Imam al-Ghazali: The Scholar Who Walked Away to Find His Heart

In 1095, the most celebrated teacher in the Muslim world stood up to give a lecture and found he could not speak. Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī was in his late thirties, head of the Niẓāmiyya college in Baghdad, with hundreds of students and the respect of sultans and scholars alike. Within months he had given it all away and walked out of the city dressed as a poor traveller.

The books he wrote after that journey, above all Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn (The Revival of the Religious Sciences), have shaped how Muslims think about worship, the heart and the Quran for over nine hundred years. Scholars gave him the title Ḥujjat al-Islām, "the Proof of Islam".

This article tells his story and looks at what he taught about reading the Quran.

Early life in Tus

Al-Ghazali was born in 450 AH (1058 CE) in Ṭūs, in Khurasan, near the modern city of Mashhad in Iran. His father was a poor man who spun and sold wool (ghazzāl), which is one explanation of the family name; another links it to a village called Ghazāla.

Before he died, his father left his two young sons, Muhammad and Aḥmad, in the care of a Sufi friend, with a little money for their education. When the money ran out, the friend sent the boys to a madrasa where students were fed and housed. Al-Ghazali later remarked that they sought knowledge for something other than Allah, but knowledge refused to be for anything but Allah.

His brother Ahmad al-Ghazali also became a well-known Sufi preacher and teacher.

A student of Imam al-Haramayn

After his first studies in Tus and Jurjān, al-Ghazali travelled to Nishapur to study at the Niẓāmiyya college under Imām al-Ḥaramayn al-Juwaynī, the leading Shafi'i jurist and Ash'ari theologian of his day. He stayed until al-Juwayni's death in 1085, mastering law, legal theory, theology and logic.

He then joined the court of Niẓām al-Mulk, the powerful vizier of the Seljuk sultans, who founded the Nizamiyya colleges. In 1091, still in his early thirties, al-Ghazali was appointed chief professor at the Nizamiyya in Baghdad, the most prestigious teaching post in the Islamic world.

Scholar of law, theology and philosophy

In Baghdad he wrote widely. In Shafi'i law he wrote al-Wasīṭ and al-Wajīz, and later al-Mustaṣfā, a major work of legal theory that is still studied today.

He also made a careful study of the Greek-influenced philosophers such as Ibn Sīnā. First he summarised their views fairly in Maqāṣid al-Falāsifa (The Aims of the Philosophers), then he answered them in Tahāfut al-Falāsifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers). He argued that on three points their teaching went against Islam: that the world has always existed, that Allah knows only general things and not particulars, and that resurrection is of the soul only and not the body.

By any measure he had reached the top. But by his own account, something was wrong inside.

The crisis of 1095

Al-Ghazali describes what happened in his short autobiography, al-Munqidh min al-Ḍalāl (Deliverance from Error). He had come to see that his teaching was driven partly by a love of status and reputation, and that the knowledge he taught had not changed his own heart. He wavered for about six months between leaving and staying.

Then, he writes, the matter left his control. His tongue dried up so that he could not teach, and he lost his appetite. The doctors could find nothing wrong with his body and concluded that the illness was in the heart. He turned to Allah, as someone with no other way out, and Allah made it easy for him to turn away from position, wealth and family.

In 1095 he left Baghdad, letting people think he was going on Hajj, and gave away his wealth except what his family needed.

Ten years of seclusion

He went first to Damascus, where he lived in seclusion and spent long hours in the Umayyad Mosque, then to Jerusalem and Hebron, and on to Makkah and Madinah for Hajj. For around ten years he lived a life of worship, reflection and spiritual struggle, away from public teaching.

In the Munqidh, he explains that he had looked at four groups of people who claimed to have the truth: the theologians, the philosophers, the Bāṭiniyya (who claimed to follow a hidden infallible imam), and the Sufis. He concluded that the Sufis were the people who actually travelled the path to Allah, because their way joined knowledge with action and purified the heart, not just the mind. What they had could not be learned only from books. It had to be tasted.

Importantly, al-Ghazali's Sufism did not replace the Shari'a. He remained a Shafi'i jurist and insisted that the inner life is built on following the Sunnah outwardly.

The Revival of the Religious Sciences

During these years he wrote his greatest work, the Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn. Its forty books are arranged in four quarters:

1. Acts of worship: knowledge, belief, purification, prayer, zakat, fasting, Hajj, reciting the Quran, remembrance and supplication
2. Customs of daily life: eating, marriage, earning a living, friendship, travel, and enjoining good
3. Destructive things: the faults of the heart, such as anger, envy, love of the world, showing off and pride
4. Saving things: the virtues that lead to Allah, such as repentance, patience, gratitude, hope and fear, sincerity, love of Allah and remembrance of death

The aim of the Ihya is in its title. Al-Ghazali felt that the religious sciences of his time had become dry: scholars argued over legal rulings and debating points while the purpose of worship, a heart that knows and loves Allah, had been forgotten. He set out to bring that purpose back to life.

He later wrote a shorter Persian version for general readers, Kīmiyā-yi Saʿādat (The Alchemy of Happiness).

Reading the Quran with the heart

The eighth book of the Ihya is about reciting the Quran. Al-Ghazali first covers the outward etiquette: being in a state of purity, facing the qibla, reciting at a measured pace, and weeping or trying to weep. Then he turns to what he calls the inner actions of recitation. In summary, they are:

1. Understanding the greatness of the words, and the mercy of Allah in bringing His speech within reach of human understanding
2. Glorifying the Speaker, remembering that what you are reading is not the words of a human being
3. Presence of heart, not letting the mind wander to anything else
4. Reflection (tadabbur), going beyond the sound of the words to their meaning
5. Drawing out meaning from each verse: about Allah's names and actions, the prophets, and those who denied them
6. Removing what blocks understanding, such as being absorbed only in pronunciation, stubbornly holding on to an opinion, persisting in sin, or thinking that the meaning is only what the outward words say
7. Feeling personally addressed, so that every command, warning and promise is read as if it were meant for you
8. Being moved, letting your heart respond to each verse with hope, fear, gratitude or awe
9. Rising, until you hear the words as if from Allah Himself
10. Letting go of your own strength, not seeing yourself as righteous when you read praise of the righteous, and recognising yourself when you read about wrongdoers

Reflection was the heart of it. Al-Ghazali quoted the verse:

أَفَلَا يَتَدَبَّرُونَ ٱلۡقُرۡءَانَ أَمۡ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبٍ أَقۡفَالُهَآ

Then do they not reflect upon the Quran, or are there locks upon [their] hearts? (47:24)

and reminded his readers why the Quran was sent down:

كِتَٰبٌ أَنزَلۡنَٰهُ إِلَيۡكَ مُبَٰرَكٞ لِّيَدَّبَّرُوٓاْ ءَايَٰتِهِۦ وَلِيَتَذَكَّرَ أُوْلُواْ ٱلۡأَلۡبَٰبِ

[This is] a blessed Book which We have revealed to you, [O Muhammad], that they might reflect upon its verses and that those of understanding would be reminded. (38:29)

He also noted that repeating a single verse while reflecting on it is better than racing through many without understanding, and pointed to the reports of the Prophet ﷺ and the righteous early Muslims spending a whole night repeating one verse.

If you read the Quran with a translation, as many readers of this site do, these ten points are a good checklist. Even reading one page with full attention is in the spirit of what he taught.

The Jewels of the Quran and the Niche of Lights

Al-Ghazali wrote two shorter works devoted to the Quran.

In Jawāhir al-Qurʾān (The Jewels of the Quran), he sorted the verses of the Quran by their themes and argued that the most precious of them are those about knowing Allah: His essence, His attributes and His actions. He used this to explain why Ayatul Kursi is described as the greatest verse, and why Surah Al-Ikhlas is described as equal to a third of the Quran.

In Mishkāt al-Anwār (The Niche of Lights), he wrote a reflection on the Verse of Light:

۞ ٱللَّهُ نُورُ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلۡأَرۡضِۚ مَثَلُ نُورِهِۦ كَمِشۡكَوٰةٖ فِيهَا مِصۡبَاحٌۖ ٱلۡمِصۡبَاحُ فِي زُجَاجَةٍۖ ٱلزُّجَاجَةُ كَأَنَّهَا كَوۡكَبٞ دُرِّيّٞ يُوقَدُ مِن شَجَرَةٖ مُّبَٰرَكَةٖ زَيۡتُونَةٖ لَّا شَرۡقِيَّةٖ وَلَا غَرۡبِيَّةٖ يَكَادُ زَيۡتُهَا يُضِيٓءُ وَلَوۡ لَمۡ تَمۡسَسۡهُ نَارٞۚ نُّورٌ عَلَىٰ نُورٖۚ يَهۡدِي ٱللَّهُ لِنُورِهِۦ مَن يَشَآءُۚ وَيَضۡرِبُ ٱللَّهُ ٱلۡأَمۡثَٰلَ لِلنَّاسِۗ وَٱللَّهُ بِكُلِّ شَيۡءٍ عَلِيمٞ

Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The example of His light is like a niche within which is a lamp; the lamp is within glass, the glass as if it were a pearly [white] star lit from [the oil of] a blessed olive tree, neither of the east nor of the west, whose oil would almost glow even if untouched by fire. Light upon light. Allah guides to His light whom He wills. And Allah presents examples for the people, and Allah is Knowing of all things. (24:35)

"O beloved son"

One of his best-loved short works is Ayyuhā al-Walad (O Beloved Son), a letter to a student who had studied with him for years and asked what knowledge would actually benefit him. Al-Ghazali's answer is a warning against learning without living it. Among its most quoted lines:

Knowledge without action is madness, and action without knowledge does not happen.

He tells the student that if he spent a lifetime studying but did not act on what he learned, it would not save him, and that the measure of knowledge is whether it brings you closer to Allah.

Return to teaching and death

In 1106, at the request of the vizier Fakhr al-Mulk, al-Ghazali returned to teaching at the Nizamiyya in Nishapur. Some saw this as the fulfilment of the hadith that Allah sends a renewer (mujaddid) for this Ummah at the head of every hundred years, since it came at the start of the sixth Islamic century. He taught, though now, he said, with a different intention: not to gain status, but to call people away from it.

He later went home to Tus, where he built a place for Sufi students next to his house and spent his last years in worship, teaching and reading hadith.

He died in Tus on a Monday in Jumādā al-Ākhira 505 AH (December 1111 CE), aged about 53. His brother Ahmad described his last morning: he made wudu and prayed Fajr, then asked for his burial shroud, held it to his eyes and said, "We hear and obey the command to come before the King." He stretched out his legs facing the qibla and passed away before sunrise.

How later scholars saw him

Al-Ghazali's influence on Sunni Islam is enormous. The Ihya has been taught, abridged and commented on across the Muslim world, from Morocco to Indonesia, and it is widely read in South Asia in Urdu translation.

He also had critics, and it is fair to mention them. Ibn al-Jawzī and later Ibn Taymiyya were among the scholars who criticised the Ihya for including weak and fabricated hadith, and some of its Sufi ideas. Al-Ghazali himself admitted that his knowledge of hadith was limited.

Later scholars responded in practical ways:

• Al-Ḥāfiẓ al-ʿIrāqī (d. 1404) checked the sources of every hadith in the Ihya in his book al-Mughnī ʿan Ḥaml al-Asfār, which is now printed alongside many editions.
• Ibn al-Jawzī wrote an abridgement, Minhāj al-Qāṣidīn, keeping the spiritual guidance and removing what he objected to. Ibn Qudāma in turn abridged that as Mukhtaṣar Minhāj al-Qāṣidīn, which is a popular, approachable way into the Ihya's teachings today.

Where to start

If you would like to read al-Ghazali yourself, these are good starting points, and all are available in English:

• Deliverance from Error (al-Munqidh), his own story, which is short and readable
• O Beloved Son (Ayyuhā al-Walad), a short letter of advice
• The Etiquette of Quran Recitation, the eighth book of the Ihya, published on its own
• Mukhtasar Minhaj al-Qasidin, Ibn Qudama's abridgement of the Ihya

Al-Ghazali's story is a reminder that it is possible to know a great deal about the religion and still have work to do on the heart, and that the Quran is meant to be reflected on, not only recited. As he would say, start with one verse, read it with a present heart, and act on it.