The Moderation in Belief

Al-Iqtisād fī al-iʿtiqad (Arabic: الاقتصاد في الاعتقاد), or The Moderation in Belief is a major theological work by Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazali. George Hourani indicated that the Iqtisad and Mizan al-amal were completed before or during Ghazali's crisis of faith. It led him to leave his post at the Niẓamiyya school in Baghdad and enter the path of Tasawwuf. In it, he offers what scholars consider as the best defence of the Ash'arite school of Islamic theology. He also expressed strong reservations about a theology based on taqlid and marked by polemics. In this book, Ghazali makes an attempt to respond to the extreme literalists and the Muʿtazilites. It is the balance between reason and revelation that led to the title of book The Moderation in Belief.