Sufism started as a reaction against formalism pursued by the theologians and the masses, intellectualism of the philosophers and the rationalists and the irreligious ways of the ruling classes. Generally, Sufism was based on the Qur’an and lives of the Prophet and his companions. Before, A-Ghazali Sufism passed through three stages of development. The Sufis were ascetics and quietists at the first stage. The second stage of development of Sufism was theosophical. The third stage of Sufism was prominently pantheistic in nature. Ghazali was the greatest figure in the history of Islamic reaction to Neo-Plantonism and despite Ibn Rushd’s refutation of Ghazali’s objection; he dealt a blow to Islamic philosophy from which it would never recover. Ghazali struck a fatal blow from his ‘Incoherence of the philosophers (1095), a withering attack on Arabic philosophy, particularly as exemplified in Aristotle by Farabi and Ibn Sina. It was only after he had thoroughly immersed himself in the teachings of falasifa and even published an exposition of their tenets in ‘Intentions of the Philosophers’ that he felt equipped to defeat the philosopher on their own grounds.
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