At this thread lets talk and share about Sufism, I will give some recommended Sufi and Sufism books that I like. I believe many young intellectuals Muslim are in this forum now, but by having quite high intellectual, will not make us become extraordinary in this world. There should be another knowledge that we pursuit to unleash our potential emotional strength that is promised by our God, ALLAH, in Quran. Sufism teaching is many, only the ones that doesn't contradict with Quran and Hadist that I recommend here.
(It is a part of Islamic History but it is more specific thread than the previous ones)
First lets us begin with this person:
Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī (
Arabic: الحكيم الترمذي), full name Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī al-Ḥanafī (d. ca. 910), not to be confused with the famous hadith master
Abū ʿĪsā al-Tirmidhī, was a Sunni jurist (
faqih) and traditionist (
muhaddith) of
Khorasan, but is mostly remembered as one of the great early authors of
Sufism. His full name is: Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin Ali bin Hasan bin Bashir (in some sources it is 'Bishr') Al Hakim At-Termizi. He is locally known as At-
Termizi or
Termiz Ota ("Father of Termiz city").
Information about his life and scientific and creative activities can be found in the works by Taj ad-Din Subki (Tabakat Ash-Shafii'yya Al-kubro), Hatiba Baghdad (Tarih Baghdad), Ibn Hajara AskAlani (Lisan Al-Miyzan), Sulami (Tabakat As-Sufiyya) and in a number of other treatises.
Al Hakim At-Termizi speaks about his life in his book
Bad'u Shaani Abu Abdullah ("The Beginning of Abu Abdullah's Pursuit"), published in
Beirut in 1965 by Yakh'ya Ismail Usman, together with the work of the scientist in
Hatm Al-Avliya ("Seal of the Saints").
Life
Tirmidhi was apparently born between 820 and 830 AD in
Termez, Khorasan. His father was a scholar of
hadith and a jurist; his early education appears to have been very orthodox. He was reared as a scholar of
hadith and
fiqh (law), more specifically, the
Hanafi school of law that was dominant in eastern territories of Islam. The range of Tirmidhi's education did not include the non-Islamic sciences, such as Greek natural science and philosophy. His subsequent reference to learning the use of the astrolabe, implying a knowledge of astronomy and mathematics, has been given different interpretations. "There is no trace of influence from 'natural science' in his writings." However, his general pursuit of knowledge gained him the name of "
al-hakim" (the sage). He renounced his use of the astrolabe after being told to do so in a dream to which he attached significance.
[1]
Early years
Different dates are used in written sources and present literature to indicate Al Hakim At-Termizi's date of birth and death. Some authors, Khwaja Khalif in particular, in his
Kashf as-Zunun, give the year 255 in Hijra / 869 AD as Al Hakim At-Termizi's date of death. The same date was written on Al Hakim At-Termizi's tomb. If we proceed from the fact that Al Hakim At-Termizi lived more than one hundred years, some sources say 112, 116 or 120 years, he was born approximately between 750–760 AD. At the same time, Abdulfattah Abdullah Baraka who wrote his great "Al Hakim At-Termizi and Nazariyyatukhu fil" ("Al Hakim At-Termizi and his theory") thirty years ago, said that Al Hakim At-Termizi, was born in 205 in Hijri / 820 and died in 320 in Hijri / 932 and lived 112 years.
Detailed information about Al Hakim At-Termizi's childhood and youth is not available in the sources. According to his "autobiography", he started learning religious sciences when he was eight, and he made a
Hajj to
Mecca when he was twenty-eight.
Later life
Returning from Mecca, Al Hakim At-Termizi became a
Sufi follower; he withdrew from people and learned treaties. His father Ali bin Hassan was a leading scholar, a
Hadith specialist, who, looking for knowledge, went to
Baghdad and took an active part in scientific discussions with prominent scholars of the time on various problems of Hadith. His mother and uncle were considered to be experts of
Hadith. Consequently Al Hakim At-Termizi grew up in the circle of educated and scientific people, which influenced greatly on his ideology.
Some written sources contain reliable information about Al Hakim At-Termizi's teachers. His teacher was his father Ali bin Al-Hassan At Termizi "History of Baghdad" by Khatib Al-Bagdhadi contains some information. Among his other teachers were Kutaiba bin Sayid as-Sakafi Al- Balkhi (798-888 AD), Salih bin Abdullah At-Termizi of much interesting facts had been written in the book "Books about Famous People" by Ibn Khibbana; Salih bin Muhammad At-Termizi who was former qazi of Termiz for some time, Sufyan bin Vaki (died in 860), Hassan bin Umar bin Shafiq Al- Balkhi (died in 840 AD), Ahmad bin Khadravayh (died in 854 AD), Abu Turab An-Nakhshabi (link), and Yahya bin Maaz Ar-Razi (died in 875 AD).
Based on data given in the written sources characterize Al Hakim At-Termizi's life and his long life can be divided into the following periods:
- The first period includes Al Hakim At-Termizi's childhood up to seven. Unfortunately we do not have exact information about this part of his life. But nevertheless, one can say that unlike the children of his age he displayed ability at this age to various games, as if he prepared himself to the future scientific life, he worked hard with his teachers, obtained knowledge on various sciences (particularly on theology) and got ready to mystic spiritual life.
- The second period embraces Al Hakim At-Termizi's life from eight to twenty eight, when he received knowledge from different teachers (sheikhs). For knowledge he visited other oriental cities, was in Mecca and made a pilgrimage. Some sources pointed to the fact that he paid much attention to learning Hadith and problems of fiqh in this period of his life.
- The third period of his life is related to learning the Qur'an thoroughly. He assimilated by deep God's words, their essence, fasting, praying and pious deeds and so on. The philosophic mystic work by Al-Antahi "Healing of Hearts" had a great influence on him.
Al Hakim At-Termizi had many of students, including: Abu Muhammad Yahya bin Mansur Al-Kadi (died in 960 AD), Abu Ali Mansur bin Abdullah bin Khalid Al-Zuhli Al Hiravi; Abu Ali Al-Hassan bin Ali Al-Jurjani. He also taught Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Isa, Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn Umar Al-Al Hakim Al-Varrak, Muhammad bin Jaafar bin Muhammad bin Al-Haisam bin Umran bin Buraida, and others.
Al Hakim At-Termizi's scientific and creative activity is closely connected with his travels to other countries and cities. He visited
Balkh,
Nishapur, and
Baghdad, where science and culture reached its zenith, and he met famous scholars and took part in discussions. Nevertheless
Termiz, his native city played an important role in his scientific and creative activity, and there he created his basic works. His sermons and as well as some works, first of all,
Hatam Al-Avliya (Seal of Saints),
Hal Ash-Shari'a (Arguments of the Islamic Law) in which are discussed
Muslim rituals, about "love for God" and about various categories of mystics, about "the Seals of Saints", along with existing "Seals of Prophets", had dissatisfied some parts of the
falikh and rich. Escaping from his enemies' chase, Al Hakim At-Termizi had to move to
Balkh and then to
Nishapur, where he was very well accepted and where he obtained a large number of followers later.
Works
According to Radtke and O'Kane, "he is the first and, up until the time of Ibn al-Arabi, the only mystic author whose writings present a broad synthesis of mystic experience, anthropology, cosmology and Islamic theology... Tirmidhi's system of thought is representative of an old Islamic theosophy which had not yet consciously assimilated elements from the Aristotelian-Neoplatonic philosophic tradition."
[2]
Different figures on the number of Al Hakim At-Termizi's works are mentioned in the written sources. Some authors say that the number of his work reaches four hundred. But the majority of authors tend to think that about eighty works belong to him. The famous Egyptian scholar Abdelfattah Abdulla Baraka writes that out of four hundred works by Al Hakim At-Termizi only about sixty had reached us. Though many works were lost, the most important ones that contain the great scholar's basic teachings, which comprise his scientific and spiritual legacy have been preserved (2).
The first work that must be mentioned is
Navodir Al-Usul fi Ma'rifat Akhbor Ar-Rasul ("Unique Principles of Learning about RasulAllah - the Messenger of God"). It consists of 291
Hadith, and that to some extent it reflects the author's points of view, his outlook, his understanding the world. One copy of
Navadir Al-Usul is kept in Tashkent, in the library of Muslim Board of Uzbekistan.
Other works of the scholar are:
Khaqiyqat Al-Odamiyya Sahi btao? ("Book about the Nature of a Man"),
Adab an-Nafs ("Bringing up the Soul"). The majority of the works of Al Hakim At-Termizi reached us in the form of manuscripts and they are kept in different manuscript funds of the world. Conditionally they may be divided into five groups: manuscripts that are kept in Paris, Cairo, Damascus, Alexandria, Istanbul and London. The following works by Al Hakim At-Termizi are kept in the National Library of Paris (under ISBN 5018 in the Arab department):
- Kitab as-Salat va Makasidiha (A Book about Prayer and its Aims)
- Kitab Al-Hajj va Asrarihi (A Book about Pilgrimage and its Secrets)
- Kitab Al-Ihtiyatot (A Book about Precautions)
- Kitab Al-Jumal Al-Lazim Ma'rifitiha (A Book about Sentences that Should be Known)
Muhammad ibn `Ali at-Tirmidhi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
