After al-Juwayni's death in 1085, al-Ghazali departed from Nishapur and joined the court of Nizam al-Mulk, the powerful vizier of the Seljuq sultans, which was likely centered in Isfahan. : 26â�∲7 He later studied under al-Juwayni, the distinguished jurist and theologian and 'the most outstanding Muslim scholar of his time,' in Nishapur, perhaps after a period of study in Gurgan.
Al-Ghazali's contemporary and first biographer, 'Abd al-Ghafir al-Farisi, records merely that al-Ghazali began to receive instruction in fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) from Ahmad al-Radhakani, a local teacher.
A posthumous tradition, the authenticity of which has been questioned in recent scholarship, is that his father, a man 'of Persian descent,' died in poverty and left the young al-Ghazali and his brother Ahmad to the care of a Sufi.
