Sufism, also known as Tasawwuf, is a mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic purification, spirituality, ritualism, asceticism and esotericism. It has been variously defined as "Islamic mysticism", "the mystical expression of Islamic faith", "the inward dimension of Islam", "the phenomenon of mysticism within Islam", the "main manifestation and the most important and central crystallization" of mystical practice in Islam, and "the interiorization and intensification of Islamic faith and practice".
The Hanbali school is one of the four major traditional Sunni schools (madhahib) of Islamic jurisprudence. It is named after the Arab scholar Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and was institutionalized by his students. The Hanbali madhhab is the smallest of four major Sunni schools, the others being the Hanafi, Maliki and Shafi`i.
Mansour Al-Hallaj or Mansour Hallaj was a Persian mystic, poet, and teacher of Sufism. He is best known for his saying: "I am the Truth" (Ana'l-Ḥaqq), which many saw as a claim to divinity, while others interpreted it as an instance of annihilation of the ego, allowing God to speak through him. Al-Hallaj gained a wide following as a preacher before he became implicated in power struggles of the Abbasid court and was executed after a long period of confinement on religious and political charges. Although most of his Sufi contemporaries disapproved of his actions, Hallaj later became a major figure in the Sufi tradition.
Abū ʾl-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. ʿUthmān b. ʿAlī al-Ghaznawī al-Jullābī al-Hujwīrī, known as ʿAlī al-Hujwīrī or al-Hujwīrī for short, or reverentially as Shaykh Sayyid ʿAlī al-Hujwīrī or as Dātā Ganj Bakhsh by Muslims of South Asia, was an 11th-century Sunni Muslim mystic, theologian, and preacher from Ghaznavid Empire, who became famous for composing the Kashf al-maḥjūb, which is considered the "earliest formal treatise" on Sufism in Persian. Ali Hujwiri is believed to have contributed "significantly" to the spread of Islam in South Asia through his preaching, with one historian describing him as "one of the most important figures to have spread Islam in the Indian subcontinent." Khwaja Gharib Nawaz stayed at Ali Hujwiri's mausoleum and quoted a tribute to him as a narration; گنج بخش فیضِ عالَم مظہرِ نورِ خدا ناقصاں را پیرِ کامل ، کاملاں را راہنماGanj Bakhsh-e-Faiz-e-Alam Mazhar-e-Nur-e-Khuda, Na Qasaan-ra Pir-i Kamil, Kamilaan-ra Rahnuma.
Junayd of Baghdad was a Persian mystic and one of the most famous of the early Islamic saints. He is a central figure in the spiritual lineage of many Sufi orders.
Sufism is the mystical branch of Islam in which Muslims seek divine love and truth through direct personal experience of God. This mystic tradition within Islam developed in several stages of growth, emerging first in the form of early asceticism, based on the teachings of Hasan al-Basri, before entering the second stage of more classical mysticism of divine love, as promoted by al-Ghazali and Attar of Nishapur, and finally emerging in the institutionalized form of today's network of fraternal Sufi orders, based on Sufis such as Rumi and Yunus Emre. At its core, however, Sufism remains an individual mystic experience, and a Sufi can be characterized as one who seeks the annihilation of the ego in God.
Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad ibn al-Khafif (882-982) known as al-Shaykh al-Kabir or Shaykh al-Shirazi was a Persian mystic and sufi from Iran. He is credited with bringing Sufism (tasawwuf) to Shiraz.
Abu Bakr ibn al-Arabi or, in full Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdallāh ibn al-ʿArabī al-Maʿāfirī al-Ishbīlī born in Sevilla in 1076 and died in Fez in 1148) was a Muslim judge and scholar of Maliki law from al-Andalus. Like Al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad, Ibn al-Arabi was forced to migrate to Morocco during the reign of the Almoravids. It is reported that he was a student of Al-Ghazali. He was a master of Maliki Jurisprudence. His father was a student of Ibn Hazm. He also contributed to the spread of Ash'ari theology in Spain. A detailed biography about him was written by his contemporary Qadi Ayyad, the Malikite scholar and judge from Ceuta.
Dhūl-Nūn Abū l-Fayḍ Thawbān b. Ibrāhīm al-Miṣrī, often referred to as Dhūl-Nūn al-Miṣrī or Zūl-Nūn al-Miṣrī for short, was an early Egyptian Muslim mystic and ascetic. His surname "al Misri" means "The Egyptian". He was born in Akhmim, Upper Egypt in 796 and is said to be of Nubian descent. Dhul-Nun is said to have made some study of the scholastic disciplines of alchemy, medicine, and Greek philosophy in his early life, before coming under the mentorship of the mystic Saʿdūn of Cairo, who is described in traditional accounts of Dhul-Nun's life as both "his teacher and spiritual director." Celebrated for his legendary wisdom both in his own life and by later Islamic thinkers, Dhul-Nun has been venerated in traditional Sunni Islam as one of the greatest saints of the early era of Sufism.
Ibrahim ibn Adham also called Ibrahim Balkhi ; c. 718 – c. 782 / AH c. 100 – c. 165 is one of the most prominent of the early ascetic Sufi saints.
Kashf "unveiling" is a Sufi concept dealing with knowledge of the heart rather than of the intellect. Kashf describes the state of experiencing a personal divine revelation after ascending through spiritual struggles, and uncovering the heart in order to allow divine truths to pour into it. Kashf is etymologically related to mukashafa “disclosure”/ “divine irradiation of the essence”, which connotes "gain[ing] familiarity with things unseen behind the veils". For those who have purified their hearts, and who come to know the Divine Names and Attributes to the fullest of their individual capacities, the veils in front of the purely spiritual realms are opened slightly, and they begin to gain familiarity with the unseen. In Sufism, an even further revelatory capacity exists by which the Divine mysteries become readily apparent to the seeker through the light of knowledge of God. This is called tajalli "manifestation".
Sahl al-Tustarī or Sahl Shushtarī according to Persian custom, born Abū Muḥammad Sahl ibn ʿAbd Allāh, was a Persian Sunni Muslim scholar and early classical Sufi mystic. He founded the Salimiyah Muslim theological school, which was named after his disciple Muhammad ibn Salim.
Ahmad Ghazālī was a Sunni Muslim Persian Sufi mystic, writer, preacher and the head of Al-Nizamiyya of Baghdad. He is best known in the history of Islam for his ideas on love and the meaning of love, expressed primarily in the book Sawāneḥ.
Shaykh Abu Bakr Shibli was an important Sufi of Persian descent, and a disciple of Junayd Baghdadi. He followed the Maliki school of jurisprudence (fiqh).
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Dawud al-Zahiri, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Dāwūd al-Iṣbahānī, also known as Avendeath, was a medieval theologian and scholar of the Arabic language and Islamic law. He was one of the early propagators of his father Dawud al-Zahiri's method in jurisprudence, Zahirism.
Abu Bakr al-Kalabadhi, in full, Abu Bakr ibn Abi Ishaq Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Ya'qub al-Bukhari al-Kalabadhi was a Persian Hanafi Maturidi Sufi scholar and the author of the Kitab at-ta'arruf, one of the most important works of Sufism composed during the first 300 years of Islam.
Abū al-Faḍl al-Tamīmī Abd al-Wāḥid b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. al-Ḥārith b. Asad al-Tamīmī or Abū al-Faḍl al-Tamīmī was a 10th century Muslim saint who belonged to the Junaidia order. He was the son and disciple of Abu al-Hasan al-Tamimi. He was an ardent worshipper and ascetic. Not many details about his early life are known except that his family was from Yemen. His family belonged to the Arabian al-Tamimi tribe. He followed the Hanafi school of thought.
Mohammad Yousuf Abul Farah Tartusi was a popular Sufi Muslim saint. He is regarded as one of the common ancestors of the Sufi Tariqahs, which form an unbroken chain to the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
The Ẓāhirī school or al-Ẓāhirīyyah is a Sunnī school of Islamic jurisprudence founded in the 9th century CE by Dāwūd al-Ẓāhirī, a Persian Muslim scholar, jurist, and theologian of the Islamic Golden Age. It is characterized by strict adherence to literalism and reliance on the outward (ẓāhir) meaning of expressions in the Quran and ḥadīth literature; the consensus (ijmāʿ) of the first generation of Muhammad's closest companions (ṣaḥāba), for sources of Islamic law (sharīʿa); and rejection of analogical deduction (qiyās) and societal custom or knowledge (urf), used by other schools of Islamic jurisprudence.