الغزالي
al-Ghazālī
Person
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111), the theologian, jurist and Sufi, author of The Revival of the Religious Sciences.
What it means
Born in Tus, al-Ghazali taught at the Nizamiyya college in Baghdad, left his post after a spiritual crisis and spent years in retreat. His Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn (“Revival of the Religious Sciences”) joins law, theology and Sufism, and his Tahāfut al-falāsifa (“Incoherence of the Philosophers”) criticised Muslim followers of Aristotle. He is called Ḥujjat al-Islām, “the proof of Islam”.