Abu al-Najib al-Suhrawardi

Abu'l-Najib al-Suhrawardi 'Abd al-Qahir ibn 'Abdallah, of Suhraward near Zanjan; the Sufi exemplar, preacher and Shafi'i jurist, he came to Baghdad and heard 'Ali ibn Nabhan and others, and was the imam of the Shafi'is and the mark of the Sufis, styled "mufti of the two Iraqs, exemplar of the two communities"; he expounded the states of the Sufis, mastered the madhhab, gave fatwas, debated and transmitted hadith. ²

Turning to practice he accompanied Shaykh Hammad al-Dabbas and Ahmad al-Ghazali, built a ribat and a madrasa at Baghdad and taught at the Nizamiyya for two years; his ribat became a refuge where those who feared the caliph could shelter. In 557 he set out for Syria to visit Jerusalem but the truce broke, so he stayed at Damascus where al-Malik al-'Adil Nur al-Din honoured him; back in Baghdad he died on Friday afternoon, 7 Jumada al-Akhira 563, and was buried the next morning in his madrasa — he had been born in Safar 490. ²