Al-Ghazālī, noted that there were constant disputes about the role of philosophy and scholastic theology, and that Sufis became chastised for their neglect of the ritual obligations of Islam.

[3] Kimiya-yi sa'ādat emphasized the importance of observing the ritual requirements of Islam, the actions that would lead to salvation, and avoidance of sin.

Overall, the Kimiya-yi sa'ādat has four principal parts of ten chapters each: Sa'āda (happiness) is a central concept in Islamic philosophy used to describe the highest aim of human striving.

Al-Ghazali believed in practical-ethical perfection and that by exercising his God-given capacity for reason man must be drawn to the spiritual alchemy that transforms the soul from worldliness to complete devotion to God.

[3] Ghazālī's teachings were to help man to live a life in accordance with the sacred law, and by doing so gain a deeper understanding of its meaning on the Day of Judgement.

[2] Elton L. Daniel, a professor of Islamic history at the University of Hawaii,[3] compared the texts given to him by Claud Field to the Persian edition and reorganized the sequence of the chapters and paragraph divisions in order to get them to correlate better with the original Kimiya-yi Sa'ādat.

[8] God has sent on Earth a hundred and twenty-four thousand prophets to teach men the prescription of this alchemy, and how to purify their hearts from baser qualities in the crucible of abstinence.