In 1091, Baghdad was one of the most densely populated cities in the world, an international center of learning and commerce, and the political capital of the rapidly expanding Islamic world. That year, in a decision with fateful consequences for Islam, the city’s ruler picked a young Persian theologian named Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) to lead one of Baghdad’s most influential mosques.
Only thirty-three years old when he accepted the sultan’s offer, al-Ghazali had been hailed as a brilliant scholar from an early age. Born in Tus (near Meshed), in modern-day Iran, he had been sent to a madrassa as a child to study Islamic jurisprudence.
Al-Ghazali’s appointment made him one of the most important men in Baghdad, and his theology lectures regularly attracted hundreds of students. In contemporary debates about the relevance of Western thinkers in Islam, al-Ghazali was a traditionalist; he wrote a book called The Inconsistency—or Incoherence—of the Philosophers that attacked supporters of Aristotle (384–322 BC). His conservative viewpoint was soon widely embraced, closing a cultural connection between the Western and Islamic worlds.
Yet the young theologian harbored a secret: He was not at all sure that Allah existed. A skeptic by nature, he spent years studying the problem and was tormented by his inability to find proof of Allah’s existence. As he wrote, “I have poked into every dark recess, I have made an assault on every problem, I have plunged into every abyss. I have scrutinized the creed of every sect, I have tried to lay bare the inmost doctrines of every community.”
Finally, in 1094, wracked by despair, al-Ghazali suffered a breakdown in the middle of a lecture. (“My tongue could not utter a single word,” he later wrote.) He left the city, made a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1096, and eventually returned to Khursan, where he founded a private school.
The autobiography that he wrote about his spiritual struggles, The Deliverer from Error, is a landmark work in Islamic thought. In the book, al-Ghazali concludes that Allah’s existence cannot be proved or disproved because Allah is incomprehensible to the human mind. Instead, al-Ghazali wrote, Allah could be experienced by prophets and mystics, even if his existence could not be proven. His writing helped found Sufism, a school of Islamic mysticism.
ADDITIONAL FACTS
- His brother, Ahmad (c. 1060–c. 1126), was also a well-known scholar and preacher.
- Before leaving Baghdad, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali gave away his money and possessions, fearing that wealth derived from the corruption and oppression practiced by the city’s elite would endanger his chances for redemption after death.
- Several of al-Ghazali’s books were translated into Latin in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and exported to medieval universities in Europe; Westerners referred to him by the name Algazel.
