What is your opinion of the book *Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din* by al-Ghazali, and is it permissible for beginners to buy and read it?

Question:
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. A book is being sold in the bookstores with a discount and advertising, and it is *Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din* by al-Ghazali. What is your opinion of this book? And is it permissible for beginners to buy and read it?

Answer:
No, the book contains a mixture of Sufism and worship. It is a book with much mixing, and it follows the methodology of the Sufis, because al-Ghazali became a Sufi in his later years. He usually adopted the Sufi methodology and did not rid himself of the scientific and worship-oriented inclination he had. However, he did not rid himself of Sufism, to the point that his student Ibn al-'Arabi said, "Our Shaykh swallowed Sufism and could not vomit it up." So Sufism overcame him.
And his book *Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din* is not recommended for a beginner to read. Rather, it is for the one who is established in knowledge, who has insight and understanding; there is no harm in his reading it. As for the one who is not established, he should not read it, because he may fall into errors without realizing it. It contains Sufistic elements and matters from the knowledge of the Sufis. The scholars have responded to it and made corrections to it. The closest of these is a treatise by Shaykh 'Abd al-Latif ibn 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Hasan, which is printed in *al-Durar al-Saniyyah*. It explains the danger that *Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din* poses to students of knowledge. Yes.