Ahmad al-Ghazali
1061 CE–1126 CE · Tus
Ahmad al-Ghazali (full name Majd al-Din Abu al-Futuh Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali) was a Persian Sufi preacher and writer, the younger brother of the celebrated theologian and mystic Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. In sectarian terms he belonged to the Sunni mainstream and followed the Shafi'i school of law; his Sufism was a mystical current within that tradition, not a separate sect. He was born around 1061 CE in or near Tus, a town in Khurasan in northeastern Iran; this birth date is a traditional estimate rather than a firmly documented fact. Tasawwuf (Sufism, the mystical current of Islam) drew him early, and tradition names two Sufi masters of Tus, Abu Bakr al-Nassaj and Abu Ali al-Farmadi, among his guides.
When his brother Abu Hamid abandoned his celebrated teaching post and left Baghdad around 488/1095 amid a spiritual crisis, Ahmad is reported to have made his way to Baghdad (according to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, via Hamadan) and to have taken over instruction at the Nizamiyya, the great state-funded college there. Whether he formally held the chair, and for how long, is not pinned down by the sources. He became known above all as a powerful preacher whose sermons drew crowds in Baghdad.
His most lasting work is the Sawanih ("Inspirations"), an early and influential Persian prose meditation on mahabba (love) as the bond between Lover, Beloved, and Love itself; later Persian poets drew on its themes. He also wrote on the contested practice of sama (Sufi listening to music and chanting). His most famous disciple was Ayn al-Qudat al-Hamadani, who turned to him for guidance around 516/1122; their surviving letters document the relationship.
He died in Qazwin (Qazvin). Sources give his death-year as either 517/1123 or 520/1126; the matter is unsettled, with the Encyclopaedia Iranica favoring 520/1126.
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Tus
What they did here
Born in or near Tus in Khurasan, c. 1061 CE, the younger brother of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. The date is a traditional estimate; sources do not fix it precisely.
About Tus
Tus is an ancient city of Khurasan in northeastern Iran, near modern Mashhad. The Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid died there in 809, and the imam Ali al-Rida was buried in 818 beside him at nearby Sanabad; the shrine that grew around his tomb gave Mashhad its name. The poet Ferdowsi, born in a village near Tus, died and was buried there, and the theologian al-Ghazali was born in its district and died there in 1111. Other figures associated with the city include Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Shaykh Tusi and Jabir ibn Hayyan. The Mongols sacked Tus in 1220.
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Ahmad al-Ghazali’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works
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