Ibn ʿAqīl (1) and Abū al-Khaṭṭāb (2), two of the foremost Ḥanbalī authorities; they were amazed at his eloquence and the breadth of his learning (3).

Ibn al-Jawzī said: They transcribed his remarks into their own writings. Later he renounced the world completely and devoted himself to worship (4) and to works aimed at the Hereafter. He earned his living by copying manuscripts, then travelled to al-Shām and stayed (5) for a time in Damascus and Jerusalem. While there he composed his book “Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn” (The Revival of the Religious Sciences), an extraordinary work that embraces many branches of knowledge—[legal disciplines blended with subtle elements of Sufism and the workings of the heart, yet it also contains] (6) a large number of hadiths that are strange or objectionable, some of them fabricated, just as occurs in other subsidiary works that are consulted for rulings on what is lawful or unlawful. A book intended for heart-softening, warning and exhortation is, in this respect, more readily excused than other genres.

Abū al-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzī took him severely to task for this, and after him Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ levelled many criticisms as well. Al-Māzarī (7) even wished to burn “Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn,” and so did other scholars of the Maghrib. They said, “This book revives the sciences of his religion; as for our religion, its sciences are revived by the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger.” I have already quoted their words in his biography in “Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyyah.”

Ibn Shukr refuted certain passages (8) of “Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn” and demonstrated their flaws in a valuable treatise (9). Al-Ghazālī himself used to say, “My merchandise in hadith is meagre.” It is reported that toward the end of his life he inclined to listening to hadith and memorising the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections.

Ibn al-Jawzī also composed a work directed against the Iḥyāʾ, which he entitled “Iʿlām (10) al-Aḥyāʾ bi-Aghlāṭ al-Iḥyāʾ” (Informing the Living of the Errors in ‘The Revival’).