Batiniyya in the history of Islamic thought and Ghazali's criticism of Batiniyya

Throughout the history of Islamic thought, in addition to the basic teachings and tenets of Islam, different structures of thought have also come along from time to time. In the pre-Islamic period, different formations and groupings emerged in response to the teachings of the divine religions, and they continued their influence in the Islamic period and found supporters. These formations sought supporters for their own groups by arguing from the basic understanding of belief that Nass has an esoteric meaning in addition to its apparent meaning, and that this can only be known through the teachings of the person or persons they attribute to the infallible imam. The groups with this epistemological understanding were given an umbrella name as "Batiniyya (Esoterics)". Ghazali examined the esoteric groups that were influential in his time, as per the order of the caliph of the time, and addressed the esoteric formations and their methods, aims and purposes. As a result of his extensive research and examination, he wrote works about Batiniyya and made criticisms against esoteric formations. In our study, the activities of esoteric groups before and after Islam, their basic teachings, belief structures, and how they gained supporters by making them doubtful will be discussed, and Ghazali's criticisms against sects with esoteric thought will be included.