The Early Sufi Tradition in Hamadān, Nahāwand, and Abhar Stories of Devotion, Mystical Experiences, and Sufi Texts
Main Article Content
Keywords
Early Sufism, The Jibāl region, Abū ʻAlī al-Nahāwandī al-Qūmsānī, Bābā Jaʻfar al-Abharī, Ibn Yazdānyār al-Hamadānī
Abstract
Research on the early Sufis of Hamadān, Nahāwand, and Abhar holds immense significance in comprehending the development of Sufism in the Jibāl region. This article provides an in-depth exploration of the initial stages of Sufism’s formation, focusing on the analysis of significant early Sufi texts. Specifically, the study investigates the treatises Karāmāt Sheikh abī ʻalī al-Qūmsānī, Ādāb al-fuqarāʼ, and Rawḍat al-murīdīn, authored by Ibn Zīrak al-Nahāwandī (d. 471/1078), Bābā Jaʻfar al-Abharī (d. 428/1036), and Ibn Yazdānyār al-Hamadānī (d. 472/1079), respectively. Despite their profound significance, the role of these texts in shaping Sufism within the Islamic world has received limited attention in Sufi studies. Consequently, this study contributes valuable insights into the development of Iraqi-based Sufism in Hamadān and its neighboring centers, spanning from the third/ninth century to the fifth/eleventh century. Notably, some Sufis in this region were disciples of Abū ʻAlī al-Nahāwandī al-Qūmsānī (d. 387/997), playing a pivotal role in the institutionalization of Sufism through the establishment of khāneqāhs in the area.
References
Endnotes
1 Guy Le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate: Mesopotamia, Persia, and
Central Asia from the Moslem Conquest to the Time of Timur (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1905), 185-99.
2 Nahāwand stands as one of the ancient cities within the Jibāl region, situated in the
southern part of Hamadān and to the east of Kermānshāh (Qarmīsīn). The Battle of
Nahāwand held great significance as a resounding triumph (fatḥ al-futūḥ), resulting
in the expansion of Muslim governance throughout the Jibāl region. During the
initial centuries following the advent of Islam, Nahāwand gained renown as the
Māh al-Basra (a city in the Media/Jibāl region whose tax revenues were allocated
towards the administration of Baṣra). By the 8th/14th century, Nahāwand’s populace
predominantly comprised ethnically Kurdish individuals, with the majority adhering
to the Twelver Shiite sect, see Ḥamd Allāh al-Mustawfī, Nuzhat al-Qulūb, ed.
Sayyed Muhammad Dabir Syaqi (Tehran: Nashr-e Hadis-e Emruz, 2002), 74; Michael
G. Morony, “Māh al-Baṣra,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, http://dx.doi.
org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_4769.
3 Abhar, a town situated in the Jibāl region near Zanjān, was inhabited by Kurds
during the 4th/10th century, see Abū al-Qāsim b. ʿAlī l-Naṣībī Ibn Ḥawqal, Kitāb
ṣūrat al-arḍ (Book of the configuration of the land), ed. Johannes Hendrik Kramers
(Beirut: Dar al-Maktabat al-Hayat, 1992), vol. 2, 360.
4 Ahmet T. Karamustafa, Sufism: The formative period (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2007), 56-60.
5 Abū ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-Ṣūfiyya, ed. Muṣṭafā ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭā
(Beirut, Dar al-Kutub al-ʻIlmiyya, 2003), 141; ʻAbdullāh Anṣārī, Ṭabaqāt al-Ṣūfiyya,
ed. Muhammad Sarwar Mawlayī (Tehran, Intishārāt-i Tūs, 1983),196; ʻAbd
al-Rahmān Jāmī, Nafaḥāt al-Uns min Ḥaḍarāt al-Quds, ed. Mahmud ʻĀbedī (Tehran
Sokhan Publication, 2015), 71 and 79.
6 In this section, al-Sīrjānī employs a linguistic alternation by interchanging the terms
al-mashāyikh (the plural form of sheikh) and, occasionally, al-sādāt (the plural form
of sayyid), rather than using the term al-mutaṣawwifa (referring to ‘the group of
Sufis’), see Abū al-Ḥasan al-Sīrjānī, Sufism, Black and White: A Critical Edition of
Kitāb al-Bayāḍ wa-al-Sawād, ed. Bilal Orfali and Nada Saab (Leiden, Brill, 2012),
bāb 39: 248-258.
7 Respectively Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-lumaʻ fī al-taṣawwuf, ed. Reynold Alleyne
Nicholson (London: Luzac & Co. 1914), 210, 148, and 104.
8 Respectively al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-lumaʻ, 288, 191.
9 Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt, 318; Anṣārī, Ṭabaqāt, 254; Jāmī, Nafaḥāt, 92.
10 Karamustafa, Sufism, 56.
SAEIDI: THE EARLY SUFI TRADITI ON IN HAMADĀN, NAHĀWAND, & ABHAR 131
11 For example, Karamustafa, Sufism; Alexander Knysh, Islamic Mysticism: A Short History
(Leiden: Brill, 2010; Nile Green, Sufism: A Global History (Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).
12 For distinguishing eighth-century renunciation and ninth-century Sufism, see
Christopher Melchert, Before Sufism: Early Islamic Renunciant Piety (Berlin: De
Gruyter, 2020), 10-19.
13 Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla al-qushayriyya, ed. ʻAbd al-Ḥalīm Mamūd and
Maḥmūd ibn al-Sharīf (Cairo: Dār al-Shaʻb, 1989), 479.
14 Jāmī, Nafaḥāt, 86.
15 Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Kalābādhī, al-Ta‘arruf li-madhhab ahl
al-Taṣawwuf, ed. Ahmad Shams al-Dīn (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1993), 26.
16 Jāmī, Nafaḥāt, 82-3.
17 Aḥmad ibn ‘Abd Allāh Abū Nuʻaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-Awliyā’ wa-Ṭabaqāt
al-Aṣfiyā’ (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 1932-8), vol. 6, 211; al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla,
214; Ibrāhīm Mustamlī Bukhārī, Sharḥ al-taʻarruf li-madhhab al-taṣawwuf, ed.
Muhammad Roshan (Tehran: Asatir, 1984), vol. 1, 219.
18 Shams al-Dīn al-Dhahabī, Siyar a‘lām al-nubalāʼ, ed. Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾūṭ and et al
(Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1981-1988), vol. 6, 316-17.
19 Al-Kalābādhī, al-Ta’arruf, 288-89.
20 Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt, 260; al-Baghdādī, Ṭāʾrīkh Baghdād, vol. 16, 577; Muḥammad
ibn Aḥmad al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām wa-wafayāt al-mashāhīr wa-al-aʿlām, ed.
Umar Tadmurī (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-‘Arabī, 1987–2004), vol. 24, 306-7.
21 Anṣārī, Ṭabaqāt, 602.
22 Jāmī, Nafaḥāt, 278.
23 Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt, 406-10; al-Sīrjanī, Sufism, 559; Anṣārī, Ṭabaqāt, 464.
24 For more information on Yūsuf ibn Ḥusayn al-Rāzī and other eraly Sufis of Rayy,
see Fateh Saeidi, “Yaḥyā Ibn Muʻādh Al-Rāzī and His Disciples: Their Influence on
Early Sufism,” Australian Journal of Islamic Studies 8, no. 1 (2023):42-61.https://doi.
org/10.55831/ajis.v8i1.513
25 Al-Mustawfī, Nuzhat al-Qulūb, 102.
26 Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt, 406; Anṣārī, Ṭabaqāt, 464.
27 Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt, 406-10; Abū Nuʻaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat, vol. 10, 351-52; al-
Qushayrī, al-Risāla, 113; Jāmī, Nafaḥāt, 189
28 Benedikt Reinert, “Abharī, Abū Bakr,” Encyclopædia Iranica, http://www.iranicaonline.
org/articles/abhari-abu-bakr-sufi-of-persian-eraq-d-941-42.
29 Qurʼān 3:18.
30 Al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-lumaʻ, 212. Cf. al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt, 407 and Anṣārī, Ṭabaqāt, 464.
31 Qurʼān 76:31.
132 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ISL AM AND SOCIE T Y 40:3-4
32 Cited by Reinert, “Abharī, Abū Bakr.”
33 Al-Muṭahhar ibn Ṭāhir al-Maqdisī, Kitāb al-badʾ wa-al-taʾrīkh (Cairo: Maktaba al-Saqāf
al-Dīnī, n.d.), vol. 5, 144-45. Also, see Saeidi, “Yaḥyā Ibn Muʻādh Al-Rāzī,” 48-9.
34 Cited by Reinert, “Abharī, Abū Bakr.”
35 Mu ̒īn al-Dīn Junayd al-Shīrāzī, Shad al-Ezār fī Khaṭ al-Awzār ̒an Zawāe al-Mazār,
ed. Muḥammad Qazwīnī and Muhammad Eqbal (Tehran: Matba’eh-e Majles, 1328
[1949]), 557.
36 Jāmī, Nafaḥāt, 149-50; Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār, Tadhkirat al-Awliyā, ed. Muhammad
Este’lami (Tehran: Zawwār Publication, 2012), 694.
37 Anṣārī, Ṭabaqāt, 236.
38 al-Sīrjanī, Sufism, 300 and 313; Anṣārī, Ṭabaqāt, 617; ‘Aṭṭār, Tadhkirat, 692-93.
39 Anṣārī, Ṭabaqāt, 361, 580 and 617; Jāmī, Nafaḥāt, 149.
40 Jāmī, Nafaḥāt, 150-51.
41 Dawlatshāh Samarqandī, Tadhkirat al-Shuʻarā’, ed. Edwar Browne (Tehran:
Enteshārāt-e Asāṭīr, 1382 [2003]), 99.
42 Abū al-Ḥasan al-Daylamī, Sīrat Sheikh Kabīr Abū ʻAbdūllāh Ibn Khafīf Shīrāzī, ed.
Annemarie Schimmel, tr. Rukn al-Dīn Yaḥyā ibn Junayd Shīrazī (Tehran: Bābak,
1363 [1984]), 167.
43 al-Daylamī, Sīrat Sheikh Kabīr, 167-8; Jāmī, Nafaḥāt, 255.
44 Aḥmad ibn Alī al-Khatīb al-Baghdādī, Ta’rīkh Madīnat al-Salām (Ta’rīkh Baghdād),
ed. Bashar ʾAwad Maʿruf (Beirut: Dar Al-Gharb al-Eslami, 2001), vol. 9, 307.
45 Shams al-Dīn al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-islām wa-wafayāt al-mashāhīr wa-al-aʿlām,
ed. Umar Tadmurī (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-‘Arabī, 1987–2004), vol. 27, 133-35; al-
Dhahabī, Sayr, vol. 16, 469.
46 Karāmāt Sheikh Abī ʻAlī al-Qūmsānī was edited by Shafi’i-Kadkani published
with the title Maqāmāt-e Abū ‘Alī Qumsānī, see Ibn Zīrak, “Maqāmāt-e Abū ‘Alī
Qumsānī,” in Arj Nameh-e Doktor Mohammad Ali Movahed, ed. Mohammad Reza
Shafi’i-Kadkani, 657-83 (Tabriz: Setudeh, 2014).
47 Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh, vol. 32, 60-63; al-Dhahabī, Sayr A‘lām, vol. 18, 433-35.
48 Karāmāt Sheikh Abī ʻAlī al-Qūmsānī, 677-78.
49 Ibid., 666.
50 Ibid., 678.
51 Ibid., 671
52 Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh, vol. 29, 298; al-Khatīb al-Baghdādī, Ṭāʾrīkh Baghdād, vol. 3,
711-12; al-Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. 17, 563-4.
53 Abū Ṭāhir Silafī, al-Wajīz fī dhikr al-majāz wa al-majīz (Beirut: Dar al-Gharb al-Islami,
1991), 154.
SAEIDI: THE EARLY SUFI TRADITI ON IN HAMADĀN, NAHĀWAND, & ABHAR 133
54 Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh, vol. 33, 333.
55 Bābā Jaʻfar, one of al-Qumsānī’s students, directly narrated several stories about
him, see Karāmāt Sheikh Abī ʻAlī al-Qūmsānī, 672-76.
56 Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh, vol. 29, 215-17.
57 Al-Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. 17, 576-77.
58 ʻAbd al-Karīm ibn Muḥammad Rāfiʻī al-Qazwīnī, al-Tadwīn fī akhbār Qazwīn, ed.
ʻAzīz Allah ʻAṭārudī Quchānī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʻIlmiyya, 1987), vol. 2, 379.
59 Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Rāwandī, Rāḥat al-ṣudūr wa-āyat al-surūr, ed. Muhammad
Eqbal (Tehran: Asatir, 2006), 98-9; Safi has translated Ibn al-Rāwandī’s text, see
Omid Safi, The Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam: Negotiating Ideology
and Religious Inquiry (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006),
132-33.
60 Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥusayn Nīshābūrī, Tafsīr gharāʼib al-qurʼān wa-raghāʼib
al-furqān, ed. Zakariya ‘Umayrat (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʻIlmiyya, 1996), vol. 3, 244.
61 ʻAbd al-Karīm Ibn Muḥammad al-Samʻānī, Kitāb al-Ansāb, ed. ʻAbd Allāh ʻUmar
Bārūdī (Beirut: Dār al-Jinān, 1988), vol. 1, 427.
62 Bābā Jaʻfar al-Abharī, Ādāb al-fuqaraʼ (Istanbul: Muhammad Ali Pasha library,
Manuscript no. 1395), fol. 1.
63 ʻAlī ibn ‘Uthmān al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-mahjūb, ed. Mahmud ʻĀbedī (Tehran: Soroush
Publication. 2014), 278-96.
64 Mojtaba Damavandi, “Bābā Jafar Abharī and Ādāb al-fuqaraʼ,” The Journal of Mystical
Literature 2 (2010), 114.
65 Bābā Jaʻfar Abharī, Ādāb al-fuqaraʼ, fol. 20.
66 Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt, 425-24.
67 Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj, Ṣuḥuf min kitāb al-lumaʻ, ed. A. J. Arberry (London, 1947), 10-12.
68 Ibid., 11.
69 Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt, 424.
70 Bābā Jaʻfar al-Abharī, Ādāb al-fuqaraʼ, fol. 14.
71 Ibid., fol. 16.
72 Ibid., fol. 84.
73 Ibid., fol. 89.
74 Bābā Jaʻfar al-Abharī, Riyāḍat al-nafs (Qom: Golpaygani Library, Manuscript no.
707-4/107).
75 Rāfiʻī al-Qazwīnī, al-Tadwīn, vol. 2, 158, 165, 228, 351, 393, and 489.
76 Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh, vol. 32, 74; Rāfiʻī al-Qazwīnī, al-Tadwīn, vol. 1, 269-70.; Yaqūt
al-Ḥamawī, Muʿjam al-buldān (Beirut: Dār ṣādir, 1977), vol. 4, 280.
77 al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt, 423-26.
134 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ISL AM AND SOCIE T Y 40:3-4
78 Abu JaʻFar ibn Yazdānyār al-Hamadhānī, Rawḍat al-murīdīn (Manuscript, Thomas
Fisher Arabic Collection, University of Toronto), fols, 3b and 54a (hereafter, R-T);
idem., Rawḍat al-murīdīn (Princeton: Manuscript in The Garrett Collection of
Princeton University), fols. 4b, 43b, and 56a (hearafter, R-P).
79 Alden John Williams, Rawḍat al-Murīdīn of Shaykh Abū Jaʿfar Ibn Yazdānyār
(Unpublished PhD thesis, Princeton University, 1957), iv-v.
80 Ibid.
81 43 sections in R-P and 39 sections in R-T. To compare five manuscripts of Rawḍat
al-murīdīn, see Williams, Rawḍat al-murīdīn, xliii-xliv.
82 Arin Salamah-Qudsi, “Abū JaʻFar Ibn Yazdānyār’s Rawḍat al-Murīdīn: an Unknown Sufi
Manual of the Fifth/Eleventh Century,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (2020), 6.
83 Ibid., 20.
84 R-P, fol. 57b; R-T, fol. 80.
85 Husayn ibn Mansur Hallaj, Hallaj: Poems of a Sufi Martyr, tr. Carl W. Ernst (Evanston,
IL: Northwestern University Press, 2018), poem 107.
86 R-P, fol. 19a; R-T, fol. 37.
87 R-P, fol. 18b; R-T, fols. 35-36. For English translation, see Salamah-Qudsi, “Abū JaʻFar
Ibn Yazdānyār,” 8-9.
88 Maʿmar Abū Manṣūr al-Iṣfahānī, “Nahj al-Khāṣṣ,” ed. Nasrollah Pourjavady, aḥqīqāt-i
Islāmī 5-6 (1987-8): 132-149
89 R-P, fols. 60a-60b; R-T, fol. 86. Salamah-Qudsi, “Abū JaʻFar Ibn Yazdānyār,” 18.
90 R-P, fol. 59a, R-T, fols. 83-84.
91 Maʿmar Abū Manṣūr al-Iṣfahānī, Adab al-mulūk: Ein Handbuch zur islamischen
Mystik aus dem 4. /10. Jahrhundert, ed. Bernd Radtke (Beirut: Orient-Institut der
Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft im Kommission bei F. Steiner Verlag
Stuttgart, 1991), bāb 27, 65-68.
92 R-P, fols. 47a-49b; P-T, fols. 60-66.
93 Salamah-Qudsi, “Abū JaʻFar Ibn Yazdānyār,” 14.
94 It is likely that Salamah-Qudsi was not acquainted with Ādāb al-fuqarāʼ, as she
presents the viewpoint that this story is exclusive to Rawḍat al-murīdīn and states
that it “does not appear in any other work,” see Ibid., 13.
95 R-P, fols. 48a-49-5; R-T, fols. 61-62.
96 R-P, fol. 56a. However, in the Toronto manuscript, the reference is made to Abū
Bakr al-Abharī, another Sufi from Jibāl, rather than Ibn Yazdānyār, see R-T, fol. 78.
97 Abū Tālib Makkī, ‘Ilm al-qulūb, ed. ʿAbd al-Qādir Aḥmad ʿAṭā. (Beirut: Dar al-Kotob
al-Ilmiyah, 2004), 89.
98 Qurʼān 7:172.
SAEIDI: THE EARLY SUFI TRADITI ON IN HAMADĀN, NAHĀWAND, & ABHAR 135
99 R-P, fols. 47a-47b and R-T, fols. 61a-61b.
100 R-P, fol. 67a. R-T, fol. 104.
101 Salamah-Qudsi, “Abū JaʻFar Ibn Yazdānyār,” 18-19.
102 Saeidi, “Yaḥyā Ibn Muʻādh Al-Rāzī,” 54-55.
1 Guy Le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate: Mesopotamia, Persia, and
Central Asia from the Moslem Conquest to the Time of Timur (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1905), 185-99.
2 Nahāwand stands as one of the ancient cities within the Jibāl region, situated in the
southern part of Hamadān and to the east of Kermānshāh (Qarmīsīn). The Battle of
Nahāwand held great significance as a resounding triumph (fatḥ al-futūḥ), resulting
in the expansion of Muslim governance throughout the Jibāl region. During the
initial centuries following the advent of Islam, Nahāwand gained renown as the
Māh al-Basra (a city in the Media/Jibāl region whose tax revenues were allocated
towards the administration of Baṣra). By the 8th/14th century, Nahāwand’s populace
predominantly comprised ethnically Kurdish individuals, with the majority adhering
to the Twelver Shiite sect, see Ḥamd Allāh al-Mustawfī, Nuzhat al-Qulūb, ed.
Sayyed Muhammad Dabir Syaqi (Tehran: Nashr-e Hadis-e Emruz, 2002), 74; Michael
G. Morony, “Māh al-Baṣra,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, http://dx.doi.
org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_4769.
3 Abhar, a town situated in the Jibāl region near Zanjān, was inhabited by Kurds
during the 4th/10th century, see Abū al-Qāsim b. ʿAlī l-Naṣībī Ibn Ḥawqal, Kitāb
ṣūrat al-arḍ (Book of the configuration of the land), ed. Johannes Hendrik Kramers
(Beirut: Dar al-Maktabat al-Hayat, 1992), vol. 2, 360.
4 Ahmet T. Karamustafa, Sufism: The formative period (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2007), 56-60.
5 Abū ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-Ṣūfiyya, ed. Muṣṭafā ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭā
(Beirut, Dar al-Kutub al-ʻIlmiyya, 2003), 141; ʻAbdullāh Anṣārī, Ṭabaqāt al-Ṣūfiyya,
ed. Muhammad Sarwar Mawlayī (Tehran, Intishārāt-i Tūs, 1983),196; ʻAbd
al-Rahmān Jāmī, Nafaḥāt al-Uns min Ḥaḍarāt al-Quds, ed. Mahmud ʻĀbedī (Tehran
Sokhan Publication, 2015), 71 and 79.
6 In this section, al-Sīrjānī employs a linguistic alternation by interchanging the terms
al-mashāyikh (the plural form of sheikh) and, occasionally, al-sādāt (the plural form
of sayyid), rather than using the term al-mutaṣawwifa (referring to ‘the group of
Sufis’), see Abū al-Ḥasan al-Sīrjānī, Sufism, Black and White: A Critical Edition of
Kitāb al-Bayāḍ wa-al-Sawād, ed. Bilal Orfali and Nada Saab (Leiden, Brill, 2012),
bāb 39: 248-258.
7 Respectively Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-lumaʻ fī al-taṣawwuf, ed. Reynold Alleyne
Nicholson (London: Luzac & Co. 1914), 210, 148, and 104.
8 Respectively al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-lumaʻ, 288, 191.
9 Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt, 318; Anṣārī, Ṭabaqāt, 254; Jāmī, Nafaḥāt, 92.
10 Karamustafa, Sufism, 56.
SAEIDI: THE EARLY SUFI TRADITI ON IN HAMADĀN, NAHĀWAND, & ABHAR 131
11 For example, Karamustafa, Sufism; Alexander Knysh, Islamic Mysticism: A Short History
(Leiden: Brill, 2010; Nile Green, Sufism: A Global History (Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).
12 For distinguishing eighth-century renunciation and ninth-century Sufism, see
Christopher Melchert, Before Sufism: Early Islamic Renunciant Piety (Berlin: De
Gruyter, 2020), 10-19.
13 Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla al-qushayriyya, ed. ʻAbd al-Ḥalīm Mamūd and
Maḥmūd ibn al-Sharīf (Cairo: Dār al-Shaʻb, 1989), 479.
14 Jāmī, Nafaḥāt, 86.
15 Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Kalābādhī, al-Ta‘arruf li-madhhab ahl
al-Taṣawwuf, ed. Ahmad Shams al-Dīn (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1993), 26.
16 Jāmī, Nafaḥāt, 82-3.
17 Aḥmad ibn ‘Abd Allāh Abū Nuʻaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-Awliyā’ wa-Ṭabaqāt
al-Aṣfiyā’ (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 1932-8), vol. 6, 211; al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla,
214; Ibrāhīm Mustamlī Bukhārī, Sharḥ al-taʻarruf li-madhhab al-taṣawwuf, ed.
Muhammad Roshan (Tehran: Asatir, 1984), vol. 1, 219.
18 Shams al-Dīn al-Dhahabī, Siyar a‘lām al-nubalāʼ, ed. Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾūṭ and et al
(Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1981-1988), vol. 6, 316-17.
19 Al-Kalābādhī, al-Ta’arruf, 288-89.
20 Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt, 260; al-Baghdādī, Ṭāʾrīkh Baghdād, vol. 16, 577; Muḥammad
ibn Aḥmad al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām wa-wafayāt al-mashāhīr wa-al-aʿlām, ed.
Umar Tadmurī (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-‘Arabī, 1987–2004), vol. 24, 306-7.
21 Anṣārī, Ṭabaqāt, 602.
22 Jāmī, Nafaḥāt, 278.
23 Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt, 406-10; al-Sīrjanī, Sufism, 559; Anṣārī, Ṭabaqāt, 464.
24 For more information on Yūsuf ibn Ḥusayn al-Rāzī and other eraly Sufis of Rayy,
see Fateh Saeidi, “Yaḥyā Ibn Muʻādh Al-Rāzī and His Disciples: Their Influence on
Early Sufism,” Australian Journal of Islamic Studies 8, no. 1 (2023):42-61.https://doi.
org/10.55831/ajis.v8i1.513
25 Al-Mustawfī, Nuzhat al-Qulūb, 102.
26 Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt, 406; Anṣārī, Ṭabaqāt, 464.
27 Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt, 406-10; Abū Nuʻaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat, vol. 10, 351-52; al-
Qushayrī, al-Risāla, 113; Jāmī, Nafaḥāt, 189
28 Benedikt Reinert, “Abharī, Abū Bakr,” Encyclopædia Iranica, http://www.iranicaonline.
org/articles/abhari-abu-bakr-sufi-of-persian-eraq-d-941-42.
29 Qurʼān 3:18.
30 Al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-lumaʻ, 212. Cf. al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt, 407 and Anṣārī, Ṭabaqāt, 464.
31 Qurʼān 76:31.
132 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ISL AM AND SOCIE T Y 40:3-4
32 Cited by Reinert, “Abharī, Abū Bakr.”
33 Al-Muṭahhar ibn Ṭāhir al-Maqdisī, Kitāb al-badʾ wa-al-taʾrīkh (Cairo: Maktaba al-Saqāf
al-Dīnī, n.d.), vol. 5, 144-45. Also, see Saeidi, “Yaḥyā Ibn Muʻādh Al-Rāzī,” 48-9.
34 Cited by Reinert, “Abharī, Abū Bakr.”
35 Mu ̒īn al-Dīn Junayd al-Shīrāzī, Shad al-Ezār fī Khaṭ al-Awzār ̒an Zawāe al-Mazār,
ed. Muḥammad Qazwīnī and Muhammad Eqbal (Tehran: Matba’eh-e Majles, 1328
[1949]), 557.
36 Jāmī, Nafaḥāt, 149-50; Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār, Tadhkirat al-Awliyā, ed. Muhammad
Este’lami (Tehran: Zawwār Publication, 2012), 694.
37 Anṣārī, Ṭabaqāt, 236.
38 al-Sīrjanī, Sufism, 300 and 313; Anṣārī, Ṭabaqāt, 617; ‘Aṭṭār, Tadhkirat, 692-93.
39 Anṣārī, Ṭabaqāt, 361, 580 and 617; Jāmī, Nafaḥāt, 149.
40 Jāmī, Nafaḥāt, 150-51.
41 Dawlatshāh Samarqandī, Tadhkirat al-Shuʻarā’, ed. Edwar Browne (Tehran:
Enteshārāt-e Asāṭīr, 1382 [2003]), 99.
42 Abū al-Ḥasan al-Daylamī, Sīrat Sheikh Kabīr Abū ʻAbdūllāh Ibn Khafīf Shīrāzī, ed.
Annemarie Schimmel, tr. Rukn al-Dīn Yaḥyā ibn Junayd Shīrazī (Tehran: Bābak,
1363 [1984]), 167.
43 al-Daylamī, Sīrat Sheikh Kabīr, 167-8; Jāmī, Nafaḥāt, 255.
44 Aḥmad ibn Alī al-Khatīb al-Baghdādī, Ta’rīkh Madīnat al-Salām (Ta’rīkh Baghdād),
ed. Bashar ʾAwad Maʿruf (Beirut: Dar Al-Gharb al-Eslami, 2001), vol. 9, 307.
45 Shams al-Dīn al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-islām wa-wafayāt al-mashāhīr wa-al-aʿlām,
ed. Umar Tadmurī (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-‘Arabī, 1987–2004), vol. 27, 133-35; al-
Dhahabī, Sayr, vol. 16, 469.
46 Karāmāt Sheikh Abī ʻAlī al-Qūmsānī was edited by Shafi’i-Kadkani published
with the title Maqāmāt-e Abū ‘Alī Qumsānī, see Ibn Zīrak, “Maqāmāt-e Abū ‘Alī
Qumsānī,” in Arj Nameh-e Doktor Mohammad Ali Movahed, ed. Mohammad Reza
Shafi’i-Kadkani, 657-83 (Tabriz: Setudeh, 2014).
47 Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh, vol. 32, 60-63; al-Dhahabī, Sayr A‘lām, vol. 18, 433-35.
48 Karāmāt Sheikh Abī ʻAlī al-Qūmsānī, 677-78.
49 Ibid., 666.
50 Ibid., 678.
51 Ibid., 671
52 Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh, vol. 29, 298; al-Khatīb al-Baghdādī, Ṭāʾrīkh Baghdād, vol. 3,
711-12; al-Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. 17, 563-4.
53 Abū Ṭāhir Silafī, al-Wajīz fī dhikr al-majāz wa al-majīz (Beirut: Dar al-Gharb al-Islami,
1991), 154.
SAEIDI: THE EARLY SUFI TRADITI ON IN HAMADĀN, NAHĀWAND, & ABHAR 133
54 Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh, vol. 33, 333.
55 Bābā Jaʻfar, one of al-Qumsānī’s students, directly narrated several stories about
him, see Karāmāt Sheikh Abī ʻAlī al-Qūmsānī, 672-76.
56 Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh, vol. 29, 215-17.
57 Al-Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. 17, 576-77.
58 ʻAbd al-Karīm ibn Muḥammad Rāfiʻī al-Qazwīnī, al-Tadwīn fī akhbār Qazwīn, ed.
ʻAzīz Allah ʻAṭārudī Quchānī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʻIlmiyya, 1987), vol. 2, 379.
59 Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Rāwandī, Rāḥat al-ṣudūr wa-āyat al-surūr, ed. Muhammad
Eqbal (Tehran: Asatir, 2006), 98-9; Safi has translated Ibn al-Rāwandī’s text, see
Omid Safi, The Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam: Negotiating Ideology
and Religious Inquiry (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006),
132-33.
60 Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥusayn Nīshābūrī, Tafsīr gharāʼib al-qurʼān wa-raghāʼib
al-furqān, ed. Zakariya ‘Umayrat (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʻIlmiyya, 1996), vol. 3, 244.
61 ʻAbd al-Karīm Ibn Muḥammad al-Samʻānī, Kitāb al-Ansāb, ed. ʻAbd Allāh ʻUmar
Bārūdī (Beirut: Dār al-Jinān, 1988), vol. 1, 427.
62 Bābā Jaʻfar al-Abharī, Ādāb al-fuqaraʼ (Istanbul: Muhammad Ali Pasha library,
Manuscript no. 1395), fol. 1.
63 ʻAlī ibn ‘Uthmān al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-mahjūb, ed. Mahmud ʻĀbedī (Tehran: Soroush
Publication. 2014), 278-96.
64 Mojtaba Damavandi, “Bābā Jafar Abharī and Ādāb al-fuqaraʼ,” The Journal of Mystical
Literature 2 (2010), 114.
65 Bābā Jaʻfar Abharī, Ādāb al-fuqaraʼ, fol. 20.
66 Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt, 425-24.
67 Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj, Ṣuḥuf min kitāb al-lumaʻ, ed. A. J. Arberry (London, 1947), 10-12.
68 Ibid., 11.
69 Al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt, 424.
70 Bābā Jaʻfar al-Abharī, Ādāb al-fuqaraʼ, fol. 14.
71 Ibid., fol. 16.
72 Ibid., fol. 84.
73 Ibid., fol. 89.
74 Bābā Jaʻfar al-Abharī, Riyāḍat al-nafs (Qom: Golpaygani Library, Manuscript no.
707-4/107).
75 Rāfiʻī al-Qazwīnī, al-Tadwīn, vol. 2, 158, 165, 228, 351, 393, and 489.
76 Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh, vol. 32, 74; Rāfiʻī al-Qazwīnī, al-Tadwīn, vol. 1, 269-70.; Yaqūt
al-Ḥamawī, Muʿjam al-buldān (Beirut: Dār ṣādir, 1977), vol. 4, 280.
77 al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt, 423-26.
134 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ISL AM AND SOCIE T Y 40:3-4
78 Abu JaʻFar ibn Yazdānyār al-Hamadhānī, Rawḍat al-murīdīn (Manuscript, Thomas
Fisher Arabic Collection, University of Toronto), fols, 3b and 54a (hereafter, R-T);
idem., Rawḍat al-murīdīn (Princeton: Manuscript in The Garrett Collection of
Princeton University), fols. 4b, 43b, and 56a (hearafter, R-P).
79 Alden John Williams, Rawḍat al-Murīdīn of Shaykh Abū Jaʿfar Ibn Yazdānyār
(Unpublished PhD thesis, Princeton University, 1957), iv-v.
80 Ibid.
81 43 sections in R-P and 39 sections in R-T. To compare five manuscripts of Rawḍat
al-murīdīn, see Williams, Rawḍat al-murīdīn, xliii-xliv.
82 Arin Salamah-Qudsi, “Abū JaʻFar Ibn Yazdānyār’s Rawḍat al-Murīdīn: an Unknown Sufi
Manual of the Fifth/Eleventh Century,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (2020), 6.
83 Ibid., 20.
84 R-P, fol. 57b; R-T, fol. 80.
85 Husayn ibn Mansur Hallaj, Hallaj: Poems of a Sufi Martyr, tr. Carl W. Ernst (Evanston,
IL: Northwestern University Press, 2018), poem 107.
86 R-P, fol. 19a; R-T, fol. 37.
87 R-P, fol. 18b; R-T, fols. 35-36. For English translation, see Salamah-Qudsi, “Abū JaʻFar
Ibn Yazdānyār,” 8-9.
88 Maʿmar Abū Manṣūr al-Iṣfahānī, “Nahj al-Khāṣṣ,” ed. Nasrollah Pourjavady, aḥqīqāt-i
Islāmī 5-6 (1987-8): 132-149
89 R-P, fols. 60a-60b; R-T, fol. 86. Salamah-Qudsi, “Abū JaʻFar Ibn Yazdānyār,” 18.
90 R-P, fol. 59a, R-T, fols. 83-84.
91 Maʿmar Abū Manṣūr al-Iṣfahānī, Adab al-mulūk: Ein Handbuch zur islamischen
Mystik aus dem 4. /10. Jahrhundert, ed. Bernd Radtke (Beirut: Orient-Institut der
Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft im Kommission bei F. Steiner Verlag
Stuttgart, 1991), bāb 27, 65-68.
92 R-P, fols. 47a-49b; P-T, fols. 60-66.
93 Salamah-Qudsi, “Abū JaʻFar Ibn Yazdānyār,” 14.
94 It is likely that Salamah-Qudsi was not acquainted with Ādāb al-fuqarāʼ, as she
presents the viewpoint that this story is exclusive to Rawḍat al-murīdīn and states
that it “does not appear in any other work,” see Ibid., 13.
95 R-P, fols. 48a-49-5; R-T, fols. 61-62.
96 R-P, fol. 56a. However, in the Toronto manuscript, the reference is made to Abū
Bakr al-Abharī, another Sufi from Jibāl, rather than Ibn Yazdānyār, see R-T, fol. 78.
97 Abū Tālib Makkī, ‘Ilm al-qulūb, ed. ʿAbd al-Qādir Aḥmad ʿAṭā. (Beirut: Dar al-Kotob
al-Ilmiyah, 2004), 89.
98 Qurʼān 7:172.
SAEIDI: THE EARLY SUFI TRADITI ON IN HAMADĀN, NAHĀWAND, & ABHAR 135
99 R-P, fols. 47a-47b and R-T, fols. 61a-61b.
100 R-P, fol. 67a. R-T, fol. 104.
101 Salamah-Qudsi, “Abū JaʻFar Ibn Yazdānyār,” 18-19.
102 Saeidi, “Yaḥyā Ibn Muʻādh Al-Rāzī,” 54-55.
Article Sidebar
Published
Nov 13, 2023
Article Details
How to Cite
Saeidi, F. (2023). The Early Sufi Tradition in Hamadān, Nahāwand, and Abhar: Stories of Devotion, Mystical Experiences, and Sufi Texts. American Journal of Islam and Society, 40(3-4), 104–135. https://doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v40i3-4.3210
Section
Articles
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
When an article is accepted for publication, copyrights of the publication are transferred from the author to the Journal and reserved for the Publisher. Permission will be required from the publisher for any work for which the author does not hold copyright and for any substantial extracts from work by other authors. The copyright holder giving permission may instruct the author on the form of acknowledgment to be followed. Alternatively, we recommend following the style: “Reproduced with permission from [author], [book/journal title]; published by [publisher], [year]”.
No commercial reproduction is allowed without the express permission of the publisher.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
© The International Institute of Islamic Thought
