Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali

A leading Shafiʿi jurist and theologian of the Nizamiyyah in Baghdad, he left fame for a life of worship and wrote Ihyaʾ ʿUlum al-Din, uniting law, worship and the purification of the heart.

Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali was born in 450 AH in Tus, in Khurasan. Orphaned young, he and his brother Ahmad were placed with a Sufi friend of their father who saw to their education. He studied in Tus and Jurjan and then in Nishapur under Imam al-Haramayn al-Juwayni, the leading Shafiʿi and Ashʿari scholar of the time.

After al-Juwayni’s death he joined the circle of the vizier Nizam al-Mulk, who in 484 AH appointed him to teach at the Nizamiyyah college in Baghdad. Hundreds of students attended his lessons. He wrote on fiqh and its principles (later including al-Mustasfa), and in Tahafut al-Falasifah he answered the philosophers who had departed from the Islamic creed.

In 488 AH, at the height of his fame, he went through a deep inner crisis, questioning whether his work was for Allah or for reputation. He left Baghdad and spent about ten years in worship and reflection in Damascus, Jerusalem and the Hijaz. In this period he wrote his greatest work, Ihyaʾ ʿUlum al-Din (The Revival of the Religious Sciences), which joins law, worship, character and the purification of the heart. He described this journey in al-Munqidh min al-Dalal.

He returned to teach at the Nizamiyyah of Nishapur in 499 AH, then retired to Tus, where he kept a school and a lodge for seekers. He died there on 14 Jumada al-Akhirah 505 AH, aged about 55. He is known by the title Hujjat al-Islam, “the Proof of Islam”, and his shorter works such as Bidayat al-Hidayah and Ayyuha al-Walad are still widely read.