Description

Al-Ghazali The Islamic Reformer

(An evaluative study of the attempts of Imam al-Ghazali at Islamic Reform (Islah))

by Mohamed Abu Bakr A. Al-Musleh

Numerous studies have been done on Imam al-Ghazali (1058-1111) in almost all major languages. So much is the academic attention given to him, and deservedly so, that it is difficult to find any element of originality in a new study on him. Various apects of his life and thought have yet to be adequately studied, one of them being his role in Islamic reform (islah). It is also true that the study of islah as a separate topic is somewhat new, and available literature on the subject is limited within the views and the achievements of a number of distinguished scholars in the modern times.

This work attempts to discover part of the rich legacy of the muslihun (islamic reformers) and to shed some fresh light on the topic of islah as a distinctive Islamic duty by introducing a pre modern scholar as Imam al-Ghazali as an Islamic reformer. It critically looks at his reformist teachings namely those formulated in his magnum opus, Ihya ‘Ulum al-Din, and discusses some of the criticism directed at him.