Al-Ghazali 1058 – 1111

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali was an 11th and early 12th-century Persian Sunni Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and Sufi mystic, regarded as one of the most influential thinkers in the history of Islam. His 40-volume The Revival of the Religious Sciences, written after he abandoned a prestigious teaching position to pursue Sufi spiritual practice, is a comprehensive synthesis of Islamic ethics, ritual, and inner spiritual life. His earlier book The Incoherence of the Philosophers attacked the Aristotelian metaphysics of al-Farabi and Avicenna, prompting a major response a century later from Averroes in The Incoherence of the Incoherence. He played a central role in integrating Sufism into mainstream Sunni theology and in defining what would count as orthodox Islamic belief. His thought has been compared, for its philosophical importance and its autobiographical Deliverance from Error, with that of Augustine.

Al-Ghazali — Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali — was born in 1058 in Tus in northeastern Persia. After early studies in his home town he went to Nishapur, then a leading center of Islamic learning, and trained under the great Ash'ari theologian al-Juwayni. His brilliance brought him to the attention of the Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk, who in 1091 appointed him to the prestigious Nizamiyya madrasa in Baghdad.

After four years of celebrated teaching al-Ghazali underwent a spiritual crisis, abandoned his post and family, and spent roughly a decade as a wandering Sufi in Damascus, Jerusalem, the Hijaz, and his native Khurasan. From this period came his masterwork, the Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya ulum al-din), as well as the autobiographical Deliverer from Error and the earlier polemical Incoherence of the Philosophers, in which he attacked the Aristotelian doctrines of Avicenna and al-Farabi.

Al-Ghazali's sustained critique of philosophical necessitarianism, his defense of divine omnipotence and creation in time, and his integration of Sufi spirituality into the framework of Sunni orthodoxy made him among the most influential figures in Islamic intellectual history. He returned briefly to teaching late in life and died at Tus in 1111, leaving a legacy felt across Sunni theology, Sufism, and the philosophical tradition.