Abu Isma'il Abdullah b. Muhammad al-Ansari al-Harawi was born on 2 Sha'ban 396 (4 May 1006) in Herat and is renowned as "Pir-i Herat," a Hanbali Sufi, hadith scholar, and poet. He studied hadith under some three hundred scholars and was exiled several times for his strict Sunni stance, becoming celebrated for works such as Manazil al-sa'irin and Tabaqat al-sufiyya. He died in 481/1089 in Herat and was buried at Gazargah, about 5 km northeast of the city.