The victory, however, was not soon or easily won.[717] Many of the orthodox disliked the new Scholasticism hardly less than the old Rationalism. Thus it is not surprising to read in the _Kámil_ of Ibnu ’l-Athír under the year 456 A.H. = 1063-4 A.D., that Alp Arslán's Vizier, ‘Amídu ’l-Mulk al-Kundurí, having obtained his master's permission to have curses pronounced against the Ráfiḍites (Shí‘ites) from the pulpits of Khurásán, included the Ash‘arites in the same malediction, and that the famous Ash‘arite doctors, Abu ’l-Qásim al-Qushayrí and the Imámu ’l-Ḥaramayn Abu ’l-Ma‘álí al-Juwayní, left the country in consequence. The great Niẓámu ’l-Mulk exerted himself on behalf of the Ash‘arites, and the Niẓámiyya College, which he founded in Baghdád in the year 1067 A.D., was designed to propagate their system of theology. But the man who stamped it with the impression of his own powerful genius, fixed its ultimate form, and established it as the universal creed of orthodox Islam, was Abú Ḥámid al-Ghazálí (1058-1111 A.D.). We have already sketched the outward course of his life, and need only recall that he lectured at Baghdád in the Niẓámiyya College for four years (1091-1095 A.D.).[718] At the end of that time he retired from the world as a Ṣúfí, and so brought to a calm and fortunate close the long spiritual travail which he has himself described in the _Munqidh mina ’l-Ḑalál_, or 'Deliverer from Error.'[719] We must now attempt to give the reader some notion of this work, both on account of its singular psychological interest and because Ghazálí's search for religious truth exercised, as will shortly appear, a profound and momentous influence upon the future history of Muḥammadan thought. It begins with these words:-- [Sidenote: Ghazálí's autobiography.]