ABSTRACT
BY the end of the 4/ioth century Sufism had become a fairly rigid and clearly definable way of life and system of thought. When al-Qushairī wrote his Risāla (’Epistle to the Sufis’) in 438/1046 he had several earlier compendia to draw upon, and in fact we find him quoting quite freely from the writings of al-Sarrāj and al-Sulamī. The classical formulation of Sufi doctrine on the mystical side has always been held by the Sufis to have been finally accomplished by al-Qushairī; its reconciliation and assimilation with orthodox Sunni theology and religious law was the work of the great Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), carried out by stages in a considerable number of relatively short books, and consolidated and consummated in the Ihyā’ ‘ulūm al-din, which was written between 492/1099 and 495/1102.
