Alghazali

Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali, known in the West as al-Ghazali, was a Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic whose work profoundly shaped Sunni Islam. Born in 1058 in Tus, in the Khurasan region (present-day Iran), he studied theology, jurisprudence, and philosophy under leading scholars, including his teacher al-Juwayni. He rose to prominence as a jurist and teacher at the Nizamiyya college in Baghdad, but later withdrew from public life to pursue a rigorous Sufi-centered spiritual program. He traveled and studied across the Islamic world before dying in Tus in 1111.

Al-Ghazali is best known for a trilogy of major contributions. The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-Falasifa) attacked the metaphysical systems of the Peripatetic philosophers (notably Ibn Sina and al-Farabi), arguing that reason alone cannot establish certain religious truths and that occasionalism governs the causal order. The Deliverance from Error (Al-Munqidh min al-Dalal) is an autobiographical work outlining his epistemological crisis and the path to certainty through the purification of intellect, heart, and spiritual discipline. The Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya Ulum al-Din) is a comprehensive, systematically organized compilation of Islamic practice, ethics, and spirituality, bridging theology, law, and mysticism.

His thought helped fuse Ash'ari theology, Sufism, and legal orthodoxy, and its enduring influence extends across the Arabic-speaking world and beyond. He is regarded as a key figure in medieval Islamic thought, often credited with shaping a tradition that emphasizes harmony between revealed truth, rational reflection, and inner purification.