About the Author

Abo Hamid al-Ghazal (1058-1111), theologian, logician, jurist and mystic, was born and died at the town of Tus in Central Asia, but spent much of his life lecturing at Baghdad or leading the life of a wandering dervish. His most celebrated work, of which this is the culminating section, exercised a profound influence on Muslim intellectual history by exploring the mystical significance of the practices and beliefs of Islamic orthodoxy, and earned him the title of Hujjat al-Islam, the Proof of Islam .