Bayazid Bastami

Common card · No. 283751

Bāyazīd Basṭāmī, (d. 875), commonly known as the Sultān-ul-Ārifīn (King of Those Who Know) was a Persian Sufi who became famous for his bold articulation of fanāʾ–the Sufi notion of self-annhilation. Abu Ali al-Sindhi, a Hindu convert from Sindh, was one of the tutors of Bayazid al-Basṭāmī, and he taught him the concept of fanaa. Many "ecstatic utterances" (شطحات shatˤħāt) have been attributed to Basṭāmī, which lead to him being known as the "drunken" or "ecstatic" (Arabic: سُكْر, sukr) school of Islamic mysticism. Such utterance may be argued as Basṭāmī dying with mystical union and the deity speaking through his tongue. Bisṭāmī also claimed to have ascended through the seven heavens in his dream. His journey, known as the Mi'raj of Basṭāmī, is clearly patterned on the Mi'raj of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Basṭāmī is characterized in three different ways: a free thinking radical, a pious Sufi who is deeply concerned with following the shari'a and engaging in "devotions beyond the obligatory...

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