Search

Al-Karrāmiyya were an ascetic missionary movement centred on north-eastern Iran and neighbouring regions from the third/ninth to the sixth/twelfth centuries. 1. The founder Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad b. Karrām (d. 20 Ṣafar 255/7 February 869) was born to a family from Sijistān (Sīstān), in what is now south-eastern Iran, around 184/800—according to one Karrāmī tradition—in Mecca while his parents were on pilgrimage there (Zysow, Karrāmiya). He was said by his followers to have been of Arab stock, but this was sometimes ca…

al-Ḥākim al-Nīsābūrī (also Nīshāpūrī, Nīshābūrī), Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḍabbī al-Ṭahmānī (Rabīʿ I 321–Ṣafar 405/March 933–August 1014), compiler of the ḥadīth collection al-Mustadrak ʿalā al-Ṣaḥīḥayn, who acquired fame for authoring Taʾrīkh Nīsābūr. This is the earliest history of Nīsābūr and was written in Arabic.His laqab (sobriquet) al-Ḥākim refers to his official position as a judge ( qāḍī), while the nisbas al-Ḍabbī and al-Ṭahmānī refer to his kinship through the maternal line to one ʿĪsā b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Sulaymān al-Ḍabbī an…

Abū Saʿīd ʿUthmān b. Saʿīd b. Khālid b. Saʿīd al-Sijistānī al-Dārimī (b. 200/815, d. between 280 and 282/893–5) was a prominent traditionist, jurist, and theologian. His teachers were Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 241/855), ʿAlī b. al-Madīnī (d. 234/848), Isḥāq b. Rāhawayh (d. 237/851), and Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn (d. 233/847) in the science of traditions, al-Buwayṭī (d. 231/846) in jurisprudence, and Ibn al-Aʿrābī (d. 231/846) in adab (belles-lettres). He composed two polemical treatises, al-Radd ʿalā l-Jahmiyya (“Refutation of the Jahmites”) and al-Radd ʿalā Bishr al-Marīsī (“Refutation of Bis…

Abū al-Fatḥ al-Bustī, ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn (d. 400/1010), was a bilingual ( dhū al-lisānayn, referring to Arabic and Persian) secretary, minister and poet of the 4th/10th century. His father's name is recorded as Aḥmad and his grandfather's name as Ḥasan (al-Samʿānī, 2/226; Yāqūt, Buldān, 1/612; al-Subkī, 5/293). Even though his hometown of Bust, an ancient city in the south of present-day Afghanistan, and his poems in Persian testify to his Persian origins (see Sezgin, 2/640; Manūchihrī, 140, verse 5, who included him among the sages of Kh…

Ashʿarīs, the dissemination of Ashʿarī theology. The 2nd–3rd/8th–9th centuries mark a crucial period in the history of the theological thought of Sunni Islam, during which a significant portion of its subject matter came to be formed and elaborated. The Sunni theologians of this period can be divided into two categories as regards their general approach to the discipline. Firstly, the Muʿtazilīs and other related schools of thought, who were responsible for propagating ʿilm al-kalām and, with their predilection for rationalism, for producing a methodical and analytic…

pre-eminent 12th-century monument of the Šansabāni sultans of Ḡur in central Afghanistan. The minaret stands 65 meters high near the confluence of the Harirud and Jāmrud rivers in a remote mountain valley once protected by a series of defensive towers. A version of this article is available in print Volume XIV, Fascicle 4, pp. 432-436 JĀM MINARET, pre-eminent 12th-century monument of the Šansabāni sultans of Ḡur in central Afghanistan. The minaret stands 65 meters high near the confluence of the Harirud and Jāmrud rivers in a remote mountain valley o…

Jām, in central Afghanistan, is the assumed location of Fīrūzkūh, the summer capital of the Shansabānid maliks (and later sulṭāns) of Ghūr. The Shansabānids, or Ghūrids (r. early fifth to early eleventh / c.612 to c.1215), flourished in the second half of the sixth/twelfth century, when a meteoric rise saw their territories expand from Khurāsān to the Indo-Gangetic Plain (Thomas, The ebb and flow). Located at the conjunction of the Harī Rūd and Jām Rūd rivers in a remote mountain valley, the site preserves the remains of a minaret considered the paragon of …

In Volume 5: Bibliography and Indices | Index of Names Kaʿb al-aḥbār 2:787, 3:159, 4:449 Kaʿbī see Abū l-Qāsim al-Balkhī Kaʿbōya 2:379n. al-Kadhdhāb, see Ḥārith b. Saʿīd Kalb (tribe) 1:77, 95, 2:363, 3:159, 4:264-65 Kalbī see Abū’l-Na…

an extensive commentary in Persian on Abu Bakr Moḥammad Kalābāḏi’s Sufi manual Ketāb al-Taʿarrof le-maḏhab ahl al-taṣawwuf. ŠARḤ-e TAʿARROF, an extensive commentary in Persian on Abu Bakr Moḥammad Kalābāḏi’s well-known Sufi manual Ketāb al-Taʿarrof le-maḏhab ahl al-taṣawwuf, written by Abu Ebrāhim Esmāʿil b. Moḥammad b. ʿAbd-Allāh al-Mostamli of Bukhara (d. 434/1042-3), most probably a disciple of Kalābāḏi himself. Known also as Nur al-moridin wa fażiḥat al-moddaʿin (Light of the disciples and [proof of the] disgrace of the false claimants), this commentary follows the Taʿarro…

Saʿīd b. Ismāʿīl Abū ʿUthmān al-Ḥīrī (d. 298/910) was a Shāfiʿī scholar of ḥadīth and an adherent of the ascetic tradition of Nīshāpūr. He purportedly obtained his nisba from the fact that he was buried in the al-Ḥīra cemetery in the city of Nīshāpūr, an important cultural centre of western Khurāsān. Although he was from the city of Rayy, according to a report in Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ (“The ornament of the saints”) by Abū Nuʿaym al-Isfaḥānī (d. 430/1038)—a scholar of Persian origin who wrote exculsively in Arabic, mostly biographies of Ṣūfīs, scholars, and the Prophet—he does not bear the nisba …

Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan Ibn Fūrak al-Iṣfahānī (d. 406/1015–6) was an important proponent of the early Ashʿarī school of theology and a Shāfiʿī legal scholar. Judging from his nisba, he was probably from the city of Isfahan. Ibn Fūrak’s theological training began in Baghdad, under the tutelage of a direct disciple of Abū l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (d. 324/935–6), the little known Abū l-Ḥasan al-Bāhilī (fl. fourth/tenth century), who also instructed Abū Isḥāq al-Isfarāyīnī (d. 418/1027) and Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī (d. 403/1013), …

Khānaqāh (or khānqāh) is a Persian word for the place where Muslim mystics gather. It was, and still is, used mainly in Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, western China, and the Indian subcontinent. Other terms were more common elsewhere, such as zāwiya in Arab lands, Africa, and Indonesia, and tekke in Turkey and the Balkans. All these terms are often interchangeable. Usually translated as “Ṣūfī lodge” (rather than “convent”) in English, the khānaqāh is a room or an establishment where Ṣūfīs assemble around a spiritual master to perform rituals (often by night or in…

Abū Ṣāliḥ Ḥamdūn b. Aḥmad b. ʿUmāra (or ʿImāra) b. Ziyād b. Rustam al-Qaṣṣār al-Naysābūrī (d. 271/884–5) was a Ṣūfī master of Nīshāpūr and a leader of the Malāmatiyya (lit., school of blame), whose proponents thought that all outward appearence of religiosity was ostentation and that real piety should remain hidden. The Malāmatiyya spread throughout Khurāsān under his influence (al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt, 123–9). Ḥamdūn was a disciple of Salm (or Sālim) b. al-Ḥasan al-Bārūsī, whom he recognised as his master (ustādh) (al-Sulamī, Mustakhraj, § 1, 339). Little is known about al-Bārūs…

The Malāmatiyya (lit., people of blame, or the path of blame) were the followers of a spiritual school that arose in Nīshāpūr and later spread across Khurāsān during the third/ninth century and the first few decades of the fourth/tenth, a period in which the term “Ṣūfīs” (Ṣūfiyya) denoted ascetic-mystical groups in Iraq. This movement later was integrated partially into the Baghdad school of Ṣūfism. Eventually, the term came to refer to a distinctive style of thought and behaviour and even certai…

al-Ḥaskānī, Abū al-Qāsim ʿUbayd Allāh b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-Hadhdhāʾ al-Qurashī (d. ca. 470/1077), a traditionist and jurist from Nīsābūr.Al-Ḥaskānī’s family were descendants of ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿĀmir b. Kurayz, an Arab commander during the caliphate of ʿUthmān, who put down the revolts in Khurāsān and brought it under Islamic rule (al-Fārisī, via al-Ṣarīfīnī, 463–464; al-Dhahabī, Tadhkira, 3/1200; al-Samʿānī, 2/352–353; for more information on al-Ḥaskānī’s family see Bulliet, 227–230). Biographical sources state that al-Ḥaskānī enjoyed a long li…

In Volume 2 | Part B, The Islamic Provinces in the 2nd Century | Chapter 5, Egypt previous chapter Records of theological debates are rare; we do not even hear much about disputations with Christians.1 This may once again be due to th…

Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī (“The Sage of Termez,” d. probably 298/910), is considered the most productive mystic author of his time, although some major aspects of his thought remain too little known. His full name, Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan b. Bashīr, indicates that his paternal ancestors were Muslim for at least three generations. He was born between 205/820 and 210/825, in Termez (Ar., Tirmidh), a commercial town in the old province of Khurāsān (in present-day Uzbekistan), on the bo…

Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad b. Khafīf b. Isfakshādh (Iskafshādh) al-Ḍabbī al-Shīrāzī (c.268–371/882–982), known as Ibn Khafīf, was a Ṣūfī, ascetic, and prolific writer of Shirazi origin with an Ashʿarī orientation. By virtue of his many encounters with the great masters, his immense achievements, and his long life, he was considered the “seal of Ṣūfism” ( khātam al-ṣūfiyya; Junayd, 38–9). 1. Life His mother was of Nīshāpūrī descent, and his father, mostly absent, served as a Daylamī commander in the army of the Ṣaffārid ʿAmr b. Layth (r. 265–87/879–900) (al-Daylamī, Sīrat, 9) (the Ṣaffā…

Abū al-Qāsim al-Ḥakīm al-Samarqandī, Isḥāq b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl b. Ibrāhīm b. Zayd, was a Ḥanafī sage and scholar from Transoxania. He lived from the end of the 3rd/9th to the first half of the 4th/10th century. Abū al-Qāsim's life marked a turning-point in the formation of the ascetic doctrines and teachings of Ḥanafī Sunnis in the east, and his al-Sawād al-aʿẓam was for a long time a major reference source on doctrine for many Ḥanafīs. Little is known about his life apart from a few lines narrated by al-Samʿānī (4/207–208) and scattered bits of information in other sources. In his Tārīkh-i …

al-Faḍl b. Shādhān, Abū Muḥammad al-Faḍl b. Shādhān b. Khalīl al-Azdī al-Nīsābūrī (d. 260/874) was an Imāmī traditionist, jurist and theologian. There is very little that can be known about his life in terms of precise details, and accounts regarding him contain contradictions that are somewhat difficult to resolve. It appears that he was originally from Nīsābūr in Khurāsān, but his nisba suggests his lineage is traceable to the Arab tribe of Azd. His father, Shādhān b. Khalīl, was also an important Imāmī traditionist (see al-Najāshī, 206; al-Ṭūsī, al-Īḍāḥ, pp. 46–48, 52 ). Accordi…