SOURCE: Daniel, Elton L. Preface to The Alchemy of Happiness, by Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazzâlî, pp. xi-xxxix. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1991.

In the following excerpt, Daniel explains why al-Ghazālī embraced Sufism and compares and contrasts The Alchemy of Happiness with The Revivification of the Religious Sciences.

In studying the history of world civilizations, few if any concepts are more difficult for people of modern times to comprehend than the intense religiosity which characterized so many civilizations—medieval European, Byzantine, Islamic, Indian, East Asian—during the period from the fall of the classical empires to the beginning of the European expansion. Whether because of the pervasive secularity of modern civilization, or the blatant materialism of contemporary life, or simply because of the rigid compartmentalization of religious life (such as it is) well away from social and political existence, it is not easy to appreciate...