Abu Nasr al-Sarraj al-Tusi

Abu Nasr 'Abd Allah ibn 'Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Yahya al-Sarraj al-Tusi, the Sufi, author of Kitab al-Luma' fi al-Tasawwuf, was from Tus. ¹ Nicholson, in the introduction to his edition of the book, says little material exists for his biography and the oldest Sufi biographies pass him over, so he transcribes the notice of him in al-Dhahabi's Ta'rikh al-Islam from manuscript. ^{3 1}

In the passage Nicholson quotes from al-Dhahabi, al-Sarraj composed Kitab al-Luma' fi al-Tasawwuf, heard Ja'far al-Khuldi, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Dawud al-Duqqi and Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Sa'ih, and was transmitted from by Abu Sa'id Muhammad ibn 'Ali al-Naqqash, 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad al-Sarraj and others. ¹ Al-Dhahabi quotes al-Sulami as saying he came of a family of ascetics, was looked up to in his region for chivalry (futuwwa), and was "the tongue of the Sufis, with mastery of the knowledge of the law"; he died in Rajab, and his father died while prostrating. ¹ Nicholson also quotes al-Sakhawi: "he followed the way of the Sunna". ¹ He sums this up as: a zealous Sunni, grounded in the religious law, whom the Sufis regarded as an authoritative exponent of their doctrine. ¹

He died in Rajab 378 AH, which Nicholson gives as October-November 988. ² Nicholson notes that the sources differ on where he died: al-Nujum al-Zahira says he died at Nishapur while praying, while Nafahat al-Uns says he was buried at Tus. ² Among the stories the Persian biographies tell, as Nicholson relates them, are that he was called "the Peacock of the Poor", and that he came to Baghdad in Ramadan, was given a room in the Shuniziyya mosque, recited the whole Qur'an five times in the night prayers, and left untouched the thirty loaves brought to him. ² Nicholson rejects the claim that he saw Sari al-Saqati and Sahl al-Tustari as impossible, and says the Luma' does not bear out the claim that he was a pupil of Abu Muhammad al-Murta'ish. ²

Nicholson infers from the Luma' that al-Sarraj travelled widely, since it records his meetings with Sufis in Basra, Baghdad, Damascus, Ramla, Antioch, Tyre, Tripoli, al-Rahba, Cairo, Damietta, Bistam, Tustar and Tabriz. ⁴ He says the only pupil of his who became eminent was Abu al-Fadl ibn al-Hasan of Sarakhs, later the shaykh of Abu Sa'id ibn Abi al-Khayr. ⁴

Al-Sarraj wrote the Luma' in answer to a questioner, to show that the principles of Sufism are bound to following the Book and imitating the Prophet ﷺ and the Companions. ⁵ Among the things he tells of himself is a debate in Basra with Ibn Salim, who declared Abu Yazid al-Bistami an unbeliever for saying "Glory be to me"; al-Sarraj argued that the words may be a report of God's speech, and said that he went to Bistam and asked Abu Yazid's family, who denied the story. ^{6 7} This is a Sufi position that al-Sarraj reports on a question about which scholars differed.