bu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali أبو حامد محمد الغزالي

Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali rahimahullah (450-505 AH / 1058-1111 CE) was one of the most consequential scholars in the history of Islam, celebrated across the disciplines of fiqh, kalam, philosophy, and Sufism. Born in Tus, Khurasan, he pursued advanced studies under Imam al-Juwayni (al-Haramayn) at the Nizamiyya madrasa in Nishapur. He was appointed head of the Nizamiyya in Baghdad by the vizier Nizam al-Mulk, teaching Shafi'i jurisprudence to hundreds of students. After a profound spiritual crisis he withdrew from public life, spending years in seclusion in Syria and the Hijaz before returning to teaching in Tus. His Ihya Ulum al-Din, a forty-volume compendium of Islamic practice and spirituality, established him as Hujjat al-Islam (Proof of Islam). Book 26 of the Ihya, Kitab Dhamm al-Dunya (The Censure of This World), is among its most studied volumes.