Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazālī (; ; b. 1058 – d. 18 December 1111), shortened as
Al-Ghazali and known as
Algazelus or
Algazel to the Western medieval world, was a
Muslim theologian,
jurist,
philosopher, and
mystic of
Persian descent. Al-Ghazali has been referred to by some historians as the single most influential Muslim after the Islamic prophet
Muhammad. Within Islamic civilization he is considered to be a
Mujaddid or renewer of the faith, who, according to tradition, appears once every century to restore the faith of the community. His works were so highly acclaimed by his contemporaries that al-Ghazali was awarded the honorific title "Proof of Islam" (
Hujjat al-Islam). Others have cited his opposition to certain strands of Islamic philosophy as a detriment to Islamic scientific progress. Besides his work that successfully changed the course of Islamic philosophy—the early Islamic
Neoplatonism that developed on the grounds of
Hellenistic philosophy, for example, was so successfully criticised by al-Ghazali that it never recovered—he also brought the
orthodox Islam of his time in close contact with
Sufism. It became increasingly possible for individuals to combine orthodox theology (
kalam) and Sufism, while adherents of both camps developed a sense of mutual appreciation that made sweeping condemnation of one by the other increasingly problematic.