Baha' al-Din Naqshband (; 1318–1389) was the eponymous founder of what became one of the largest

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 ...

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 ...

orders, the

Naqshbandi Naqshbandi (Persian: نقشبندیه) is a major Sufi order within Sunni Islam, named after its 14th-century founder, Baha' al-Din Naqshband. Practitioners, known as Naqshbandis, trace their spiritual lineage (silsila) directly to the Prophet ...

Early life

Baha al-Din was born in March 1318 in the village of Qasr-i Hinduvan, near

Bukhara Bukhara ( ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan by population, with 280,187 residents . It is the capital of Bukhara Region. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara for at least five millennia, and t ...

. Like the majority of the region's sedentary population, Baha al-Din was a Tajik, i.e. a speaker of Persian and a participant in its culture. According ''

Encyclopædia Iranica ''Encyclopædia Iranica'' is a project whose goal is to create a comprehensive and authoritative English-language encyclopedia about the history, culture, and civilization of Iranian peoples from prehistory to modern times. Scope The ''Encyc ...

'', the texts that claim Baha al-Din was descended from the Islamic prophet

Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...

through

Ja'far al-Sadiq Ja'far al-Sadiq (; –765) was a Muslim hadith transmitter and the last agreed-upon Shia Imam between the Twelvers and Isma'ilis. Known by the title al-Sadiq ("The Truthful"), Ja'far was the eponymous founder of the Ja'fari school of Isla ...

(died 765), should be "treated with reserve". Early texts do not mention Baha al-Din's supposed ancestry to Muhammad, but they do imply that his teacher Amir Kulal (died 1370) was a descendant of Muhammad through

, which may suggest that their genealogies were later conflated. Annemarie Schimmel highlights the descent of Bahauddin from Hasan al-Askari, referring to Khwaja Mir Dard's family and "many nobles, from Bukhara; they led their pedigree back to Baha al-Din Naqshband, after whom the Naqshbandi order is named, and who was a descendant, in the 13th generation of the 11th imam al-Hasan al-Askari".Pain and Grace: A Study of Two Mystical Writers of Eighteenth-Century Muslim India” p.32, Annemarie Schimmel Three days after his birth, Baha al-Din was adopted as a spiritual son by Baba Mohammad Sammasi, a master of the Khwajagan, a Sufi order founded by Yusuf Hamadani (died 1140). Baha al-Din's paternal grandfather brought him to Sammasi, where he was the latter's '' murid'' (novice). Sammasi later entrusted Baha al-Din's training to his distinguished student Amir Kulal.

Career

Early texts do not mention how Baha al-Din gained the nickname "Naqshband", nor its meaning. An agreement was later partly reached that it referred to the ''naqsh'' (imprint) of the name of

Allah Allah ( ; , ) is an Arabic term for God, specifically the God in Abrahamic religions, God of Abraham. Outside of the Middle East, it is principally associated with God in Islam, Islam (in which it is also considered the proper name), althoug ...

that is embedded in the heart through constant prayer. In Bukhara, Baha al-Din became its

patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy or Oriental Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, fa ...

and was commonly referred to as "Khwaja Bala-gardan" by its inhabitants. Some historians agree that the original Naqshbandi had a particularly Iranian or Khurasanian attitude, which according to ''Encyclopædia Iranica'' is supported by the fact that Baha al-Din was surrounded by a company of urban dwellers who mostly spoke Tajik. However, the Naqshbandi had been influenced by Turkic Sufi order, the Yasawiyya. Three generations after Baha al-Din's death, the Naqshbandi started receiving support among the Turkic inhabitants of

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

, thus displaying an all-inclusive appeal. Baha al-Din died on 2 March 1389 in Qasr-i Hinduvan, which was later renamed Qasr-i Arifan out of respect to him.

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Early life

Career

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Further reading