This book was incredibly hard to get through. The language was odd (possibly due to the translation, though I imagine it would also sound odd if I were reading it in the original Farsi, because the book is old) and it seemed a bit shallow. Ghazali kept writing "there is a verse in the Qur'an that says [x]" or "there is a hadith stating [x]" without giving references. Without references, it's significantly harder for me to go to the original source and make my own conclusions.

Most people who discuss this book talk about the "egregious" chapter on marriage, so I guess I'll add my two cents as well. I didn't hate the chapter, rather, I found it confusing. It seemed to simultaneously argue male ownership over their wives while calling the wives free agents. It told husbands to be firm, yet gentle. It went back and forth so many times I wasn't sure what to think. One main thing stuck out: Ghazali called a woman's reproductive ability a criterion for marriage. Granted, this might have been more important back when the book was written, but these days, such concepts are incredibly outdated, especially given how over crowded the world is. I agree that we should always seek to increase the Muslim population, but there are other ways to do that besides procreation. Denying barren women marriage is both unfair to the woman and an offense against Allah, who has willed that woman be barren.

For the most part, though, this book has good ideas. It talks about knowing oneself as a means of knowing God, and discusses the form and extent of knowing and loving God. I personally didn't like the book and wouldn't recommend it, but it's worth the read for the simple sake of being a Sufi classic.