A good introduction to al-Ghazali would depend on your prior knowledge of Islam: he was a theologian, not a philosopher, and he essentially codified Sunni orthodoxy as we know it today. He was also a long winded fellow who was entirely too clever for his own good who studied neo-Platonism and then used Aristotelian logic to demonstrate that the concept of 'cause and effect' is a fallacy in a universe created by an omnipotent God in his magnum opus Tahafut al-Falsafayun "The Incoherence of the Philosophers." (That's the important one - while he wrote loads, most of it's fine theological detail work.)
I'm reading him in the original Arabic and he's... very convincing. There's a reason he won, whether I (or ibn Rushd) like it or not. The one translation I'm familiar with is available online, and it's not bad if sometimes a little literal (Classical Arabic rhetoric relies heavily on repetition and it can be tiresome for English readers). http://www.ghazali.org/works/taf-eng.pdf But even in English, the text requires a more than passing knowledge of the Qur'an and Sunni theology to follow it without serious difficulty. (Imagine trying to read Aquinas without ever having read the Bible) If you're not terribly familiar with the Qur'an let me know, and I'll try to find an Introduction to Islamic Thought text that I don't hate.
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A good introduction to al-Ghazali would depend on your prior knowledge of Islam: he was a theologian, not a philosopher, and he essentially codified Sunni orthodoxy as we know it today. He was also a long winded fellow who was entirely too clever for his own good who studied neo-Platonism and then used Aristotelian logic to demonstrate that the concept of 'cause and effect' is a fallacy in a universe created by an omnipotent God in his magnum opus Tahafut al-Falsafayun "The Incoherence of the Philosophers." (That's the important one - while he wrote loads, most of it's fine theological detail work.)
I'm reading him in the original Arabic and he's... very convincing. There's a reason he won, whether I (or ibn Rushd) like it or not. The one translation I'm familiar with is available online, and it's not bad if sometimes a little literal (Classical Arabic rhetoric relies heavily on repetition and it can be tiresome for English readers). http://www.ghazali.org/works/taf-eng.pdf But even in English, the text requires a more than passing knowledge of the Qur'an and Sunni theology to follow it without serious difficulty. (Imagine trying to read Aquinas without ever having read the Bible) If you're not terribly familiar with the Qur'an let me know, and I'll try to find an Introduction to Islamic Thought text that I don't hate.