Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (1058-1111) was one of the foremost intellects of medieval Islam. Personal discontent with scholastic orthodoxy led him to mysticism and the writing of a monumental work which harmonized the tendencies of both orthodoxy and mysticism within Islam.

The vast area now known as the Islamic world had been quickly conquered by the Moslem Arabs in the century following the death of the prophet Mohammed in 632. The period to 945 had seen a demographic change in Islam, from being a religion adhered to almost exclusively by the conquering Arab minority to the faith held by the majority of the inhabitants of the caliphal empire.

During the period from 750 to 945, however, the empire had disintegrated into petty states ruled by Moslem governors turned dynasts, each only theoretically subordinate to the increasingly powerless caliph in Baghdad, whose chief prerogative came to be the issuing of certificates of legitimacy...