al-Fuḍayl b. ʿIyāḍ, Abū ʿAlī (d. 187/803), a narrator of traditions (muḥaddith) and ascetic (zāhid) of the 2nd/8th century, who was later recognised as one of the founders of Sufism.

Al-Fuḍayl was born early in the 2nd/8th century in Fundīn, a village on the outskirts of Abīward, Khurāsān (Ibn Saʿd, 6/43; al-Sulamī, 6; see al-Qushayrī, 35, English trans. 20, and al-Dhahabī, Siyar, 8/373, for the view that he was born in Samarqand and grew up in Abīward). His family’s lineage can be traced back to the Yarbūʿ clan, a branch of the Banū Tamīm tribe which had…