June 11, 2026

The soul that is attached to anything other than God will find in that attachment the seed of its own sorrow.

Al-Ghazali wrote this during a period of personal collapse — he was at the height of his academic career in Baghdad when he suffered a breakdown so severe he could not speak or eat, and he walked away from his prestigious position entirely. He had watched colleagues and students pour themselves into reputation and status, only to find those things hollow when tested. He wrote The Alchemy of Happiness as a practical guide after years of working through what actually sustains a person when everything external falls away. This quote speaks directly to grief because it names something most people feel but cannot articulate — that loss hurts most sharply when we built our sense of safety around the thing we lost.