Ghazālī and his Early Biographers

Abstract

This article offers an outline of what we know of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī’s life from the earliest sources, begin- ning with key autobiographical passages of Ghazālī’s al- Munqidh and surveying the earliest available biographi- cal sources. Works drawn on include, most prominently, those by ʿAbd al-Ghāfir al-Fārisī and Qāḍī Abū Bakr b. al-ʿArabī.