Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazālī (1056/7-1111) was a renowned thinker and one of the greatest Islamic intellectuals of all times. Variously hailed as “the model of Islam and the splendour of religion” (ẖuga al-Islām zin al-Dīn) and “the reviver of religion” (maẖye al-Dīn), al-Ghazālī was an arbiter of Islamic law according to the Shafi'i school, a brilliant Ashʿari theologian and a Sufi mystic who was subjected to deep internal experiences. Al-Ghazālī was an extremely productive writer; he has written nearly 75 essays whose attribution to him is beyond doubt. His most influential book, Ihya 'ulum al-din (The Revival of the Religious Sciences), was also seminal in the renewal of Judaism in medieval Islamic countries. He had a particular gift of balancing law, philosophy and mysticism, thus winning the hearts of followers of orthodox Suni Islam.
