Overview

Lake Khwarazm: a lake surrounded by wastelands. al-Idrisi reports that its circuit is about three hundred miles, that rivers flow into it, and that it lies about eighteen stages from the sea. ²

Najm al-Din al-Khuyuqi

Shaykh Najm al-Din Abu al-Janab al-Khuyuqi, Ahmad ibn Umar ibn Muhammad, the ascetic Sufi and hadith scholar, shaykh of Khwarazm, known as al-Kubra. He travelled the lands on foot and on horseback and met shaykhs beyond counting. He took the Nahrajuriyya Sufi cloak from Shaykh Isma'il al-Qasri and, for blessing, the Suhrawardiyya cloak from Shaykh Abu Nasr Ammar ibn Yasir. As a boy he outstripped his peers in grasping problems and obscurities, so they called him 'the Great Calamity'; as the usage became common they dropped 'Calamity' and kept 'the Great'. He heard hadith at Hamadhan from al-Hafiz Abu al-Ala and at Alexandria from al-Silafi. He devoted himself to the Shafi'i school and to tafsir, and wrote a tafsir in twelve volumes. Fakhr al-Din al-Razi met him and acknowledged his merit. He was a man of hadith and sunna, a refuge for strangers, of great standing, who feared no blame in God's cause. Ibn al-Ahdal says he was martyred at Khwarazm in the Tatar troubles. When they came, the shaykh gathered about sixty of his companions and told them to leave, for a fire had come out of the east spreading toward the west, a great turmoil the like of which had not befallen this community. They said, 'Pray that it be lifted.' He said, 'This is a decree that prayer cannot avert.' They said, 'Come with us.' He said, 'I am to be killed here,' and his companions left. When the unbelievers entered the city, the shaykh and the companions who remained called out, 'Prayer, to the congregation!', then said, 'Rise, let us fight in the way of God.' He put on his master's cloak and charged the enemy. They pelted him with stones and shot arrows at him, and an arrow struck his chest. He pulled it out and threw it toward the sky as the blood gushed, saying, 'If you will, kill me by union or by separation.' Then he died and was buried in his ribat.

Lake of Khwarazm

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Najm al-Din al-Khuyuqi