Ahmad Ghazali

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Ahmad Ghazālī (

The younger brother of the better known theologian, jurist, and Sufi, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad al-Ghazālī, Ahmad Ghazālī was born in a village near Tūs, in Khorasan. Here he was educated primarily in jurisprudence. He turned to Sufism while still young, becoming the pupil first of Abu Bakr Nassaj Tusi (died 1094) and then of Abu Ali Farmadi (died 1084). He was advanced in Sufism by 1095, and his brother Abū Ḥāmid asked him to teach in his place in the Nezamiya of Baghdad and assume responsibility during his planned absence.

Ahmad Ghazālī’s thought, centered as it was on the idea of love, left a profound mark on the development of Persian Islamic mystical literature, especially poetry celebrating love. Many of the topoi (maẓāmīn) used by later poets such as

He died in Qazvin in 1123 or 1126 and is buried there.

Works

• Sawāneḥ,^[4] a little book written around 1114 and comprising some 77 short chapters. It was innovative in form, for at a time when Persian Sufi authors used only prose, Ghazālī had recourse to verse in order to illustrate in metaphorical fashion the themes he expounded more technically in the prose sections of his work.
• Risālat al-ṭayr (or al-ṭuyūr) (Epistle of the Birds): In this work Ghazālī employs the metaphor of a bird and its journey to speak of the spiritual path to illumination in God. This work set a precedent for the Conference of the Birds by Attar of Nishapur.
• Al-tajrīd fī kalimat al-tawḥīd, a theological and mystical interpretation of the basic testimony of Islam,
  Ashʿarite school
  of theology.
• Baḥr al-maḥabba fī asrār al-mawadda, a Sufi commentary on Sūrat Yūsuf (Koran 12); and an abridgment of his brother’s Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, a work he himself taught.
• Bawāriq al-ilmāʾ fī l-radd ‘alā man yuḥarrim al-samāʾ, a description and justification of the Sufi Sama ritual and apology for the compatibility of music and Islam.^[5]

Notes