Free bilingual book
Al-Fawaidالفوائد
by Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya (ابن قيّم الجوزيّة)
Download the free PDF308 pages · 18MB · Arabic & English
Al-Fawaid (الفوائد) A bilingual Arabic–English edition of "The Benefits" — spiritual reflections on faith, the heart, and the path to God. Learner-friendly translation preserving Arabic word order.
This edition sets the Arabic and English side by side and preserves the Arabic word order in the translation, so you can follow the original text phrase by phrase — a practical way to read classical Arabic while you are still building vocabulary. The PDF is free to download and share.
About the book
Al-Fawaid — literally “the benefits,” or points of benefit — is one of Ibn al-Qayyim’s best-loved shorter works. Rather than a systematic treatise, it gathers reflections that came to him over the years: a short meditation on a verse of the Qur’an, an insight drawn from a hadith, a note on the ailments and cures of the heart.
He is said to have recorded each “benefit” as it occurred to him, which gives the book its character — a string of self-contained pearls rather than chapters building a single argument. This bilingual edition presents its 209 sections with the Arabic and a facing English translation.
A sample from the book
بِسم الله الرَّحْمَن الرَّحِيم
In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate.
إِذا أردْت الِانْتِفَاع بِالْقُرْآنِ فاجمع قَلْبك عِنْد تِلَاوَته وسماعه
If you want to benefit from the Quran, then gather your heart during its recitation and hearing [it],
وأَلْقِ سَمعك واحضر حُضُور من يخاطبه بِهِ من تكلّم بِهِ سُبْحَانَهُ مِنْهُ إِلَيْهِ
and direct your hearing, and be present [with] the presence of one whom the One who spoke it — glorified [is] He — addresses with it, from Him to him.
فانه خَاطب مِنْهُ لَك على لِسَان رَسُوله
For it [is] an address from Him to you upon the tongue of His messenger.
قَالَ تَعَالَى
[God] Most High said:
Continue reading in the free PDF.
What’s inside
Al-Fawaid gathers 209 short sections — “benefits” and principles on faith, the heart, and the Qur’an. A selection of what they cover:
- Great Principle: If You Want to Benefit from the Quran, Then Gather Your Heart During Its Recitation and Hearing [It]
- Section: This surah has gathered from the foundations of faith what suffices, heals, and frees [one] from
- Great Benefit — [God] Most High's saying
- A Benefit: The human has two powers — a power of knowledge and thought, and a power of action and will — and his happiness
- Benefit: The Lord Most High calls His servants in the Quran to know Him through two paths
- Benefit — from the Musnad and Sahih of Abu Hatim, from the hadith of Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, [who] said
- Benefit: The Purest of Existing Things, the Most Manifest, Most Radiant, Most Noble, and Highest in Essence and Worth
- Benefit: The acceptance of [a] place for what [is] placed in it [is] conditioned on emptying it of its opposite
- Benefit: [God] Most High's saying 'Competing for more distracted you' to its end — this surah [is] devoted to the promise,
- Benefit: Protective jealousy [is of] two types — jealousy over [a] thing and jealousy from [a] thing. So jealousy over
- Chapter: Beware of sins, for they removed the honor of 'Prostrate!'
- Benefit: Whoever lost his closeness with God among people and found it in solitude, he [is] truthful [but] weak
- Chapter: This world [is] like an immoral woman [who] does not stay with [one] husband — she only courts husbands so they may admire her
- Section: When the Awakened Ones Saw the Tyranny of This World over Its People and the Deception of Hope over Its Holders and the Mastery
- A great benefit: The Prophet combined between God-consciousness and good character, because God-consciousness
About the author
Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya — in full, Shams al-Din Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr ibn Ayyub al-Zurʿi al-Dimashqi al-Hanbali — was a scholar of the Hanbali school in Damascus, born in 1292 (691 AH) and died in 1350 (751 AH). His name, “son of the qayyim of al-Jawziyya,” comes from his father, who directed the al-Jawziyya madrasa in the city.
He was the foremost student of Ibn Taymiyya, studying with him for some sixteen years and sharing his imprisonment in the Citadel of Damascus. Across law, theology, and the spiritual life he wrote close to a hundred works — among them Zad al-Maʿad, Madarij al-Salikin, and Iʿlam al-Muwaqqiʿin — and he remains one of the most widely read scholars of the classical period. He is buried at the Bab al-Saghir cemetery in Damascus.
Biographical details from Wikipedia.
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