The following passage from the Munqidh is interesting as showing how deeply al-Ghazálí had tasted that religious experience which he so highly valued ere he attained to the spiritual peace and conviction whereunto he finally won.

“In the prime of my youth,” says he, “when, ere I was yet twenty years of age, I attained to discretion, until now, when my age approaches fifty, I ceased not to dare the depths of this deep sea, and to plunge into its midst as plunges the bold, not the fearful and cautious, diver, and to penetrate into its every dark recess, and to confront its every difficulty, and to breast its every eddy; investi­gating the creed of every sect, and discovering the secrets of every creed, that I might distinguish between the holders of true and false doctrine, and between the orthodox and the heretical. There­fore I never left an Esoteric [Báṭiní, i.e., an Isma'ílí, Carmathian, or “Assassin”] without desiring to acquaint myself with his Esoteri­cism; nor an Exoteric [Dháhirí, or Formalist] without wishing to know the outcome of his Exotericism; nor a Philosopher without aiming at a comprehension of the essence of his Philosophy; nor a Scholastic Theologian without striving to understand the aim of his Scholasticism and his dialectic; nor a Ṣúfí without longing to stumble on the secret of his Ṣúfíism; nor a devotee without wishing to ascertain in what his devotion resulted; nor an infidel [Zindíq, properly a Manichæan] or atheist without spying through him to discern the causes which had emboldened him to profess his atheism or infidelity. For a thirst to comprehend the true essences of all things was, from my earliest days and the prime of my life, my characteristic idiosyncrasy, a natural gift of God and a disposition which He had implanted in my nature, by no choice or devising of mine own; until there was loosed from me the bond of conformity, and my inherited beliefs were broken down when I was yet but little more than a lad.”

From such early strugglings after truth and dark accesses of doubt did al-Ghazálí win to a bright faith, a sure conviction, and a power of leading others to the haven reached by himself, which not only earned for him the illustrious title of “The Proof of Islám,” but caused the learned Suyúṭí to exclaim, “Could there be another Prophet after Muḥammad, surely it would have been al-Ghazálí!”