Who was Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 505 AH)? The Famous Sufi Mystic, Ash’ari and Philosopher

Abu Hāmid Muhammad Ibn Muhammad al-Ghazālī aṭ-Ṭūsī was born in 450 AH in Tus (Tous) Persia (Iran) and died there in 505 AH. This was the age in which Philosophy and the Ashʿarī Theological Speculation (ʿIlm al-Kalām) amalgamated.

He accompanied and studied under Imām al-Haramain al-Juwainī for a while and he mastered al-Kalām (Speculative Theology) and argumentation.  He went through various stages in his life: he became engrossed with Philosophy and eventually abandoned it and refuted it—then he focused on Speculative Theology (ʿIlmul-Kalām) and became its leading proponent.

He then took to the path of the Bātiniyyah seeking hidden realities and concealed meanings in the Sharīʿah—after turning away from that, he turned towards Sufism.

The scholars of Islam refuted him. His own student and companion, Abu Bakr Ibn al-ʿArabī stated: ‘Our teacher Abu Hāmid delved deeply into philosophy, then he desired to exit from it but was not able to, and he had speech agreeing with the beliefs of the Bāṭiniyyah that can be found in his books.’ 

Ibn Taymiyyah makes the point that though Abu Hāmid was endowed with strong intelligence that led him to eventually refute the philosophers and declare them to be unbelievers, and he venerated prophethood—nevertheless there was still in some of his speech and writings the ideas of philosophy and its principles in opposition to Sunnah and sound reason. For this reason, he was refuted by a group of scholars of Khurasān, Irāq, Morocco and Spain.

Ibn Taymiyyah also stated that the likes of Abul-Maʿālī and al-Ghazzalī had little knowledge of the narrations of the early Salaf—and likewise, their knowledge of Ḥadīth was not strong such that they could be counted among the people of specialisation. They were not acquainted with Aḥādīth of al-Bukhārī and Muslim except as the common people—they would not distinguish between a ḥadīth mutawātir known to the people of knowledge and a fabricated ḥadīth that is a lie [upon the Prophet (salallāhu ʿalaihi wasallam)—and their books testify to this and to other strange matters.

It is said about al-Ghazzālī that he returned to the path of Ahlul-Ḥadīth at the end of his life, and Allāh knows best.

(See Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā of Ibn Taymiyyah 4/71-72, Siyar Aʿlām an-Nubalā’ of adh-Dhahabī 19/323, 328)

Further reading.