by Kamaruzzaman Bustamam Ahmad (Author)

A journey into one of the most influential yet often overlooked texts of the Islamic spiritual tradition.

For centuries, Hidāyat al-Adhkiyā' ilā Ṭarīq al-Awliyā' by Shaykh Zayn al-Dīn al-Malībārī has guided students of Islamic knowledge across the Indian Ocean world, especially within the Malay-Indonesian pondok and pesantren traditions.

This book offers a careful intellectual reading of this classical Sufi poem, exploring how a concise work of spiritual instruction contains a profound vision of knowledge, the human soul, ethical transformation, and the path toward God.

Rather than approaching Hidāyat al-Adhkiyā' merely as a historical document, this study examines its deeper conceptual universe:

• the relationship between ʿilm (knowledge) and hidāyah (guidance)
• the spiritual anthropology of the qalb, nafs, and human transformation
• the integration of sharīʿah, ṭarīqah, and ḥaqīqah
• the stages (maqāmāt) of the Sufi path
• the role of adab, sincerity, purification, and spiritual discipline
• the transmission of Islamic learning through Arabic texts and Malay-Jawi scholarship

Through linguistic analysis, intellectual history, and engagement with the wider Sunni Sufi tradition, this work situates Hidāyat al-Adhkiyā' within a broader conversation involving classical Islamic spirituality, religious education, and the preservation of knowledge across generations.

It also explores how a small didactic poem (naẓm) became a living text - memorized, studied, and transmitted through networks of scholars connecting Arabia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.

This book is written for readers interested in:

✓ Islamic philosophy and spirituality
✓ Sufism and classical Islamic texts
✓ Malay-Indonesian intellectual history
✓ Traditional Islamic education
✓ The relationship between knowledge, ethics, and inner transformation

At a time when information is abundant but wisdom is increasingly difficult to cultivate, Hidāyat al-Adhkiyā' invites modern readers to reconsider an older understanding of knowledge: not simply as accumulation of facts, but as the formation of the human being.