GHAZĀLI, ABŪ ḤĀMID AL- (AH 450–505/1058–1111 CE), named Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad, was the distinguished Islamic jurist, theologian, and mystic who was given the honorific title Ḥujjat al-Islām (Arab., "the proof of Islam").

Life

Al-Ghazālī was born in the town of Ṭūs, near modern Mashhad (eastern Iran), and received his early education there. When he was about fifteen he went to the region of Gorgān (at the southeast corner of the Caspian Sea) to continue his studies. On the return journey, so the story goes, his notebooks were taken from him by robbers, and when he pleaded for their return they taunted him that he claimed to know what was in fact only in his notebooks; as a result of this...