Bahr ul- Mahabbah fi Asrar el-Mavaddah and Its Author,‎ Abu ul-Futuh Ahmad or Abu Hamed Mohammad Ghazzali

Bahr ul- Mahabbah fi Asrar el-Mavaddah is one of the Sufi commentaries in Arabic. In this text, Surah Yusuf has been interpreted in a simple and pleasant structure and prose. Also, it has some mystical points, allusions, speechs, and anecdotes from some great mystics or about them. This text is important, but we do not have any good revised and printed works from the manuscripts. This work has been known as a text by Abu ul-Futuh Ahmad or Abu Hamed Ghazzali as mentioned in some manuscripts and their indexes and some later writers’ views. The present article was written to prove the truth or falsity of this claim for the first time. According to the previous scholars’ views about Ghazali brothers’ works, as well as a comparative content analysis of Bahr ul- Mahabbah fi Asrar el-Mavaddah with the interpretations of Ghazali brothers’ most important and appropriate works, it could be concluded that this was incorrect. In other words, this work could not be from either of Ghazali's two brothers. We also used analysis of textual relationships between this work and the most comprehensive interpretations of Surah Yusuf in earlier centuries, namely Ons al-Muridin and Rawdat al-Muhebbin, Ghesseye Yusuf and Hadayegh al-Haghaegh. It seemed that the recognition of each of Ghazali's two brothers as the author of this work was due to their being prominence among the first scholars and Sufis. This article was written based on the content analysis method.