Modernists And Hadith Rejecters by Sajid A. Kayum

Imam
al-Ghazzali's
of Philosophy and Kalaam
Imam al-Ghazzali, the well-known author of the book 'Ihyaa Uloom
ad-Deen', was a person of rare level of intelligence, ingenuity and
cleverness.
He went through a number of stages. He indulged in
philosophy, and then he recanted and rejected it. Then he indulged in
Ilmul-Kalaam and gained a sound grasp of its basic principles and
used it to refute philosophy; but later rejected Ilmul-Kalaam when it
became clear to him that it was corrupt and filled with contradictions,
he then followed the path of the Batiniyyah (esotericisms) and
learned their knowledge, but rejected that too. He showed the beliefs
of the Baatiniyyah to be false, and exposed the manner in which they
tamper with the texts and rulings. Then he followed the path of
Sufism. These are the four stages that al-Ghazzali went through.
Even though, al-Ghazzali had a deep knowledge of Sufism,
Ilmul-Kalaam, Usool al-fiqh, etc., and he was a devoted worshiper
with good intentions, he could not completely free himself from
philosophy.
His closest companion, Abu Bakr ibn al-Arabi refuted his
ideas saying, "Our shaykh Abu Haamid went deep into philosophy
then he wanted to come out of it but he was unable to. There were
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