He taught philosophy and religion in Baghdad but later adopted a monastic existence after a spiritual crisis. His influential work 'The Revival of the Religious Sciences' made Sufism (mysticism in Islam) an acceptable part of orthodox Islam.

Al-Ghazali attempted to surmount all the differences between faith and knowledge by rejecting rigid dogmas in Islam. He stressed the importance of genuine Sufism which he maintained was the path to attain the absolute truth. In contrast to al-Farabi (870-950), he portrayed the inability of reason to comprehend the absolute and the infinite

Al Ghazali: 'Death and Afterlife'