The Bane of Tongue (Kitab afat al-lisan) is Book 24 of the Imam al-Ghazali's magnum opus, I?ya? ?ulum al-din, The Revival of the Religious Sciences. Within the architecture of this monumental work, Afat al-lisan is the fourth book of the third quarter, The Ways to Perdition (Rub? al-muhlikat), in which al-Ghazali sums up in ten books (or chapters) all the human shortcomings and vices traditionally believed to lead a person into a state of loss in...