at the same University. In 1958, the Imam was appointed as a teacher at the secondary school in Homs and in 1961, he was appointed as a lecturer in the Faculty of Shari'ah at the University of Damascus. In 1965, at the University of al-Azhar once again, he obtained his doctorate with high distinction and a recommendation for a teaching post. That same year, he was appointed as a teacher in the Faculty of Shari'ah at the University of Damascus, then an assistant professor and finally a full professor. He became the vice dean of that college in 1975 and then the dean in 1977. A few years later, he was appointed head of the department of Theology and Comparative Religion. In addition to his lecturing, Imam al-Buṭi wrote around 60 books covering various Islamic sciences and subjects, the most prominent ones being Fiqh al-Sirah (The Jurisprudence of the Prophetic Biography), Kubra al-Yaqiniyyat al-Kawniyyah (The Greatest Universal Sureties) and his four-volume commentary on the spiritual aphorisms of Imam Ibn ʿAṭaʾillah al-Askandari.