Shaykh 'Adi ibn Musafir al-Hakkari

Shaykh 'Adi ibn Musafir al-Hakkari was a Sufi of Umayyad descent from Bayt Far near Baalbek. He founded the 'Adawiyya order at Laylash near Mosul, and his Kurdish followers venerated his tomb.

The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.), signed A. S. Tritton, describes him as a Sufi who met 'Aqil al-Manbiji, Hammad al-Dabbas, 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jili, Abu 'l-Wafa' al-Hulwani and Abu Muhammad al-Shanbaki. He settled at Laylash near Mosul, apparently before 505/1111, built a convent there and started the 'Adawiyya order, whose rule was so severe that many Sufi leaders could not follow it. He is said to have been the first to train novices. His creed is orthodox and opposed to the Mu'tazila and to innovations, and as a Sufi he resembled al-Ghazali. Ibn Taymiyya calls him a pious follower of the sunna. He died in 557/1162, or a year or two either side. ¹

A Christian legend has him a Kurd, whose father tended a monastery's flocks, who massacred the monks in the abbot's absence and seized the building, and who was executed at Maragha in 619/1221. Since Shaykh 'Adi had no children, the headship passed to the sons of his brother Sakhr, or, in another version, to the descendants of Hasan al-Bawwab, whom he adopted. The order was confined mainly to the Kurds. Hasan b. 'Adi was put to death in 644/1246 by Badr al-Din Lu'lu' of Mosul, and six years later Lu'lu' burned the bones of the Shaykh. In 817/1414 a lawyer stirred up the orthodox, who destroyed the tomb and burned the bones of the Shaykh in the presence of his followers, called here Suhbatiyya. The article notes that the relation between the historical Shaykh 'Adi and the religion of the Yazidis needs separate study. ²