A Digital Atlas of Sacred Geography
1004 records · Page 3/42
Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi (b. 1236 Kazerun – d. 1311 Tabriz) was a Persian polymath and philosopher who contributed to astronomy, mathematics, medicine, physics, music theory, philosophy and Sufism. He is noted for astronomical work improving on Ptolemy's planetary models and for his medical commentary on Avicenna's Canon. He died in Tabriz and was buried in the city's Charandab cemetery.
An Ansari companion of the Prophet renowned for his learning and asceticism, whose piety the Prophet praised (d. 32/652). Initially a merchant, after embracing Islam he devoted himself to worship and knowledge (TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, "Ebü'd-Derdâ"). Under Caliph Umar he was appointed the first judge and Qur'an teacher of Damascus, known as the "reciter of Damascus," his study circles reaching thousands. He died in Damascus and was buried in the Bab al-Saghir cemetery (TDV; sonpeygamber.info). Note: the tombs in Eyüp and Üsküdar are symbolic maqams; his actual grave is in Damascus (transparency note).
A Sufi who, after affiliating with Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi and serving many years in Baghdad, returned to his native Shiraz where he carried out spiritual guidance at his lodge. He is regarded as the founder of the Buzghushiyya (Najibiyya) branch of the Suhrawardiyya order. He died in 678 (1279) in Shiraz and was succeeded by his son Abd al-Rahman (d. 716/1316).
Full name Abu Muhammad Sadr al-Din Ruzbihan b. Abi'n-Nasr al-Baqli; born in Fasa in the Fars region of Iran, he was a Persian Sufi, scholar and poet known as 'Shaykh-i Shattah' for his famous ecstatic utterances. He founded the Ruzbihaniyya order at his ribat in Shiraz, continuing the Khafifiyya line tracing back to Ibn Khafif. He died in 606 (1209) in Shiraz.
Abu Bakr Najm al-Din Daya Abdullah b. Muhammad al-Razi, born in Rey in 573/1177, was a Kubrawi Sufi and Qur'an exegete. He presented his celebrated work Mirsad al-'ibad to Sultan Alaeddin Keykubad in Sivas in 1223, playing a key role in bringing the Kubrawiyya to Anatolia. He spent his final thirty years in Baghdad, where he died in 654/1256 and was buried in the Shuniziyya Cemetery beside the tombs of Junayd al-Baghdadi and Sari al-Saqati.
Abu'l-Qasim Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr al-Siddiq was the son of the first caliph Abu Bakr, born during the Farewell Pilgrimage (10/632) near Dhu'l-Hulayfa. Appointed governor of Egypt under Caliph Ali, he was defeated in the conflict against the forces of Mu'awiya and Amr ibn al-As. In Safar 38 AH (July 658), while fleeing Fustat, he was captured and killed by Mu'awiya ibn Hudayj, and his body was reportedly sewn into a donkey's hide and burned. Because his corpse was burned, his grave is disputed: sources report he was buried outside Fustat, while some hold that only his head was later interred at the site now known as the Zimam Mosque. He is a companion-era figure martyred in Egypt whose maqam is visited there. Sources: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi "Muhammed b. Ebû Bekir"; Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi'l-tarikh; Wikidata (Q1112754).
Sayyida Fatima al-Nabawiyya was a daughter of al-Husayn ibn Ali and a member of the Ahl al-Bayt. She was esteemed as a scholar of jurisprudence and hadith and, because she took orphans into her care, was known as "the mother of orphans." Her shrine (mashhad) stands in the El-Darb El-Ahmar quarter of Cairo, in an alley bearing her name; it was established by Amir Abd al-Rahman Katkhuda and later renovated by Abbas Pasha. As is common with Ahl al-Bayt maqams, whether this is an actual grave or only a commemorative station, and even her date of death, are disputed and not settled by the sources (differing years such as 110 and 145 AH are cited). It remains one of the most venerated Ahl al-Bayt visitation sites in Cairo's spiritual geography. Sources: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi (Ahl al-Bayt / Cairo shrines); Arabic Wikipedia "السيدة فاطمة النبوية"; Mazarat Misr.
A Khorasani Sufi born in the village of Kharaqan north of Bastam, renowned for his ecstatic utterances (shathiyyat). He is regarded as an Uwaysi heir to the spiritual path of Bayazid al-Bistami and deeply influenced later Sufis including Attar and Rumi. He died on 10 Muharram 425 (5 December 1033).
Sheikh Abu Ishaq Kazaruni (Sheikh Murshid; 963–1035) was a great Persian Sufi, founder of the Kazaruniyya (Ishaqiyya/Murshidiyya) order. His order spread east to India and China and west to Anatolia and Baghdad; the Ishaqi dervishes in Anatolia and the Abu Ishaq lodge in Edirne attest to this legacy. After his death he was buried in his lodge, the Ivan-e Morshedi, in the Kuzehgaran (Ganj-Abad) quarter of Kazerun.
Founder of the Rifa'iyya Sufi order and a major mystic (1118–1182). Born in the village of Umm Ubayda near Wasit in southern Iraq, he descended from a sayyid family tracing lineage to Husayn ibn Ali (TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, "Ahmed er-Rifâî"). He studied the Islamic sciences and Sufism under leading masters of his age and was renowned for his asceticism, humility and compassion. His mausoleum at Umm Ubayda is a major pilgrimage site, visited by Ibn Battuta in 1326 (Wikipedia, "Mausoleum of Ahmad al-Rifa'i").
Abu'l-Makarim Rukn al-Din Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Simnani was born in 659/1261 in the village of Sufiabad near Semnan into a prominent family tied to the Ilkhanids. After renouncing court life he joined the Kubrawiyya tradition and founded its Rukniyya branch, becoming known for his critique of Ibn al-Arabi's doctrine of the unity of being. He died in 736/1336 and was buried in the Ahrar burial ground in his native Sufiabad.
Bakkar ibn Qutayba was a Hanafi jurist and hadith scholar born in Basra in 182 AH (798 CE), who studied law under Hilal ibn Yahya, a pupil of Abu Yusuf. He was appointed chief judge (qadi) of Egypt by the Abbasid Caliph al-Mutawakkil in 246 AH (860 CE) and held the office for more than twenty years. When the Tulunid ruler Ahmad ibn Tulun demanded that he endorse the removal of the heir al-Muwaffaq from the caliphal succession, Bakkar refused and was imprisoned, yet he continued to transmit hadith even from his cell. He died in Cairo in 270 AH (884 CE), roughly forty days after Ibn Tulun's death, and his tomb in the Qarafa Cemetery of Cairo remains a site of visitation. Among his students was the great Hanafi scholar Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi. Sources: TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi ("Bekkâr b. Kuteybe"; "Tolunoğulları"); Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat al-a'yan.
Abu Muhammad 'Izz al-Din 'Abd al-'Aziz ibn 'Abd al-Salam al-Sulami al-Dimashqi, born in Damascus in 577 AH (1181 CE), was a leading Shafi'i jurist, Qur'anic exegete and theologian. He earned the honorifics "Sultan al-'Ulama" (Sultan of the Scholars) and "Shaykh al-Islam", the former bestowed by his student Ibn Daqiq al-'Id. After teaching at the Umayyad Mosque and the Aziziyya Madrasa in Damascus, he moved to Egypt, where he served as a judge, taught at the Salihiyya Madrasa, and preached at the Mosque of 'Amr ibn al-'As. He authored around forty works on jurisprudence, legal theory, exegesis and theology, and was renowned for his courageous stance against innovations and unjust rule. He died in Cairo on 9 Jumada al-Ula 660 AH (1 April 1262 CE) and was buried in the Qarafa Cemetery. Sources: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi "İzzeddin b. Abdüsselâm"; English Wikipedia "Al-Izz ibn Abd al-Salam"; Wikidata.
Abu'l-Mahasin Jamal al-Din Yusuf ibn Abdullah ibn Umar al-Ajami al-Kurani (al-Gurani) was a great Sufi shaykh renowned for his asceticism, scrupulousness, and piety. He is remembered as the one who revived the path of Junayd al-Baghdadi in Egypt after it had faded, and his order's chain of transmission connects to the Zayniyya and Suhrawardiyya. He secluded himself in a retreat within the Qarafa (Imam al-Shafi'i) Cemetery of Cairo, established numerous lodges, trained many deputies, and authored a treatise on the method of dhikr titled 'Rayhanat al-qulub fi al-tawassul ila al-mahbub'. He died in Cairo in the month of Jumada al-Ula 768 AH (1367 CE) and was buried at his lodge in the Qarafa Cemetery, where his tomb remains a site of visitation. Sources: TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi ("Zeyniyye"; "Sühreverdiyye"); al-Sha'rani, al-Tabaqat al-Kubra.
Abu Amr Ashhab ibn Abd al-Aziz al-Qaysi was a student of Imam Malik and, after Ibn al-Qasim, was recognized as the leading authority of the Maliki school in Egypt. He studied under some twenty hadith scholars including Malik ibn Anas, al-Layth ibn Sa'd, Ibn Wahb, and Sufyan ibn Uyayna, while scholars such as Sahnun, al-Harith ibn Miskin, and Ibn al-Mawwaz learned fiqh and hadith from him. He was considered a reliable transmitter of Malik's narrations, and his legal opinions were cited as evidence in Maliki works written during and after his lifetime. Having briefly served as a scribe in Egypt's land-tax administration and known for his generosity, he died in Cairo on 22 Sha'ban 204 AH (11 February 820 CE) and was buried in the al-Qarafa al-Sughra cemetery near the tomb of Ibn al-Qasim. Sources: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi "Eşheb el-Kaysî"; Wikidata Q12179848.
Abu Yahya Zayn al-Din Zakariyya ibn Muhammad al-Ansari al-Khazraji was born around 823/1420 in the town of Sunayka in the Sharqiyya province of Egypt and became the foremost Shafi'i jurist and Qur'an exegete of his era. He studied under more than 150 scholars, including Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, al-Bulqini, Ibn al-Humam and al-Mahalli, served as head teacher at al-Azhar, and held the office of Shafi'i chief judge (qadi al-qudat) from 886/1481. He authored over fifty works in jurisprudence, exegesis, hadith, Sufism and Arabic grammar, and his students included Ibn Hajar al-Haytami, al-Shirbini and al-Sha'rani. He died in Cairo on 3 Dhu al-Hijja 926 (14 November 1520) and was buried in the Qarafa cemetery (Cairo necropolis) near the tomb of Imam al-Shafi'i. Sources: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi "Zekeriyyâ el-Ensârî"; English Wikipedia "Zakariyya al-Ansari"; Wikidata Q4117458.
Abu'l-Fath al-Wasiti was an Iraqi-born Sufi who served as a khalifa (deputy) of Ahmad al-Rifa'i, the founder of the Rifa'i order. He was dispatched by al-Rifa'i to Egypt, settling in Alexandria to propagate the Rifa'i path, and through him the Rifa'iyya became the first Sufi order to be organized in Egypt. He delivered his teachings at the Attarin Mosque in Alexandria, where he trained his followers in the principles of the order. Sources record that he was the maternal grandfather of Ibrahim al-Dusuqi, and some accounts state that Abu'l-Hasan al-Shadhili also benefited from his guidance. He died in Alexandria in 632 AH (1234-35 CE) and was buried in a shrine located near the tomb of the Companion Abu al-Darda'. Sources: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi ("Rifâiyye"; "Ahmed er-Rifâî"); Arabic Wikipedia "أبو الفتح الواسطي"; Marefa Encyclopedia.
Abd al-Karim b. Hawazin al-Qushayri was born in Rabi' al-Awwal 376 (July 986) in the Ustuwa region near Nishapur; he was a Sufi and a scholar of theology, Qur'anic exegesis, hadith, and jurisprudence. A student of Abu 'Ali al-Daqqaq and al-Sulami, he became a leading intellectual authority in Seljuk-era Nishapur. He authored the famous er-Risala, a foundational text framing Sufism within orthodox Sunni theology, and died in Nishapur in 465/1072.
Ali ibn Muhammad Wafa (Ali Wafa al-Shādhilī, d. 807/1405) was the son of Muhammad Wafa, founder of the Wafā'iyya order, and was himself a Sufi master and poet. Born in Cairo in 759/1358, he was only a small child when his father died and assumed leadership of the order in adulthood. In his final years he made his house in the Rawda district of Cairo the center of the order, leading Friday prayers for his disciples and giving them private discourses. Known for his Divan and works such as al-Waṣāyā and Mafātīḥ al-khazāʾin al-ʿaliyya, he is regarded as a powerful mystical poet whose verses were compared to those of Ibn al-Fāriḍ; the doctrine of the seal of sainthood and the cyclical theory he developed with his father are seen as turning points in the Akbarian tradition. Like his father he was buried in the shrine-mosque of the Sādāt al-Wafā'iyya in Cairo. Sources: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi ("Ali Vefâ eş-Şâzelî"), Richard McGregor, Sanctity and Mysticism in Medieval Egypt (SUNY Press, 2004).
Sayyida Aisha is, according to popular tradition, a daughter of the sixth Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq and a member of the Ahl al-Bayt descended from Ali; she is said to have died in 145 AH (762 CE). Her tomb lies in the Mosque and Mausoleum of Sayyida Aisha near Salah al-Din Square in Islamic Cairo, one of the most visited shrines in that district. The site began as a small domed shrine over her grave; Saladin later added an adjoining madrasa, and the present mosque was rebuilt in 1971. Note transparently: the TDV Islamic Encyclopedia's article on Ja'far al-Sadiq does not list a daughter named Aisha among his children, so the shrine's attribution rests on popular tradition — a common feature of Cairo's Ahl al-Bayt maqams, whose attributions are frequently disputed. Sources: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi "Ca'fer es-Sâdık"; English Wikipedia "Sayeda Aisha Mosque"; Wikidata Q12204252; Egypt State Information Service.
Muhammad Wafa (d. 765/1363) was a Sufi born in Alexandria who founded the Wafā'iyya branch of the Shādhiliyya order. After a period in Akhmim in Upper Egypt he settled in Cairo, guiding disciples from the Rawda (Manyal) district on the Nile. Together with his son Ali he developed a cyclical theory of history and a doctrine of the seal of sainthood (khatm al-awliyā') that brought the Akbarian tradition of Ibn 'Arabī into the Shādhilī framework, marking the order's chief departure from mainstream Shādhiliyya. He was buried in the shrine-mosque of the Sādāt al-Wafā'iyya at the foot of the Muqattam near the mausoleum of Imam al-Shāfi'ī, which became the burial complex of the Wafā family and the center of the order. Sources: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi ("Ali Vefâ eş-Şâzelî", "Vefâiyye"), Richard McGregor, Sanctity and Mysticism in Medieval Egypt (SUNY Press, 2004).
Abu Muhammad Abdullah ibn Abd al-Hakam ibn A'yan al-Misri al-Maliki was born in 150 AH (767 CE) in Alexandria and became the foremost Maliki jurist of Egypt. Having received Imam Malik's law and legal methodology from three great Egyptian scholars — Ibn al-Qasim, Ibn Wahb, and Ashhab al-Qaysi — he succeeded Ashhab as the leading mufti of the Maliki school in Egypt. He authored a biography of the caliph Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz and three legal compendia (al-Mukhtasar al-kabir with some 18,000 issues, al-awsat, and al-saghir), and was the patriarch of the family that produced the historian Ibn Abd al-Hakam through his sons Muhammad, Abd al-Rahman, Abd al-Hakam, and Sa'd. He died in Ramadan 214 AH (November 829 CE) in Cairo and was buried beside the grave of Imam al-Shafi'i in the Qarafa cemetery (Ibn Hibban gives 213 AH). Sources: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi "İbn Abdülhakem, Abdullah" (vol. 19, pp. 276–277); Qadi Iyad, Tartib al-madarik.
Abu Abd Allah Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Qasim al-Utaqi, known as Ibn al-Qasim, was among the foremost jurists of the Maliki school and the closest students of Imam Malik. He kept the company of Malik in Medina for roughly twenty years, learning fiqh directly from him until Malik's death. His transmission of the Muwatta is regarded as the soundest, and his teachings and legal opinions were later compiled by Sahnun into al-Mudawwana al-kubra, which became the foundational source of Maliki jurisprudence after the Muwatta. He died in Egypt on 9 Safar 191 AH (25 December 806 CE), shortly after returning from the Hajj, and was buried in the al-Qarafa al-Sughra cemetery in Cairo. Sources: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi "İbnülkasım"; English Wikipedia "Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Qasim al-Utaqi".
Sayyid Shah Jamal-ud-din Naqvi Bukhari, popularly known as Baba Shah Jamal, was a Sufi saint who lived in Lahore during the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar. He was affiliated with the Qadiri, Suhrawardi and Chishti traditions. His shrine in the Ichhra neighbourhood of Lahore remains a living pilgrimage site, famous for its Thursday-night dhamaal (devotional trance) gatherings.
