ABSTRACT
Al-Ghazali has been acclaimed by both Muslim and European scholars as the greatest Muslim after Muhammad. Whether the judgement is in fact sound is a particularly difficult question for European scholars to settle, since for most of them al-Ghazali is undoubtedly the most congenial and most approachable of Muslim theological writers. He is commonly known as al-Ghazali or Algazel, but there has been a dispute almost from his own time whether the word should be spelt "Ghazali" or "Ghaz-zali". Those who adopt the latter usually take it to imply that his father was a poor spinner and vendor of wool, but this can hardly be correct since the great theologian had an uncle or granduncle also called al-Ghazali who was distinguished as a scholar. The fullness of our knowledge of al-Ghazali's life is largely due to the fact that he has left us an autobiographical work, whose title may be translated Deliverance from Error.
