Özet:

This papere covered the classical and modern debates, which were put forward to called the identity of Huccetü'l-Islam Abu Hâmid al-Ghazali, who was the one of the most influential scholar of the classical age of Islamic thought and about whom the most debate was made in the following ages. The endless debates over his ideas have continued in determining the identity of Ghazali. Classical and modern sources presenting a biography of al-Ghazali have tried to clarify many issues ranging from his date of birth, place of birth, the etymology of his name, his national identity, the tag he used, to the information about his family. However, although the information conveyed by classical sources are contradictory with each other, the absence of a stronger proof that will ignore the information value of the other makes it difficult to clarify the identity of Ghazali. In modern sources, there are some means reinforced with classical information that will change the biography of Ghazali revealed by classical sources. On the other hand, although it is remarkable that some modern sources provide information that was not available in classical sources in order to develop a new Ghazali identity, they are doubtful as they do not rely on a solid foundation. In this article, influential classical and modern sources that provide information on the identity of Ghazali have been researched and the issue has been tried to be partially clarified.

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