Abū al-Najīb Abd al-Qahhar Suhrawardī () (1097–1168) was a

Sunni Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Mu ...

PersianQamar al-Huda, ''Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi'', ed. Josef W. Meri, Jere L. Bacharach, Medieval Islamic Civilization: L-Z, Vol. 2. . pp 775-776: "Shahab al-Din Abu Hafs 'Umar al-Suhrawardi belonged to a prominent Persian Sufi family and was responsible for officially organizing the Suhrawardi Sufi order"

Sufi Sufism ( or ) is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic Tazkiyah, purification, spirituality, ritualism, and Asceticism#Islam, asceticism. Practitioners of Sufism are r ...

who was born in Sohrevard, near Zanjan, and founded the

Suhrawardiyya The Suhrawardi order (, ) is a tariqa, Sufi order founded by Abu al-Najib Suhrawardi, Abu ’l-Nad̲j̲īb Suhrawardī (died 1168). Lacking a centralised structure, it eventually divided into various branches. The order was especially prominent i ...

Sufi order. He studied

Islamic law Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, or Shariah () is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on scriptures of Islam, particularly the Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology ''sharīʿah'' refers to immutable, intan ...

Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...

, later becoming professor of Shafi'ite law at the Nizamiyya school in the same city. He then later on set up a retreat by the river

Tigris The Tigris ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the eastern of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian Desert, Syrian and Arabia ...

, where he gathered disciples, which eventually came to be the Sufi order of

which included Ahmed Al-Ghazali, the younger brother of

Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali Al-Ghazali ( – 19 December 1111), archaically Latinized as Algazelus, was a Shafi'i Sunni Muslim scholar and polymath. He is known as one of the most prominent and influential jurisconsults, legal theoreticians, muftis, philosophers, the ...

. His paternal nephew

Shahab al-Din Abu Hafs Umar Suhrawardi Shahab al-Din Abu Hafs Umar al-Suhrawardi ( – 1234) was a Persian Sufi and nephew of Abu al-Najib Suhrawardi. He expanded the Sufi order of Suhrawardiyya that had been created by his uncle Abu al-Najib Suhrawardi, and is the person responsibl ...

expanded the order. His name is also sometimes transcribed as ''Diya al-din Abu 'n-Najib as-Suhrawardi''.

References

Iranian Sufis 12th-century Muslim scholars of Islam 1097 births 1168 deaths 12th-century Iranian people Founders of Sufi orders Iranian Muslim mystics {{Iran-academic-bio-stub

See also

References