Ḥabīb al-ʿAjamī (d. in the early to mid 2nd/8th century), also known as Ḥabīb al-Farsī, was a Persian Sufi. While his epithet ‘al-ʿAjamī’ (‘one who is illiterate in Arabic’) appears to signify Persian origins, some biographical sources state that he was given this epithet because he was unable, at least initially, to recite the Qurʾān properly (see ʿAṭṭār, 60; Field, 81, 85).

His full name is Abū Muḥammad Ḥabīb b. Muḥammad b. ʿĪsā. Regarded as one of the earliest Sufi masters, Ḥabīb was a well-known ascetic in Baṣra towards the end of the 1st/7th century a…