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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Al-ghazali’s Argument For the Eternity of the World and the Problem of Divine Immutability and Timelessness Introduction In the history of ideas, there is no question that the figure of al-Ghazali stands out as one of the greatest thinkers of the West.

Touted as the greatest Sunni theologian of all time, his polemic against the Neoplatonic philosophers, chiefly Ibn Sina, dealt a deadly blow to philosophy in the Islamic world.[^1] Born in 1058 CE in Tus, a city in modern day Iran, al-Ghazali began his studies in jurisprudence, moving on to study theology under the great theologian al-Juwayni.

Al-Ghazali was fortunate enough to secure a teaching position in the Nizamiya College of Baghdad, one of a number of seminaries established by Nizam al-Mulk, the vizier for the Saljuk sultan, for the defense of Sunni theology against the Isma‘ili Fatimid caliphate in Egypt.

Al-Ghazali soon became a popular teacher and renowned defender of Ash‘arite Sunni theology.[^2] After five years of teaching in Baghdad, al-Ghazali became disillusioned with his profession and entered a period of wandering, monastic-like travels.

His disillusionment was founded, no doubt, in an intellectual and spiritual crisis of skepticism that led him to a study of philosophy, and then into the mystical practice of sufism.[^3] Al-Ghazali’s prominence as a legalist, theologian, apologist, and then mystic, cast him into the role of religious reformer, the Muslim parallel of Augustine and Aquinas in Christendom.

After his travels, al-Ghazali eventually returned to teaching at the Nizamiya College in Nishapur, only to die five years later in 1111 CE.