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Ḥijāb, lit. ‘veil’ or ‘curtain’, any obstacle restricting sensory, especially visual and auditory perception, any barrier separating two entities or partitioning two spaces from each other, hence used as a technical term in Sufism, Islamic gnosis and mysticism, primarily referring to the notion of interconnected cosmic and meta-cosmic veils paradoxically concealing and revealing the indefinite and multiple determinations of the divine reality (see below). The usual equivalent of the term ḥijāb in Persian mystical and Sufi literature is pardah (e.g. Maybudī, 8/411). The cl…

Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī, Sulaymān b. al-Ashʿath b. Isḥāq b. Bashīr b. Shaddād b. ʿAmr b. ʿImrān al-Azdī (202–275/817–888), was a well-known traditionist and compiler of the ḥadīth collection known as Sunan Abī Dāwūd, the third of the six canonical books of ḥadīth ( al-Ṣiḥāḥ al-sitta). The title ‘al-Sijistānī’, occasionally ‘al-Sijzī’ (cf. Abū ʿAwāna, 1/191), which usually comes after his kunya, indicates that he came from Sīstān. The author of Tārīkh-i Sīstān (p. 19) refers to him as one of the outstanding scholars of the region, and there is no evidence for the as…

al-Ḥusayn b. Zikrawayh, Abū al-ʿAbbās (264–291/878–904), one of the leaders of the Qarmaṭī movement in Syria. He also became known as Ṣāḥib al-Shāma or Ṣāḥib al-Khāl which referred to his having a birthmark on his face (Thābit, 19; Ibn al-ʿAdīm, Bughya, 2/926; al-Nuwayrī, 25/249). His name and lineage have also been recorded as Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl b. Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (Ibn al-ʿAdīm, Bughya, 2/926; cf. al-Maqrīzī, al-Muqaffā, 3/292), which is said to have been forged by him in order to gain notoriety and respectability by claiming descent fro…

Abū Turāb Ghaffārī, Mīrzā Abū Turāb Khān Ghaffārī Kāshānī (d. Rajab 1307/February or March 1890), was an Iranian painter and illustrator, son of Mīrzā Buzurg and elder brother of Mīrzā Muḥammad Khān Ghaffārī Kamāl al-Mulk. Following in their footsteps, he took up painting at an early age. Until 1293/1876 Abū Turāb lived in Kāshān, at which time he left that city for Tehran in order to continue his education at the Dār al-Funūn (q.v.), the first Iranian state school (founded in 1851) modelled on the French system and curriculum. He studied pa…

ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib b. Hāshim b. ʿAbd Manāf, Abū al-Ḥārith (d. 45 before hijra/578), was the paternal grandfather of the Prophet Muḥammad. Some sources indicate that his original name, Shayba, was embellished with the laqab or title Aḥmad (‘most praised’) (Ibn Hishām, 1/89, 209; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, 1/28), while others report that his name was ʿĀmir, or that ʿĀmir was a second name in addition to Shayba (see Ibn Bābawayh, al-Amālī, 700; idem, al-Khiṣāl, 453). While passing through Yathrib (Medina) on one of his trading journeys to Syria, Shayba's father, Hāshim b. ʿAbd Ma…

Abū Manṣūr al-Maʿmarī (flor. ca. 346/957), was the son of Muḥammad (or Aḥmad) b. ʿAbd Allāh and the minister ( dastūr) of Abū Manṣūr Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Razzāq, the commander-in-chief of Khurāsān and governor of Ṭūs during the reign of the Sāmānids. Very little is known of his life; the information that has come down to the pres-ent day is based on the ‘ Muqaddima-yi Shāhnāmah-yi Abū Manṣūrī’ or ‘ Muqaddima-yi qadīm-i Shāhnāmah’. Abū Manṣūr is well known in the history of Persian literature due to his supervision of and participation in the collecting of the ‘Histor…

Nothing is known of his childhood and youth, except that he studied various disciplines in his hometown of Kūfa. He studied jurisprudence with the founder of the Ḥanafī school of law, Abū Ḥanīfa (q.v.), and became so proficient in it that his name is mentioned alongside Abū Ḥanīfa’s other famous pupils such as Abū Yūsuf (q.v.) and Zufar b. al-Hudhayl (al-Ṣaymarī, 109; Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī, 135; al-Hujwīrī, 136; ʿAṭṭār, 186, 200; Jāmī, 41). He heard ḥadīth from ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿUmayr, Ḥabīb b. Abī ʿUmara, Sulaymān al-Aʿmash, and Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Abī Laylā,…

Abū al-Jaysh al-Balkhī, Muẓaffar b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Khurāsānī (d. 367/978), was an Imāmī theologian ( mutakallim) and traditionist ( muḥaddith). Nothing is known about his date of birth. He studied under Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/922) and Abū Sahl al-Nawbakhtī (d. 311/923) (al-Najāshī, 422; al-Ṭūsī, Amālī, 1/250; idem, al-Fihrist, 169). In addition to the two scholars mentioned he also studied under, and heard ḥadīths from, other scholars in Baghdad such as Ibn Humām al-Iskāfī, Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Abī al-Thalj and Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar al-ʿAlawī al-Ḥusaynī (al-Mufīd, al…

Ḥātim Aṣamm, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ḥātim b. ʿUnwān (d. 237/851), known as Aṣamm (lit. ‘the deaf’, see below for explanation of this epithet), was an early influential Sufi from mediaeval Khurāsān. His father’s name is given as Yūsuf or ʿUnwān b. Yūsuf by various biographers (see Abū Nuʿaym, 8/83). The details of his life remain obscure; it is known that his birthplace was Balkh, that the celebrated Sufi figure Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh/Khiḍrūya (q.v., d. 240/854) was his disciple, and that he pr…

Aḥmad al-ʿAlawī, Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. Muṣṭafā al-ʿAlawī (1869–1934), occasionally referred to as Ibn ʿAlīwa (Aḥmad al-ʿAlawī, Nūr al-ithmid, 6), was one of the most distinguished and influential shaykhs of the main branch of the Shādhiliyya Sufi order ( ṭarīqa). His life, teachings and spiritual legacy played a pivotal role in the revival of the Shādhiliyya in North Africa and the surrounding regions, and he was considered by many to be the ‘renewer’ ( mujaddid) of Islamic spirituality in his time (Lings, ‘Ibn ʿAlīwa’, 701). After his death, a short autobiography th…

Ḥulūliyya, traditionally translated as ‘Incarnationists’, is a generic title attributed to a variety of divergent trends and groups deemed to share a vaguely defined belief in the idea that God or the divine spirit can ‘dwell within’, ‘inhabit’ or be infused into certain human bodies (see al-Samʿānī, 2/249). The word ḥulūl (q.v.) is derived from ḥ-l-l, primarily meaning the loosening or untying of a knot; by extension, it came to mean descending from one’s mount, after its load had been ‘untied’, and from this idea came the signification of ‘dwe…

ʿAbd Allāh b. Jaḥsh, Abū Muḥammad (d. Shawwāl 3/March 625) was one of the Companions of the Prophet Muḥammad. He was from the tribe of Banū Asad b. Khuzayma. His mother, Umayma, was the daughter of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib and therefore the Prophet's aunt (Ibn Saʿd, 3/89; al-Balādhurī, 11/190). Before the Prophet took up residence in al-Arqam's house, ʿAbd Allāh and his two brothers converted to Islam, and along with their sister, Zaynab, who later married the Prophet (Ibn Saʿd, 8/101 et passim), emigrated to Abyssinia (Ibn Hishām, 1/274, 346; al-Bal…

al-Ḥurūf al-muqaṭṭaʿa (lit. ‘disconnected letters’, also known as muqaṭṭaʿāt, awāʾil al-suwar or fawātiḥ al-suwar, sometimes referred to as ‘the mysterious letters’) are groups of one to five letters from among fourteen letters of the Arabic alphabet occurring at the beginning of twenty-nine chapters of the Qurʾān. The tradition of Qurʾān recitation requires that the letters be uttered separately ( muqaṭṭaʿa: lit. ‘disconnected’). Four of these groups occur more than once (see below; for further details of this kind, see ʿAdl, 8). The mysterious lett…

Damāwand, the name of the highest peak of the Alburz range in the north of Iran. Damāwand has held a significant place in Persian thought and culture for several millenia. It is also given great importance in Persian mythology and cosmology and, historically, this mountain has become the place of ancestral legends and a symbol of national identity for the Persians.The Relationship between ‘Damāwand’ and ‘Alburz’ in Ancient SourcesIn order to understand the role of Damāwand in Persian myth, religion and literature, one must first study the significance of the Al…

Before discussing particular aspects of the practice of the forty-day retreat, it is worth pointing out that while retreat, khalwa, is approved of by the generality of Sufis—being referred to as one of the mustaḥsanāt, or strongly recommended practices—it cannot strictly be described as a sunna (except with the non-specific meaning of ‘tradition’), because the general attitude of the prophetic sunna is based upon its opposite: ṣuḥba, meaning ‘companionship’ and thus spiritual life within the community (Kāshānī, 160). Nonetheless, some of the foremost Companion…

Abū Ṭalḥa, Zayd b. Sahl b. al-Aswad b. Ḥarām al-Khazrajī, was a renowned Companion of the Prophet Muḥammad and one of the Anṣār (the ‘Helpers’) of Medina. He was mostly known as a valiant fighter and skilful archer of the early Islamic period. He was at the Prophet's side during the oath of allegiance at al-ʿAqaba and in the battles of Badr, Uḥud and Khandaq (Ibn Saʿd, 3/504). At the battle of Uḥud he stood by the Prophet, shooting arrow after arrow and shouting such terrifying war-cries that the…

Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī, Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. ʿAṭiyya (d. 386/996), a Sufi ascetic and sage who was originally from western Persia, but because he studied in Mecca, became known as al-Makkī (al-Khaṭīb, 3/89; Ibn Khallikān, 4/303; al-Dhahabī, Siyar, 16/536). Although Abū Ṭālib was one of the best-known Sufi authors and his sayings and narrations were frequently quoted in later periods, very little is known about his life, and Sufi hagiographers such as Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī, Khwājah ʿAbd Allāh Anṣārī and Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār do…

Ḥamdān Qarmaṭ b. al-Ashʿath, was an Ismaili dāʿī who organised the daʿwa (q.v.) in his native locality, the Sawād of Kūfa (a rich agricultural district in the countryside surrounding Kūfa) as well as other parts of southern Iraq during the 3rd/9th century. He thus became known as the founder and organiser of the Ismaili movement in Iraq and was apparently successful in winning many converts, who came to be  known as Qarmaṭīs (Qarāmiṭa) after him (Daftary, 108).Ḥamdān came from a village in the ṭassūj (sub-district) of Furāt Bādaqlā, east of Kūfa (al-Nuwayrī, 25/189; al-Maqrīzī, Ittiʿāẓ, …

al-Bāqillānī, Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. al-Ṭayyib (d. 23 Dhū al-Qaʿda 403/5 June 1013), a renowned Ashʿarī theologian. Some sources include the appellation al-Rabaʿī (al-Sakūnī, 253), indicating his Arab origins. His precise date of birth is not known, but some scholars have proposed that it was around the year 328/940 (Watt, 76; Sezgin, GAS, 1/608; cf. al-Khuḍayrī’s introduction to al-Tamhīd, 2). It is probable the he was born in Baṣra (al-Khaṭīb, 5/379). As to his laqab, al-Samʿānī’s claim that it derives from Bāqillā (2/52) would seem to be incorrect, since this would g…

Abū Bakr, ʿAbd Allāh b. Quhāfa ʿUthmān b. ʿĀmir b. ʿAmr b. Kaʿb b. Saʿd b. Taym b. Murra (d. 22 Jumādā II 13/23 August 634), a senior Companion of the Prophet, his father-in-law, his successor ( khalīfa), and the first of the four ‘rightly guided caliphs’ ( al-khulafāʾ al-rāshidūn). In any appraisal of this immensely important figure from the formative period of Islam one comes up against certain obstacles of a historiographical nature: the frequently tendentious nature of the accounts concerning the major events of his life, and also of the ev…