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…