Budasaf

Budasaf, a figure from whom the books of history relate reports. Al-Mas'udi says that he was the first to show the doctrines of the Sabians. He went out as an Indian from the land of India to Sind, then Sistan and Zabulistan, then Kirman. He says that he prophesied and claimed to be the Messenger of God ﷺ and the intermediary between Him and His creation. ²

He arrived in the land of Persia at the beginning of the reign of Tahmuras, and it is said in the reign of Jam. He ordered people to renounce this world and occupy themselves with what is higher of the worlds, because the beginning of souls is from there. Al-Mas'udi attributes to him the renewal of the worship of idols by tricks. He says that some transmitters read on the gate of the Nawbahar at Balkh a book in Persian in which Budasaf says that the doors of kings need reason, patience and wealth, and beneath it an Arabic denial of this. ²

Ibn al-Nadim calls him the prophet of the Samaniyya, and says that most of the people of Transoxiana were of his doctrine before Islam. ³