een a close one. Ibn Khalliqan the historian informs us that later on
Abu'l Futuh succeeded his brother as professor, and abridged his most
important literary work, "The Revival of the religious sciences." While
still a youth, Ghazzali studied theology at Jorjan under the Imam Abu
Nasr Ismail. On his return journey from Jorjan to Tus, he is said to
have fallen into the hands of robbers. They took from him all that he
had, but at his earnest entreaty returned to him his note books, at the
same time telling him that he could know nothing really, if he could be
so easily deprived of his knowledge. This made him resolve for the
future to learn everything by heart.

Later on Ghazzali studied at Nishapur under the celebrated Abu'l-Maali.
Here also at the court of the Vizier Nizam-ul-mulk (the school-fellow of
Omar Khayyam) he took a distinguished part in those discussions on
poetry and philosophy which were so popular in the East. In 1091
Nizam-ul-mulk appointed him to the professorship of Jurisprudence in the
Nizamiya College at Bagdad, which he had founded twenty-four years
previously. Here Ghazzali lectured to a class of 300 students. In his
leisure hours, as he informs us in his brief autobiography, "Al munkidh
min uddallal" ("The Deliverance from error") he busied himself with the
study of philosophy. He also received a commission from the Caliph to
refute the doctrine of the Ismailians.

In the first chapter it has been mentioned how a deep-seated unrest and
thirst for peace led him, after many mental struggles, to throw up his
appointment and betake himself to religious seclusion at Damascus and
Jerusalem. This, together with his pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina,
lasted nearly ten years. Ibn Khalliqan informs us that he also went to
Egypt and stayed some time in Alexandria. Here the fame of the
Almoravide leader in Spain, Yusuf ibn Tashifin, is said to have reached
Ghazzali, and to have made him think of journeying thither. This prince
had begun those campaigns in Spain against the Cid and other Christian
leaders which were destined to add Andalusia to his Moroccan dominions.
By these victories in the West he had to some extent retrieved the
decline of Islam in the East. It is natural to suppose that the
enthusiastic Ghazzali would gladly have met with this champion of
Muhammadanism. The news of Yusuf ibn Tashifin's death in 1106 seems to
have made him renounce his intention of proceeding to Spain.

The realisation of