Toward the end of his life he completed a work on general legal principles, al-Mustasfa (Choice Part, or Essentials). Most of his activity was in the field of jurisprudence and theology. This book was influential in Europe and was one of the first to be translated from Arabic to Latin (12th century).
In preparation for this major treatise, he published an objective account of Maqasid al-falasifah (The Aims of the Philosophers i.e., their teachings). His philosophical studies began with treatises on logic and culminated in the Tahafut (The Inconsistencyor Incoherenceof the Philosophers), in which he defended Islam against such philosophers as Avicenna who sought to demonstrate certain speculative views contrary to accepted Islamic teaching. Al-Ghazali's abandonment of his career and adoption of a mystical, monastic life is defended in the autobiographical work al-Munqidh min ad-dalal (The Deliverer from Error). The relation of mystical experience to other forms of cognition is discussed in Mishkat al-anwar (The Niche for Lights). In 40 books he explained the doctrines and practices of Islam and showed how these can be made the basis of a profound devotional life, leading to the higher stages of Sufism, or mysticism. Al-Ghazali's greatest work is Ihya' 'ulum ad-din. Several works have also been falsely ascribed to him, and others are of doubtful authenticity. Frequently the same work is found with different titles in different manuscripts, but many of the numerous manuscripts have not yet been carefully examined. More than 400 works are ascribed to al-Ghazali, but he probably did not write nearly so many.
He continued lecturing in Nishapur at least until 1110, when he returned to Tus, where he died the following year. A consideration in this decision was that a renewer of the life of Islam was expected at the beginning of each century, and his friends argued that he was the renewer for the century beginning in September 1106. In 1106 he was persuaded to return to teaching at the Nizamiyah college at Nishapur.
After some time in Damascus and Jerusalem, with a visit to Mecca in November 1096, al-Ghazali settled in Tus, where Sufi disciples joined him in a virtually monastic communal life. Making arrangements for his family, he disposed of his wealth and adopted the life of a poor Sufi, or mystic. In November 1095 he abandoned his career and left Baghdad on the pretext of going on pilgrimage to Mecca. He passed through a spiritual crisis that rendered him physically incapable of lecturing for a time. While lecturing to more than 300 students, al-Ghazali was also mastering and criticizing the Neoplatonist philosophies of al-Farabi and Avicenna (Ibn Sina).
The vizier was so impressed by al-Ghazali's scholarship that in 1091 he appointed him chief professor in the Nizamiyah college in Baghdad. After the latter's death in 1085, al-Ghazali was invited to go to the court of Nizam al-Mulk, the powerful vizier of the Seljuq sultans. Al-Ghazali was born at Tus (near Meshed in eastern Iran) and was educated there, then in Jorjan, and finally at Nishapur (Neyshabur), where his teacher was al-Juwayni, who earned the title of imam al-haramayn (the imam of the two sacred cities of Mecca and Medina).
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18, 1111, Tus also spelled Al-ghazzali, in full Abu Hamid Muhammad Ibn Muhammad At-tusi Al-ghazali Muslim theologian and mystic whose great work, Ihya' 'ulum ad-din (The Revival of the Religious Sciences), made Sufism (Islamic mysticism) an acceptable part of orthodox Islam.