Reading room

Deliverance from Error

Al-Ghazali

Al-Ghazali's intellectual autobiography, written in reply to a "brother in faith" who asks how he reached the truth. It recounts his sceptical crisis, cured by a light God placed in his breast, and examines the four classes of seekers (theologians, philosophers, Isma'ilis and Sufis) to conclude that only the Sufi path, known by experience and not by definition, gives certainty. It also relates his departure from Baghdad and his return to teaching. It has often been compared to Saint Augustine's *Confessions*.