Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Ṭūsī, the Shāfiʿī, known as al-Ghazālī, author of many works and possessed of prodigious intelligence.

He first studied jurisprudence in his own town, then travelled to Nīshābūr in the company of a circle of students and attached himself to Imām al-Ḥaramayn. Within a short span he excelled in fiqh, mastered kalām and dialectics, and became the very eye of the debaters. He reviewed lessons for the students and began to write. All this greatly impressed his teacher Abū al-Maʿālī, who openly took pride in him.

Thereafter Abū Ḥāmid proceeded to the royal camp, where the vizier Niẓām al-Mulk welcomed him warmly, delighted at his arrival. In the vizier’s presence he debated the leading scholars; they were dazzled by him and his fame spread. Niẓām then appointed him professor at the Niẓāmiyya of Baghdad. He entered the city in 484 AH, about thirty years of age, and set to composing works on legal theory, jurisprudence, kalām, and philosophy. The torrent of his mind drew him into the narrow passes of speculative theology and its slippery footholds—and Allah has a secret concerning His creation (1).

His prestige swelled and his dignity increased until he sat on the cushion of princes and held the rank of a great leader. Yet his probing of the sciences and his practice of the various modes of asceticism moved him to renounce worldly rank, turn toward the Abode of Eternity, devote himself to worship, cultivate sincerity, and reform his soul. He therefore performed the pilgrimage forthwith, visited Jerusalem, associated in Damascus with the jurist Naṣr ibn Ibrāhīm (2), and stayed there for a time, during which he composed the book Iḥyāʾ (Revival of the Religious Sciences) and the book