I threw this image together to dispel 2 popular misconceptions.

1.) Jihad is a very controversial term that has become increasingly prevalent to western ears like never before in this past decade. But most people only hear this word in context of terrorism and extremists, which is a shame cus the word is so much more than that.

In Arabic, the word "Jihad" (جهاد) means more or less "to struggle". Struggle against what? In one understanding of it, it is to struggle against those forces that would suppress and oppose Islam out int he world. In Islamic theology, this is the lesser Jihad. The greater Jihad is the one we face against our own selves. The struggle against our inner demons and vices that would ensnare us if given the chance. This quote highlights this notion very well.

2.) There is a lot of bad information floating around about al-Ghazali. I personally am a fan of Neil Degrasse Tyson. From historians everywhere though, he should stick to astro-physics.

The most exposure al-Ghazali has had in the 'mainstream' was in this lecture by Tyson where he summarized the whole mans life in one simple conclusion: that he single handedly ended the Islamic Golden Age by claiming 'numbers are from the devil'. This is /r/badhistory material, and not only for the fact that blaming one man for the collapse for a century and continent spanning movement is silly.

Al Ghazali was a polymath from Persia who was eminent in several fields of academics. His commentary and views were more nuanced that "Numbers are the work of the devil", though you can argue that his works had a key influence on the direction of Islamic scholarship from there on out. So too did the other realities and events of the time, such as for example the Mongol invasion which happened a century later.

One man cannot end a golden age, and al-Ghazali was not anti-academic cleric. He was a scholar himself.