Al Ghazzali has given some account of his own religious development in a work entitled: _Munqidh min-ad-dalal_. This account is significant, but as the Baron Carra de Vaux remarks, his eventual explicit adoption of a Sufi mysticism was not merely a consequence of the failure of his other attempts to find a solution to life’s profoundest problems but a result of his early influences. For, soon after his birth at Tus in Khorassan in 450 A.H. (1059 A.D.), his father died and he was brought up by a Sufi. Nevertheless his mystical leanings did not assert themselves vigorously till he was well on to maturity. Up to that time he devoted himself to the usual studies of canon law, the orthodox theology, the doctrines of the Mutazillites, and a variety of other subjects including the works of the Sufis. For a time he was a student of the Asharite Imam Al Haramayn at Nysabur. He himself represents his attitude as at this time that of one working and wishing for reputation and wealth. In 484 A.H. he was honoured by appointment to the “University” or “Academy” of Baghdad, where he soon acquired great renown as lawyer and theologian. On the threshold of maturity he was afflicted by doubts as to the validity and worth of the theological and philosophical bases of his religious belief. The strain of his reflection and the intensity of his anxiety to reach a secure faith seem to have caused a breakdown of health. With unexpected suddenness he left Baghdad. That was in 488 A.H. (1095 A.D.) He had examined in all details the traditional orthodox scholastic system of the _Kalam_, the positions of the Mutazilites and the philosophers, and in the light of his new doubts and experiences turned again also to a closer study of the writings of the leading mystics, such as Abu Talib, Al Muhasibi, and Al Junayd. His early training had predisposed him to the acceptance of mysticism, and this acceptance was led up to by the conclusions of his reflection, in which it has been maintained he carried doubt as far back as did Descartes. Thus he himself writes: “A thirst to comprehend the essential natures of all things was, indeed, my idiosyncrasy and distinctive characteristic from the beginning of my career and prime of my life: a natural gift and temperament bestowed on me by God, and implanted by Him in my nature by no choice or device of my own, till at length the bond of blind conformity was loosed from me, and the beliefs which I had inherited, were broken away when I was little more than a boy.”[7]