The Reviver of Islam: An Introduction to The Life and Legacy of Abu Hamid Muhammad Al-Ghazali

          Unbeknownst to the average Westerner, is one of the greatest geniuses ever known to mankind. He is known as the father of psychology, a master philosopher, theologian, and ingenious scholar. He dedicated his entire existence to gaining knowledge, and seeking the truth. He said in his treatise Letter To A Disciple, “Knowledge without action is insanity, and action without knowledge doesn’t fruitiate.”[1] He talked about conditioning way before Pavlov was even born. He is indeed comparable to the Western thinker Thomas Aquinas; in fact, he may have inspired Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae.[2] He is known as “The Spinner” or al-Ghazzali in Arabic, because he may have been the son of a simple yarn spinner.[3] He is known honorifically as Hujjatul-Islam or “The Proof of Islam” to the Islamic world.[4] Imam Ghazali left us many manuscripts, he is known to have prolifically written over 400 works, but his own Summa Theologiae is called Ihya 'Ulum ad-Deen or “Revival of the Sciences of Religion.” Ghazali is considered the most influential Muslim thinker after the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, and his Ihya is the most read book after Qur'an and Hadith Literature.[5] Ghazali himself wrote a summarization of the Ihya in Persian entitled Kimiyaa as-Sa'adat “Alchemy of Happiness.” The Ihya and Kimiyaa both came out of Ghazali's life experiences and his overall life quest for the truth. They were certainly influenced by the context within which Ghazali was born.
“Ghazali’s career coincided with the rise and consolidation of the Seljuq dynasty and cannot be understood apart from it.”[6] In the 10th century CE the Seljuq Turks converted to Sunni Islam and in the 11th century they came to Khorasan and Afghanistan as raiders looking for booty, but rapidly began to settle down there. They were able to kick out the rival Buyids and Ghaznavids. This left the Seljuq leader Tughril Bey wide open to conquer Baghdad, the seat of the ‘Abassid Caliphate, just three years before Ghazali was born.[7] The Seljuqs adopted the Shafa’ee school of Islamic Jurisprudence and the Ash’ari school of Islamic theology. They sought to strictly mandate their doctrine on their newly acquired territory. In the minds of the Seljuqs they would be promoting unity among the people by doing so.[8] They saw the Shafi’i school and Ash’ari school as being the middle path between the Hanafi Maturidis, and the Hanbali Atharis. It was actually quite politically shrewd. Eventually they controlled a vast area including Central Asia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Eastern Anatolia, the Hijaz, and bordered China. Alp Arslan succeeded Tughril in 1063, and appointed a Persian from the city of Tus as his vizier, Nizam al-Mulk. In 1072 Malik Shah was to succeed Alp, but still retained Nizam al-Mulk as his vizier.[9] It was well known that Nizam al-Mulk was really the one who had the political power as he held great sway over the young Malik Shah who was only 17 when he ascended over the empire.[10]
Three years after Malik Shah was born, Ghazali was born in 1058. He was born with the name Muhammad son of Muhammad. The name Ghazali was a name drawn from either a profession or a place-name. Ghazzali means spinner and some have said his father was a yarn spinner, while others theorize it may have come from the place-name Ghazala, a small village near Tus, which is no longer extant.[11] Neither does Tus remain to this day as it was completely destroyed by the Mongol invasion in 1220.[12] Ghazali himself never comments on the origin of his name, but it is more probable a reference to a village due to the commonplace practice of augmenting place-names to one’s given-name in Islamic culture. Whether Ghazali was born in Tus or Ghazala is just speculation, but he was likely born in one of those two settlements.  His father Muhammad was poor, but an extremely devout Muslim who loved the ‘Ulema.[13] He became ill when Ghazali was very young, and died. His father left his savings with his friend, a local shaykh Ahmed ibn Muhammad al-Radhakani, who took guardianship of his two sons, Ghazali and his brother Ahmed.[14] Radhakan a small village just outside Tus was also the birthplace of Nizam al-Mulk.[15] Al-Radhakani would instruct the two children in the Qur’an, Hadeeth, theology, and Islamic Jurisprudence. The small amount of money that was left with shaykh al-Radhakani quickly ran out, so Ghazali and his brother Ahmed joined a madrassah.[16]
There they would be given a dorm, food, and an education.[17] Most likely it was a madrassah founded by Nizam al-Mulk who was known to found and finance many Ash’ari Shafi’i madrassahs to propagate the Seljuq ideological orientations. Al-Radhakani, and Ghazali’s later teachers in the madrassah were all actually Sufis or had mystical proclivities; although Ghazali is not noted to take up Sufism for himself unlike his brother Ahmed who was a well-known Sufi early on. One of his teachers in the madrassah system was the scholar of Ash’ari theology and Sufi, Ahmed ‘Ali al-Farmadhi, whom Nizam al-Mulk was a patron. At the age of 15 Ghazali went to Jurjan to study Islamic Law.[18] Studying Islamic Law meant a prestigious career as a Judge in the future. After returning to Tus, Ghazali, age 20, decided to travel to Nishapur to study in the Nizamiyyah Madrassah under the famous teacher al-Juwayni.[19] Nishapur was known for violence and sectarian strife between Hanafis and Shafi’is at the time.[20] Juwayni was from a prestigious scholarly family and probably one of the most educated in the Ash’ari theology, and the Shafi’i school of Islamic Jurisprudence.[21] Ormsby says, “Ghazali soon became a star pupil. His quickness of mind dazzled his fellow students.”[22] The theology learned from al-Juwayni would later influence Ghazali’s Ihya on its sections regarding knowledge and creed.
After the death of al-Juwayni, Ghazali’s intelligence and fame caught the attention of Nizam al-Mulk.[23] Nizam al-Mulk had an entourage which traveled alongside him; wherever he went there was a city of tents around him. Nizam al-Mulk was a learned Islamic scholar himself and kept many Ulema with him. Ghazali spent six years traveling with Nizam’s entourage. During this time Ghazali wrote books and debated with other scholars. The details are not known but Ghazali and Nizam became very close. Both with roots in Tus and mutual friends such as al-Radhakani and al-Farmadhi, it seemed only a natural friendship.[24] Nizam also likely saw Ghazali as someone who could further the Seljuq Ash’ari Shafi’i agenda. In 1094 Nizam al-Mulk appointed Ghazali to be the dean and lecturer of the Nizamiyyah Madrassah in Baghdad; Ghazali was 34 years old.[25] This was the most prestigious position in the most prestigious school of the whole Islamic world. It would be the equivalent of somebody appointed dean and professor extraordinaire of Harvard, Yale, Cambridge, and Oxford combined today. Unfortunately, the madrassah was destroyed in 1258 when the Mongols annihilated Baghdad.[26] It would most likely be today’s oldest university had it not been destroyed by the Mongols.[27]
Ghazali became the most sought after Islamic Scholar in the Islamic world; he had classes of 300-400 pupils every day.[28] He was the number one teacher, in the Islamic world, of the Ash’ari creed and Shafi’i school of jurisprudence. Ghazali would issue fatwas regularly; the ruler of Islamic Spain, Yusuf bin Tashfin, sent a letter to Ghazali asking him to issue a fatwa on the permissibility of him deposing his amirs who were acting independently of his authority in Spain.[29] During this period, Ghazali mastered Philosophy and wrote a book Aims of the Philosophers. He then refuted philosophy in his book Incoherence of the Philosophers. Ghazali also learned all about Isma’ilism and refuted them in many books. This provided the Seljuqs with propaganda, because their greatest political enemy was the Isma’ili Fatimids.[30] During this time he also completely renewed the Shafi’i school by adding Aristotelian logic, new legal vocabulary, and an inclusiveness of minorities in Islamic Jurisprudence.[31] Law was not only his main profession, but also kept him grounded in pragmatics and down to earth. Ghazali was also the primary master of both Philosophy and the Ash’ari creed. Ghazali wove together theological and philosophical terminology in a new way.  The poverty-stricken young boy from Tus was now extremely affluent and well-off.[32] But in 1092, his patron Nizam al-Mulk was murdered, allegedly by Isma’ili assassins.[33] The Seljuq Empire fell into chaos and there was no longer a political authority that Ghazali could identify with.[34] The next three years were met with skepticism by Ghazali, thus his mental state downward-spiraled into a nervous and spiritual psychosomatic breakdown. Ghazali says in his autobiography The Deliverance from Error:
“Then I reflected on my intention in my public teaching, and I saw that it was not purely directed towards God, but rather was instigated and motivated by the quest for fame and wide-spread prestige. So I became certain that I was on the brink of a crumbling bank and already on the verge of falling into the Fire, unless I set about mending my ways.”[35]
 
For six months he contemplated his afterlife, and lost his ability to speak, eat and even drink.[36] Doctors were called in from the Sultan himself to figure out the troubled Ghazali. The doctors could not come up with a proper diagnosis, and simply said he was suffering from depression.[37] In private Ghazali had been reading texts from Sufi saints and had realized that they were on the correct epistemology, but he could not bring himself to embrace the ultimate path to truth. To accept Sufism was to accept asceticism, and to accept asceticism meant to give up his status, prestige, and his position at the Nizamiyyah madrassah.[38] Sufism demanded he take a life of humility, anonymity and lowliness.[39] It also involved rejecting his wealthy and powerful Seljuq patrons. Furthermore, Ghazali was likely suffering from mental and physical exhaustion.[40] Between 1094 and 1095 he had penned at least eight or nine works that we know of, and intensively studied philosophy all the while still teaching, acting as a judge, and an adviser to the sultanate officials.
            In July 1095 Ghazali gave up his position at the Nizamiyyah madrassah, left all his wealth with his wife and kids, and dissemblingly told everybody he was going on the pilgrimage to Makkah as not to arouse suspicion from the sultanate and his colleagues.[41] Ghazali snuck to Syria wearing the wool outfit of a Sufi where he became a lowly janitor in the large Umayyad Mosque and Ghazali would seclude himself in the Jesus Minaret.[42] It was during his seclusion in Damascus that he most likely began to write his most important book, his masterwork, Ihya ‘Ulum ad-Deen. After his seclusion and compisition of his magnum opus, Ghazali likely taught the text in the Umayyad Mosque.[43] Ghazali wrote in his later autobiography, The Deliverance from Error, that he had seen himself as a mujaddid or renewer of the faith, which was prophesied by Muhammad ﷺ to come every hundred years.[44] Ghazali saw the religious sciences as being ‘dead’ so he had to give them life, “Ihya.” The nature of the Ihya is so unique that it was revolutionary for its time.[45] Even the most ‘orthodox’ concepts are interwoven with elements from Sufism, Philosophy, and an overall holistic view where boundaries become extremely blurred.[46] It was a consolidation of everything that he had learned, a synthesis reorganized. Ormsby says, “It is a book like no other.”[47] It covers every aspect of human life from how to hold a fork and also tackles the love of God and the joyful acceptance of death.[48] It is a book of law, a book of theology, a book of philosophy, and Sufi lore. It is a holistic systematic world-view. “Many are the acts of God, but let us search out the least, the lowest, and the tiniest of them and contemplate their wonders.”[49] Ghazali was very pragmatic and liked to use analogies that even the laity could relate with. The passion of renewal is felt throughout the Ihya, and it is “densely, even obsessively, argued.”[50] This work of about two thousand pages in Arabic, probably double that in English, is organized exceptionally well. Ghazali seemed to have a fascination with the number four, dividing the book into four ‘Pillars’ or sections. The first pillar is titled “Acts of worship, which dealt firstly with theology, secondly with gaining knowledge, thirdly with the five pillars of Islam, and fourthly with miscellaneous tips and virtuous acts. The second pillar dealt with mutual relations between human beings. The third pillar dealt with ‘The Destroyers’ or sinful acts. The fourth pillar dealt with ‘The Deliverers’ or the virtuous acts. Inside every subsection, topics are laid out in a quadripartite arrangement. Whether Ghazali was talking about prayer, the virtue of being a good host, the etiquette of the beard and mustache, or pride and its harm. He would start each subsection with verses of Qur’an, Hadeeths from the Prophet ﷺ, sayings of Islamic Scholars, and his own arguments and exhortations. It is also to be noted that Ghazali was around forty years of age when he began to write the Ihya.[51] Under each pillar is ten subsections, which all added together under the four pillars make forty subsections all together. Not only was the content of the Ihya ingenious, but the organization was extremely uncanny. The Ihya epitomizes knowledge, which is to be acted upon. It could be known as a script or blueprint for action.[52] Ghazali emphasized ‘experience’ or what he called ‘tasting’ as the best source of religious truth, and throughout the Ihya there is a calling to experience each action.[53] Each pillar and each subsection progresses from humble duties to the highest peaks of religious insight. Proceeding in stages or ‘stations’ has always been the way of Sufi thought. Every topic builds upon the previous as you move up from station to station.[54] The Ihya is also a manual for salvation, but it also adds instruction for good conduct in the worldly life. Ghazali is sometimes referred to as the father of modern psychology as he talks a great deal about the ‘self’ in the Ihya and dedicates a whole large section to the ‘self’ in Kimiyaa as-Sa’adat known as the prolegomena.[55] He talks a great deal about the spiritual heart, ‘al-Qalb’ in the Ihya, like this example:
“The piece of flesh, shaped like a pine-cone, lodged on the left side of the breast … We don’t intend to explain its form and function; that’s the task of doctors and has nothing to do with religious aims. This heart exists in the beasts, it exists in a corpse. But in this book, when we use the word ‘heart’ we don’t mean that – a lump of flesh without any great value … [We mean] ‘heart’ in it’s second sense as a subtle spiritual and divine organ. This subtle faculty constitutes the true and essential nature of man; it is that part of man which perceives, which knows, which has insight.” – [third pillar, subchapter four][56]
 
He also says:
“a knowledge of the mind and its true nature is the basis of religion and the foundation of the way of the godly.” – [third pillar, subchapter three][57]
 
In the 36th subchapter, Ghazali talks about God’s love for humankind and humankind’s love for God in a totally new way that would prove to be very controversial later on. It had remained largely unmentioned by previous Ulema and it placed mystical love at the very heart of Islam, which would be carried on by later generations of Sufis. But, ultimately, the Ihya was meant to help others take the path to Paradise and avoid the route to the Hellfire. It was a book of salvation for all human beings worldwide.
            After staying in Damascus for approximately six months, Ghazali spent some time in Jerusalem right before the crusades, and then later in Medina, and Mecca.[58] In Jerusalem, Ghazali was said to have secluded himself in the Dome of the Rock where he wrote a short creed, al-Risāla al-Qudsīya (The Jerusalem Epistle), which would later be included in the Ihya.[59] He wrote it for the laity of Jerusalem to guard them against forbidden innovations (bidʿa).     Ghazali left Jerusalem for the Pilgrimage approximately fall of 1096.[60] Responding to the plea of his family, Ghazali returned to Baghdad after eleven years of wandering.[61] However, he returned a changed man no longer desiring the materialistic life and status that he had in the Nizamiyyah madrassah. His anonymity did not last long in Baghdad as he was easily recognized, so he moved with his family to the town he grew up in, Tus.[62] He was happy to live a life withdrawn from society, praying, teaching unofficially and studying. However, Fakhr al-Mulk, the successor of Nizam al-Mulk, sought Ghazali out. Fakhr al-Mulk asked Ghazali to return to public teaching, and Ghazali agreed due to the decay of faith in Muslims that he had witnessed in his home country.[63] However, Ghazali would not return to Baghdad, but instead began teaching in Nishapur, where he had studied under al-Juwayni.[64] He lectured there during the year of 1106. Fakhr al-Mulk, following his predecessor, was also allegedly assassinated by the Isma’ili Assassins.[65] In 1107 Ghazali retired from public life to return to Tus to focus on his Sufi khānqāh (cloister), and zāwīya (unofficial madrassa)[66] In the final part of his life, Ghazali would dedicate himself to studying the Hadith corpus and textual criticism.[67] On Monday the 18th December 1111, at age fifty-three, Ghazali washed himself, kissed his burial shroud and put it over his eyes saying ‘I hear and obey, for my entrance to the King [God].’ He then laid to himself to rest and passed away that day, God have mercy on him.[68] He would be eulogized by the court poet and buried in a mausoleum.[69] His grave is still visited today by pilgrims.
            Imam Ghazali would later be given the honorifics, Hujjatul-Islam the Proof of Islam, and Zaynu-deen the Beauty of the Religion. Just as the Seljuq Empire was on the verge of collapse from the death of Fakhr al-Mulk, the Muslim populace had been shown the ‘right way’ by the Ihya of Imam Ghazali.[70] At first his Ihya was met with criticism, especially by the status quo, even being burned in Morocco and Andalusia, but in the underground it was revolutionary.[71] Ghazali’s synthesis of Jurisprudence and Sufism raised the popularity of Sufism to a level unprecedented in Islamic history, where the majority of the Muslims during the Ottoman Empire would adhere to Sufism. He gave Muslims their intellectual cravings in jurisprudence, theology, philosophy and still gave them much desired Sufi spirituality. He brought Sufism from a fringe sect into the mainstream. Küng says, “his [Ghazali] example was a major factor in leading many Ulama later to join the Sufi movement.”[72] Almost nobody would publish any new works on Ash’ari theology because Ghazali had already ‘completed it.’[73] He transmitted Greek philosophy through his works to Europe and became extremely influential amongst Descartes and Thomas Aquinas; during that time he was known to the Europeans as ‘Algazel.’ One of Decartes friends, an orientalist, Jakobus Golius, brought Descartes many Arabic manuscripts from his travels to the Orient. There is, in fact, a 14th century Latin manuscript which is a translation of Ghazali’s Deliverance from Error that has allegedly underlinings and notes from Descartes himself![74] Thomas Aquinas took many ideas from the Islamic world including Ibn ʿAqīl, Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Ghazali, and more.[75] In fact, Ghazali’s and Aquinas’ philosophical and theological positions are uncannily similar. Ibn Rushd, who wrote Refutation of the Refutation in response to Ghazali’s Refutation of the Philosophers, was the primary inspiration of Siger of Brabant, who was Aquinas’ main challenger. Like the Ihya, Summa Theologiae begins with God and ends with God. Both works discuss human vices and virtues, often the exact same ones. Besides these there are a great number of parallels between the two great works.
            Ghazali undoubtedly had an enormous impact on human thought that is everlasting, and his genius will be an example of times to come. Whether one agrees with him or not, his genius is undeniable and his influence unending. Although he is not known to most Westerners today, his impact on Western thought is great, and probably greater the works that refuted him translated into Latin. He was a genius flowered by his time. His life in Khorasan with the Seljuqs promoted his success and his breakdown, a breakdown which led him to give humanity one of its greatest works Ihya ‘Ulum ad-Deen. His influence during his lifetime was great and the Seljuqs loved him. After his lifetime, still he is the “most acknowledged and influential scholars in the history of Islamic thought.”[76]
 
 

 
Bibliography
 
Albert, Edoardo. Imam Al-Ghazali: A Concise Life. Leicestershire, UK: Kube Publishing, 2012.
Al-Ghazali: The Alchemist of Happiness. Directed by Ovidio Abdul Latif Salazar. Matmedia Productions, 2007. DVD. [Produced by T J Winter, and one of the main interviewees was Seyyid Hossein Nasr]
Al-Ghazali, Muhammad. The Alchemy of Happiness. Translated by Jay R Crook. Edited by Seyyid Hossein Nasr. 2nd ed. Vol. 1-2. Chicago, IL: Great Books of the Islamic World, 2008.
Al-Ghazali, Muhammad. Letter to a Disciple. Translated by Tobias Mayer. Cambridge, UK: The Islamic Texts Society, 2011.
Al-Ghazali, Muhammad. Al-Ghazali's Moderation in Belief. Translated by Aladdin M Yaqub. 1st ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Al-Ghazali, Muhammad. The Beginning of Guidance. Translated by Mashhad Al-Allaf. London: White Thread Press, 2010.
Al-Ghazali, Muhammad. Revival of Religion’s Sciences. Translated by Mohammad Mahdi al-Sharif. 1st ed. Vol. 1-4. Beirut, Lebanon: Dar Al-Kotob Al-Ilmiyah, 2011.
Boyle, J.A., ed., The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 5. London: Cambridge University Press, 1968.
Bulliet, Richard. The Patricians of Nishapur: A Study in Medieval Islamic Social History. 1st ed. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1972.
Griffel, Frank. Al-Ghazali's Philosophical Theology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Küng, Hans. Islam: Past, Present and Future. Translated by John Bowden. 1st ed. Oxford, UK: Oneworld Publications, 2007.
Ormsby, Eric. Ghazali: The Revival of Islam. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2008.
McCarthy, R J. Al-Ghazali's Path to Sufism: His Deliverance from Error. Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 2000.
McCarthy, R J. Deliverance From Error: An Annotated Translation of al-Munqidh min al Dalal and Other Relevant Works of Al-Ghazali. Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 1980.
Watt, W. Montgomery. The Faith and Practice of Al-Ghazali. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1953.
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[1]              Muhammad Al-Ghazali, Letter to a Disciple, trans. Tobias Mayer (Cambridge, UK: The Islamic Texts Society, 2011), 17. [My own translation of the Arabic text]

[2]              Hans Küng, Islam: Past, Present, and Future, trans. John Bowden (Oxford, UK: Oneworld Publications, 2007), 355-363.

[3]              Eric Ormsby, Ghazali: The Revival of Islam (Oxford, UK; Oneworld Publications, 2008), 22.

[4]              Frank Griffel, Al-Ghazālī ‘s Philosophical Theology (Oxford University Press, 2009), 34; Ormsby, 22.

[5]              Montgomery W Watt, The Faith and Practice of Al-Ghazali (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1953), 14; Küng, 346.

[6]              Ormsby, 3.

[7]              Ibid, 5.

[8]              Ibid, 4.

[9]              Ibid, 6.

[10]           Edoardo Albert, Imam al-Ghazali: A Concise Life (Leicestershire, UK: Kube Publishing, 2012), 29.

[11]  Griffel, 22; Ormsby, 22.

[12]           Albert, 15-16.

[13]           Ibid.

[14]  Albert, 15-16; Griffel, 27-28; Ormsby, 26.

[15]           Ormsby, 26.

[16]           Ibid; Albert, 15-16.

[17]           Albert, 17-18; J A Boyle, ed., The Cambridge History of Iran Vol 5 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 72

[18]           Albert, 21; Ormsby, 26.

[19]           Küng, 347-348; Ormsby, 27; Albert, 25.

[20]           Richard Bulliet, The Patricians of Nishapur: A Study in Medieval Islamic Social History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), 30.

[21]           Bulliet, 124-125.

[22]           Ormsby, 27.

[23]           Ibid, 29; Albert, 28; Küng, 350.

[24]           Albert, 28; Ormsby, 26.

[25]           Ormsby, 29-30; Albert, 31; Küng, 350.

[26]           Albert, 33.

[27]           Boyle, 289.

[28]           Ormsby, 30.

[29]           Albert, 35.

[30]           Ormsby, 16.

[31]           Ormsby, 36.

[32]  Griffel, 34. One of his contemporaries noted that he would wear clothes valued at 500 gold coins.

[33]           Albert, 40; Griffel, 36; Küng, 309

[34]           Küng, 353.

[35]           R J McCarthy, Al-Ghazali's Path to Sufism: His Deliverance from Error (Louisville, KY: 2000), 53.

[36]  Griffel, 41; McCarthy, Al-Ghazali's Path to Sufism, 54.

[37]           Ormsby, 88.

[38]           Ibid.

[39]           Ormsby, 88-89.

[40]           Ibid, 90.

[41]  Griffel, 41-42.

[42]  Albert, 53; Küng, 353

[43]  Griffel, 44.

[44]           Küng, 354; McCarthy, 71; Ormsby, 113.

[45]  Griffel, 48. The book is unique in that it combines three previous genres of literature: ritual/legal handbooks, philosophical tractrates on ethics and character, and sufi handbooks.

[46]           Küng, 346-347.

[47]           Ormsby, 111.

[48]           Ibid.

[49]           Mohammad Mahdi al-Sharif, trans., Book Six: Love, Longing, Intimacy, and Contentment in Revival of Religion’s Sciences Vol 4 (Beirut: Dar Al-Kotob Al-Ilmiyah, 2011). This translation is by Ormsby.

[50]           Ormsby, 113.

[51]           Ibid, 114.

[52]           Ormsby, 115.

[53]           Ibid, 116.

[54]           Ibid, 118.

[55]           Jay R Crook, ed., The Alchemy of Happiness (Chicago, IL: Great Books of The Islamic World, 2008).

[56]           Al-Sharif, Book one: Exposition of the wonders of the heart in the Ihya, Vol 3, 5. This translation is from Ormsby, but I found the corresponding translation in Al-Sharif as well.

[57]           Ibid, 4. This is also the translation by Ormsby.

[58]  Griffel, 45, 48. Ghazali was already back in Khorasan when the crusaders took Antioch in spring of 1098.

[59]  Ibid.

[60]  Ibid., 47.

[61]           Albert, 61; Griffel, 49.

[62]           Albert, 63; Griffel 48-50. Ghazali had been staying at a Sufi lodge across the street from the Nizamiyya Madrassa and teaching the Ihya in Baghdad.

[63]           Albert, 64-65; Ormsby, 139-140.

[64]  Griffel, 50-54. Griffel notes that Ghazali had, perhaps, a close relationship with with Fakhr al-Mulk.

[65]  Ibid, 55.

[66]  Albert, 67. Griffel, 51, 55.

[67]  Griffel, 56-57.

[68]           Küng, 354; Albert, 67.

[69]  Griffel, 58-59.

[70]           Küng, 354.

[71]           Ormsby, 142.

[72]           Küng, 346.

[73]           Boyle, 286.

[74]           Küng, 348.

[75]           Albert, 72: Küng, 355-363.

[76]           Küng, 346.