Thought · a Light

The most famous teacher in Baghdad walked away in 1095

Al-Ghazali held the chair at the Nizamiyya of Baghdad, the most prestigious teaching post in the Muslim world, with hundreds of students. In 1095 he had a breakdown he described plainly in his own account: he found he could not speak in the lecture hall, could not swallow food, and could not tell whether he was teaching for God or for his reputation. He gave away most of what he owned, left the city under the cover of going on pilgrimage, and spent about eleven years in Damascus, Jerusalem, Makkah and back home in Tus. Out of that came the Revival of the Religious Sciences, still one of the most widely read books in Islam.

Al-Ghazali · Baghdad, 1095 CE