Al-Ghazali
Sunni Muslim polymath (c. 1058–1111) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭūsiyy al-Ghazali (Arabic: أَبُو حَامِد مُحَمَّد بْن مُحَمَّد ٱلطُّوسِيّ ٱلْغَزَّالِيّ), known commonly as Al-Ghazali (Arabic: ٱلْغَزَالِيُّ; UK: /ælˈɡɑːzɑːli/,[26] US: /ˌælɡəˈzɑːli, -zæl-/;[27][28] c. 1058 – 19 December 1111), known in Medieval Europe by the Latinized Algazelus or Algazel, was a Persian Sunni Muslim polymath.[29][30][31][32][33] He is known as one of the most prominent and influential jurisconsults, legal theoreticians, muftis, philosophers, theologians, logicians and mystics in Islamic history.[34][35][36][37]
He is considered to be the 11th century's mujaddid,[38][39] a renewer of the faith, who, according to the prophetic hadith, appears once every 100 years to restore the faith of the Islamic community.[40][41][42] Al-Ghazali's works were so highly acclaimed by his contemporaries that he was awarded the honorific title "Proof of Islam" (Ḥujjat al-Islām).[1] Al-Ghazali was a prominent mujtahid in the Shafi'i school of law.[43]
Much of Al-Ghazali's work stemmed around his spiritual crises following his appointment as the head of the Nizzamiyya University in Baghdad - which was the most prestigious academic position in the Muslim world at the time.[44][45] This led to his eventual disappearance from the Muslim world for over 10 years, realising he chose the path of status and ego over God.[46][47] It was during this period where many of his great works were written.[46] He believed that the Islamic spiritual tradition had become moribund and that the spiritual sciences taught by the first generation of Muslims had been forgotten.[48] This belief led him to write his magnum opus entitled Iḥyā’ ‘ulūm ad-dīn ("The Revival of the Religious Sciences").[49] Among his other works, the Tahāfut al-Falāsifa ("Incoherence of the Philosophers") is a landmark in the history of philosophy, as it advances the critique of Aristotelian science developed later in 14th-century Europe.[37]