Bayazid Bistami, Persian Sufi Expositor of the State of Fana -- The Notion of Dying in Mystical Union with God

 Bistami, Bayazid

"The thing we tell of can never be found by seeking, yet only seekers find it."  (08/26/2022)

8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Bayazid Bastami
Cover from a lacquer mirror case with multiple scenes, attributed to Mohammad Esmail Esfahani; the top scene depicts Bayazid Bastami and disciples. Created in Qajar Iran in the second half of the 19th century
Born	804 CE Bastam, Qumis region, Abbasid Caliphate (modern Bastam, Semnan Province, Iran)
Died	874 CE[2] bastam, Kumis area, Abbasid Caliphate (Present-day Semnan province of Iran)
Era	Abbasid Era, (Islamic Golden Age)
Region	Western Asia
School	Sunni[1]
Main interests	Mysticism, Philosophy
Notable ideas	Sukr

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Bayazīd Ṭayfūr bin ʿĪsā bin Surūshān al-Bisṭāmī (al-Basṭāmī) (d. 261/874–5 or 234/848–9),^[3] commonly known in the Iranian world as Bāyazīd Basṭāmī (Persian: بایزید بسطامی), was a Persian^[4][5][6][7] Sufi from north-central Iran.^[5][8] Known to future Sufis as Sultān-ul-Ārifīn ("King of the Gnostics"), Bisṭāmī is considered to be one of the expositors of the state of fanā, the notion of dying in mystical union with Allah.^[9] Bastami was famous for "the boldness of his expression of the mystic’s complete absorption into the mysticism."^[10] Many "ecstatic utterances" (شطحات shatˤħāt) have been attributed to Bisṭāmī, which lead to him being known as the "drunken" or "ecstatic" (Arabic: سُكْر, sukr) school of Islamic mysticism. Such utterance may be argued as, Bisṭāmī died with mystical union and the deity is speaking through his tongue.^[9] Bisṭāmī also claimed to have ascended through the seven heavens in his dream. His journey, known as the Mi'raj of Bisṭāmī, is clearly patterned on the Mi'raj of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.^[9] Bisṭāmī is characterized in three different ways: a free thinking radical, a pious Sufi who is deeply concerned with following the shari'a and engaging in "devotions beyond the obligatory," and a pious individual who is presented as having a dream similar to the Mi'raj of Muhammed.^[11] The Mi'raj of Bisṭāmī seems as if Bisṭāmī is going through a self journey; as he ascends through each heaven, Bisṭāmī is gaining knowledge in how he communicates with the angels (e.g. languages and gestures) and the number of angels he encounters increases.

His grandfather Surūshān was born a Zoroastrian,^[12] an indication that Bastami had Persian heritage, despite the fact that his transmitted sayings are in Arabic. Very little is known about the life of Bastami, whose importance lies in his biographical tradition, since he left no written works. The early biographical reports portray him as a wanderer^[13] but also as the leader of teaching circles.^[14] The early biographers describe him as a mystic who dismissed excessive asceticism;^[15] but who was also scrupulous about ritual purity, to the point of washing his tongue before chanting God's names.^[16] He also appreciated the work of the great jurists.^[17] A measure that shows how influential his image remains in posterity is the fact that he is named in the lineage (silsila) of one of the largest Sufi brotherhoods today, the Naqshbandi order.^[18]

Background

[edit]

The name Bastami means "from Bastam". Bayazid's grandfather, Sorūshān, was a Zoroastrian who converted to Islam.^[19] His grandfather had three sons, who were named: Adam, İsa and Ali. All of them were ascetics. Bayazid was the son of İsa.^[20] Not much is known of Bayazid's childhood, but he spent most of his time isolated in his house, and the mosque. Although he remained in isolation from the material world, he did not isolate himself from the Sufi realm. He welcomed people into his house to discuss Islam. Like his father and uncles, Bayazid led a life of asceticism and renounced all worldly pleasures in order to be one with Allah The Exalted. Ultimately, this led Bayazid to a state of "self union" which, according to many Sufi orders, is the only state a person could be in order to attain unity with God.

Influence

[edit]

Bastami's predecessor Dhul-Nun al-Misri (d. CE 859) was a murid "initiate" as well.^[21] Al-Misri had formulated the doctrine of ma'rifa (gnosis), presenting a system which helped the murid and the sheikh (guide) to communicate. Bayazid Bastami took this a step further and emphasized the importance of religious ecstasy in Islam, referred to in his words as drunkenness (Sukr or wajd), a means of self-annihilation in the Divine Presence of the Creator. Before him, the Sufi path was mainly based on piety and obedience and he played a major role in placing the concept of divine love at the core of Sufism.

He was known to have studied with Shaqiq al-Balkhi when he was younger.

When Bayazid died, he was over seventy years old. Before he died, someone asked him his age. He said: "I am four years old. For seventy years, I was veiled. I got rid of my veils only four years ago."

Bayazid died in 874 CE and is likely buried in Bistam. There is also a shrine in Kirikhan, Turkey in the name of Bayazid Bastami.^[22] His corpus of writings is minimal when compared to his influence. His ascetic approach to religious studies emphasizes his sole devotion to the almighty.

Shrine in Chittagong, Bangladesh

[edit]

Further information: Shrine of Bayazid Bostami

Tomb of Bayazid Bastami in Bastam near Shahroud.

There is a Sufi shrine in Chittagong, Bangladesh, dating back to 850 AD, that is said to be Bastami's tomb. Although this may be unlikely, given the fact that Bastami was never known to have visited Bangladesh. However, Sufism spread throughout the Middle East, parts of Asia and Northern Africa, and many Sufi teachers where influenced in the spread of Islam in Bengal. Also, one local legend says that Bastami did visit Chattagong, which might explain the belief of the locals in Chittagong. Nevertheless, Islamic scholars usually attribute the tomb to Bayazid.^[23] While there is no recorded evidence of his visit to the region, Chittagong was a major port on the southern silk route connecting India, China and the Middle East, and the first Muslims to travel to China may have used the Chittagong-Burma-Sichuan trade route. Chittagong was a religious city and also a center of Sufism and Muslim merchants in the subcontinent since the 9th century, and it is possible that either Bayazid or his followers visited the port city around the middle of the 9th century.^[2]

Gallery

[edit]

• 
  Bayazid Bastami's shrine in Chittagong, Bangladesh
 
• 
  Interior of Bayazid's Mosque
 
• 
  Dome of Bayazid's Mosque
 
• 
  Carving of Bayazid's Mosque

Notes

[edit]

1. ^ 'by the certified Mr. T'
2. ^ Jump up to:^a b Abdul Karim (2012). "Bayejid Bostami". In Sirajul Islam; Jamal, Ahmed A. (eds.). Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.
3. ^ The Darvishes: Or Oriental Spiritualism By John Pair Brown, p. 141
4. ^ Irwin, Robert, ed. (2010). The new Cambridge history of Islam, Volume 4 (1. publ. ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-0-521-83824-5.
5. ^ Jump up to:^a b Walbridge, John. "Suhrawardi and Illumination" in "The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy" edited by Peter Adamson, Richard C. Taylor, Cambridge University Press, 2005. pg 206.
6. ^ Shaked, Shaul (August 20, 1999). "Quests and Visionary Journeys in Sasanian Iran". In Assmann, Jan; Stroumsa, Guy (eds.). Transformations of the Inner Self in Ancient Religions. BRILL. p. 71. ISBN 978-90-04-11356-5. Still earlier, in the short sayings of another great Muslim mystic of Persian origin, Abū Yazīd al-Bistāmī, written down from oral transmission, we have several examples of a similar schematic movement of life.
7. ^ Yazaki, Saeko (December 8, 2014). "Morality in Early Sufi Literature". In Ridgeon, Lloyd (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Sufism. Cambridge University Press. p. 77. ISBN 978-1107679504. Rejection of this world is also manifest in a saying by the famous Persian Sufi Abū Yazīd al-Bistāmī (d. c. 261/875): "This world is nothing; how can one renounce it?"
8. ^ Mojaddedi, Jawid, “al-Bisṭāmī, Abū Yazīd (Bāyazīd)”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Edited by: Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson.
9. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Hermansen, Marcia K. "Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Quran, Miraj, Poetic, and Theological Writings by Sells Michael.(The Classics of Western Spirituality Series) 398 pages, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1996. $24.95 (Paper) ISBN 0-8091-3619-8." Review of Middle East Studies 31.2 (1997): 172-173. (p.212)
10. ^ Muslim Saints and Mystics: Episodes from the Tadhkirat al-Auliya’ (Memorial of the Saints) (Ames: Omphaloskepsis, 2000), p. 119
11. ^ Hermansen, Marcia K. "Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Quran, Miraj, Poetic, and Theological Writings by Sells Michael.(The Classics of Western Spirituality Series) 398 pages, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1996. $24.95 (Paper) ISBN 0-8091-3619-8." Review of Middle East Studies 31.2 (1997): 172-173. (p.213)
12. ^ Böwering, Gerhard. "BESṬĀMĪ, BĀYAZĪD". iranicaonline.org. Encyclopaedia Iranica. Retrieved 2 April 2017.
13. ^ Abū Nuʿaym ʿAlī b. Sahl Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ, 10 vols., Cairo 1932–8, 10:33
14. ^ Al-Iṣfahānī, 10:34
15. ^ Al-Iṣfahānī, 10: 36–7
16. ^ Al-Iṣfahānī, 10:35
17. ^ Al-Iṣfahānī, 10: 36
18. ^ Mojaddedi, “al-Bisṭāmī, Abū Yazīd (Bāyazīd)”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
19. ^ al-Qushayri, Abu 'l-Qasim (2007). Alexander D. Knysh; Muhammad Eissa (eds.). Al-Qushayri's Epistle on Sufism : Al-Risala al-qushayriyya fi 'ilm al-tasawwuf. Alexander D. Knysh (trans.) (1st ed.). Reading, UK: Garnet Pub. p. 32. ISBN 978-1859641866.
20. ^ Öngüt, Ömer (2018). Sadat-ı Kiram. İstanbul: Hakikat. p. 125.
21. ^ al-Qifti, Tarikh al-Hukama' [Leipzig, 1903], 185; al-Shibi, op. cit., 360
22. ^ Adamec, Ludwig W. (2017). Historical Dictionary of Islam. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 80. ISBN 9781442277243.
23. ^ "Bangladesh: A pivot of the south-eastern Silk Road?". New Age. Dhaka. Archived from the original on 26 December 2013.

References

[edit]

• Arthur John Arberry, Bistamiana, BSOAS 25/1 (1962) 28–37
• ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Badawī, Shaṭaḥāt al-Ṣūfiyya, Cairo 1949
• Carl W. Ernst, Words of ecstasy in Sufism, Albany 1985
• Carl W. Ernst, The man without attributes. Ibn ʿArabī's interpretation of al-Bisṭāmī, Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society, 13 (1993), 1–18
• ʿAbd al-Rafīʿ Ḥaqīqat, Sulṭān al-ʿĀrifīn Bāyazīd Basṭāmī, Tehran 1361sh/1982
• Max Horten, Indische Strömungen in der islamischen Mystik, 2 vols., Heidelberg 1927–8
• ʿAlī al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb, ed. V. A. Zhukovskiĭ, Leningrad 1926 repr. Tehran 1957
• Abū Nuʿaym ʿAlī b. Sahl Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ, 10 vols., Cairo 1932–8
• ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī, Nafaḥāt al-uns, ed. Maḥmūd ʿĀbidī, Tehran 1370sh/1991
• Mahmud Khatami, Zaehner-Arberry controversy on Abu Yazid the Sufi. A historical review, Transcendent Philosophy 7 (2006), 203–26
• Abdelwahab Meddeb (trans.), Les dits de Bistami, Paris 1989
• Jawid Ahmad Mojaddedi, The biographical tradition in Sufism. The Ṭabaqāt genre from al-Sulamī to Jāmī, Richmond, Surrey 2001
• Jawid Ahmad Mojaddedi, Getting drunk with Abū Yazīd or staying sober with Junayd. The creation of a popular typology of Sufism, BSOAS 66/1 (2003), 1–13
• Reynold A. Nicholson, An early Arabic version of the Miʿrāj of Abū Yazīd al-Bisṭāmī, Islamica 2 (1926), 402–15
• Javād Nūrbakhsh, Bāyazīd, Tehran 1373sh/1994
• Hellmut Ritter, Die Aussprüche des Bāyezīd Bisṭāmī, in Fritz Meier (ed.), Westöstliche Abhandlungen (Wiesbaden 1954), 231–43
• Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, Fīhi mā fīhi, ed. Badīʿ al-Zamān Furūzānfar, Tehran 1957
• Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, Mathnawī, ed. Reynold A. Nicholson, 8 vols., London 1925–40
• Rūzbihān Baqlī, Sharḥ-i shaṭḥiyyāt, ed. Henri Corbin, Tehran 1966
• al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-lumaʿ fī l-taṣawwuf, ed. Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, Leiden and London 1914
• August Tholuck, Ssufismus sive Theosophia Persarum pantheistica, Berlin 1821
• Robert C. Zaehner, Abū Yazīd of Bisṭām. A turning point in Islamic mysticism, Indo-Iranian Journal 1 (1957), 286–301
• Robert C. Zaehner, Hindu and Muslim mysticism, London 1960.

Further reading

[edit]

• Keeler, Annabel (2020). "Abū Yazīd al-Bisṭāmī and Discussions about Intoxicated Sufism". In Ridgeon, Lloyd (ed.). Routledge Handbook on Sufism (1st ed.). Routledge. ISBN 9781138040120.

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

BESṬĀMĪ, BĀYAZĪD

 

BESṬĀMĪ (Basṭāmī), BĀYAZĪD (Abū Yazīd Ṭayfūr b. ʿĪsā b. Sorūšān; d. 234/848 or 261/875), early Muslim mystic of Iran. A descendant of a Zoroastrian family converted to Islam during the life of his grandfather Sorūšān, Bāyazīd spent most of his active life in his native town of Besṭām (Basṭām) in the province of Qūmes, except for short periods when the hostility of the ʿolamāʾ drove him into exile. Historical evidence for his life is sparse. He was born in the quarter of Besṭām known as Moʾbedān but moved to an Arab quarter called Wāfedān, which was later named Būyadān in his honor (Sahlajī, p. 47). He studied Hanafite law and made at least one pilgrimage to Mecca. It appears that he spent much of his life as a recluse, in his home, the mosque, and an isolated cell (ṣawmaʿa) in Besṭām, yet he is also known to have held teaching sessions and received visitors who wished to discuss Sufi topics.

Two divergent dates for Bāyazīd’s death are given in the sources. The later one, 261/875, recorded by Solamī and many later sources, is based on a family esnād (chain of authority) that is commonly accepted by scholars as accurate. Nevertheless Sahlajī (p. 63) mentions 234/848, as does Abū ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān Solamī (d. 412/1021; p. 60), on the authority of Ḥosayn b. Yaḥyā Šāfeʿī, a transmitter of Jaʿfar Ḵoldī (d. 348/959). There is also considerable circumstantial evidence for the earlier date: 1. Bāyazīd is said to have met Šaqīq Balḵī (d. 194/810) in his youth, received him in the company of Abū Torāb Naḵšabī (d. 245/859), and corresponded with him by messenger (Sahlajī, pp. 91, 95; Sebṭ b. al-­Jawzī, p. 163; ʿAṭṭār, I, p. 147). 2. Bāyazīd responded to an emissary of Ḏu’l-Nūn Meṣrī (d. 245/860; Qošayrī, p. 38; Hojvīrī, pp. 322, 331-32; Sahlajī, pp. 65, 73, 117, 131; ʿAṭṭār, I, p. 156), gave expert advice by corre­spondence to Yaḥyā b. Moʿāḏ Rāzī (d. 258/872; Sahlajī, p. 136; Eṣfahānī, X, p. 40; ʿAṭṭār, I, pp. 143-44), and was visited by Aḥmad b. Ḵeżrūya Balḵī (d. 240/854) on his pilgrimage. 3. “Satanba” or “Estanba” (i.e., Abū Esḥāq Ebrāhīm Heravī), said to have been a disciple of Ebrāhīm b. Adham (d. 160/776), transmitted some of Bāyazīd’s sayings (Eṣfahānī, X, pp. 43-44; Sahlajī, p. 56). 4. There is no record that Bāyazīd ever met Jonayd (d. 298/910), the principal interpreter of his sayings, though he was on familiar terms with Jonayd’s uncle and teacher, Sarī Saqaṭī (d. 251/865; Sahlajī, p. 81).

Many visitors, including Abū Naṣr Sarrāj (d. 378/988), Abū Saʿīd b. Abi’l-Ḵayr (q.v.), ʿAlī b. ʿOṯmān Hojvīrī, Nāṣer-e Ḵosrow, and Yāqūt, were attracted to Bāyazīd’s tomb at Besṭām. The Il-khanid Öljeitü (Ūljāytū) Moḥammad Ḵodābanda erected a dome over it in 713/1313.

Bāyazīd wrote nothing, but about five hundred of his sayings were collected and handed down through two major lines of transmission. One group of his sayings is supported by the family esnād, beginning with Bāyazīd’s nephew, disciple, and attendant, Abū Mūsa ʿĪsā b. Ādam, on whose authority and that of his two sons, “ʿOmayy” (i.e.. Abū ʿEmrān Mūsā b. ʿĪsā) and “Bāyazīd the lesser” or “the second” (i.e., Abū Yazīd Ṭayfūr b. ʿĪsā) Jonayd is expressly stated to have translated the bulk of Bāyazīd’s sayings from Persian into Arabic (cf. Sahlajī, pp. 108, 109, 122-23). The other was handed down through the circle of those who visited Bāyazīd: Abū Esḥāq Ebrāhīm Heravī, Aḥmad b. Ḵeżrūya, and especially ʿAbd-al-Raḥīm b. Yaḥyā Dabīlī’s disciple Abū Mūsā Dabīlī, whom Bāyazīd sent to propagate Sufism in his native Armenia (Samʿānī, ed. Yamānī, V, p. 313; Sahlajī, pp. 54-55). Substantial por­tions of Bāyazīd’s sayings are preserved in five principal sources: Ketāb al-lomaʿ by Sarrāj, which includes ex­tracts from Jonayd’s commentary on Bāyazīd’s utterances; the corpus of Solamī’s works (see Sezgin, GAS I, pp. 671-74), through which they are scattered; Ketāb al-nūr men kalemāt Abī Ṭayfūr by Abu’l-Fażl Moḥammad b. ʿAlī Sahlajī (389-476/998-1084), the most circum­stantial source on Bāyazīd’s life and teaching, drawing heavily on Moḥammad b. ʿAlī Dāstānī (d. 417/1026) and on the biographer of Ḥallāj, Ebn Bābūya Šīrāzī (d. 442/1050; whether or not Sahlajī also relied on the lost Manāqeb-e Bāyazīd Besṭāmī, a Persian hagiograph­ical work ascribed by Ḥājī Ḵalīfa to a certain Yūsof b. Moḥammad, remains obscure; Kašf at-ẓonūn II, p. 1841; cf. Sahlajī, pp. 44, 78, 141); Šarḥ-e šaṭḥīyāt by Rūzbehān Baqlī Šīrāzī (d. 606/1209), in which samples of Bāyazīd’s ecstatic utterances are gathered and inter­preted and the chapter on Bāyazīd in Taḏkerat al-awlīāʾ, I, p. 134-79) by Shaikh Farīd-al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār (d. 626/1229), which includes much anecdotal material. A highly embellished version of Bāyazīd’s meʿrāj (ascen­sion) is found in Resālat al-qaṣd elaʾllāh, said to have been compiled in 395/1005 by a certain Abu’l-Qāsem and erroneously attributed to Jonayd (Nicholson, pp. 402-15).

Bāyazīd was introduced to “the experience of divine oneness and the mystical realities in pure form” (al-tawḥīd wa’l-ḥaqāʾeq ṣerfan; Sarrāj, p. 177) by a certain Abū ʿAlī Sendī, his Sufi teacher (p. 325), to whom Bāyazīd in turn taught the religious duties of Islam. On the assumption that this teacher hailed from India and that some of Bāyazīd’s utterances can be compared with Hindu and Buddhist notions, a considerable controversy has developed whether possible Hindu and Buddhist influences on Sufism can be discovered in Bāyazīd’s case. In 1821 F. A. D. Tholuck proposed such influences, and his hypothesis was reaffirmed by a variety of 19th-century orientalists; it was stated categorically by R. A. Nicholson in 1916 and M. Horten in 1927 and cautiously accepted by H. Ritter in 1954. On the other hand, L. Massignon questioned this conclusion in 1922 and A. J. Arberry in 1957. In 1957 and 1960 R. C. Zaehner made an unconvincing attempt to demonstrate in detail that Bāyazīd had indeed drawn on Indian mysticism. The Sufi theory of fanāʾ (sup­posedly influenced by the Buddhist idea of nirvāṇa) is wrongly attributed to Bāyazīd since it was actually first advanced by Abū Saʿīd Ḵarrāz (see baqāʾ wa fanāʾ). As Arberry has shown, Bāyazīd’s notions of “the tree of oneness” and “deceit” hardly have their origin in the ideas of the cosmic tree and illusion (māyā) found in the Upanishads and in Vedantic philosophy but can be explained on the basis of Koranic imagery and Sufi language (1957, pp. 89-104). Zaehner’s attempt to link Bāyazīd’s ecstatic utterance “Glory be to me!” (Sobḥānī) and his phrase “and you shall be that” (fa-takūna anta ḏāka) respectively with “Homage, homage, to me!” (mahyam eva namo namah) and “Thou art That” (tat tvam asi) in the Upanishads rests on questionable arguments (cf. ʿAbdur Rabb, pp. 185-211).

Much of Bāyazīd’s fame is owing to his ecstatic utterances (šaṭḥ, šaṭḥa, plur. šaṭaḥāt; also šaṭḥīyāt), which he was the first to employ consistently as expressions of Sufi experience. The most frequently cited examples are “Glory be to Me! How great is My majesty!” (Sobḥānī! Mā aʿẓama šaʾnī) and “I am He” (anā howa). Rather than the babbling of one possessed or blasphemy intended to scandalize others, such utterances are in fact vividly phrased expressions of the experience of consciousness merging with the divine. Bāyazīd compares himself to God, claims the praise of angels in God’s stead, turns the direction of prayer (qebla) from God to himself, and declares that the Kaʿba walks around him (Sahlajī, pp. 88, 108; Ebn al-Jawzī, p. 332; ʿAṭṭār, I, p. 161). He is no longer creature and servant of God: “They are all my creatures except you” (Sahlajī, p. 119); “All humans are my servants except you” (p. 102). Instead he becomes God’s rival, finding God’s throne empty and ascending it in recog­nition of his own true being: “I am I and thus am "I"” (p. 128), Bāyazīd claims to be without beginning or end (Ebn al-Jawzī, p. 332), without morning or evening (Sahlajī, p. 70). God takes second place to him: He replies to the muezzin’s call “God is great!” with the words “I am greater!” (Rūzbehān Baqlī, p. 101), turn­ing the Koranic words “Surely, thy Lord’s grasp is firm” (85:12) into “By my life, my grasp is firmer than His” (Sahlajī, p. 111) and exclaiming “Moses desired to see God; I do not desire to see God; He desires to see me” (Ebn al-Jawzī, p. 333). With his claim “I am I; there is no God but I; so worship me!” (Sahlajī, p. 122) the monotheist Bāyazīd has reached a stage of mystical self­-consciousness so thoroughly infused with the divine that there is room neither for the human self nor for God but only for the ultimate and absolute “I,” called God as the object of faith but “I” as the subject of mystical experience.

Although Bāyazīd’s approach to prayer and Sufi ḏekr is rarely mentioned, sparse references do provide a glimpse of the circumstances that generated his mystical experiences and shaped his ecstatic utterances. He always rinsed his mouth and washed his tongue before uttering God’s name in ḏekr exercise (Sahlajī, p. 106; Eṣfahānī, X, p. 35). He insisted on painstaking ab­lutions before prayer and once ejected from the mosque a man who was improperly purified (Solamī, Ṭabaqāt, pp. 62-63). In reciting the Islamic profession of mono­theism, he was aware that he had to abandon human self-consciousness (“There is no god but God while you are not there”) and to assimilate divine consciousness (“There is no god but God while you are there”; Sahlajī, p. 84). When Bāyazīd went into seclusion to meditate, he closed every opening in his apartment so that no noise would disturb him (ʿAṭṭār, I, p. 140). While meditating he would sometimes stand on tiptoe (pp. 143, 157) or rest his head on his knees without reciting any words, only occasionally lifting his head to utter a sigh (p. 140). When a visitor failed to notice Bāyazīd praying with his head on his knees, it was explained that the depth of his prayer had made him invisible to outsiders (p. 154).

Bāyazīd insisted that the ascetic (zāhed) renounce this world by rejecting it three times, so that he could not lawfully attach himself to it again (Eṣfahānī, X, p. 36). He also belittled renunciation of this world with the rhetorical question “This world is nothing; how can one renounce it?” preferring inner detachment to actual poverty: “One who does not possess a thing is not zāhed; whom nothing takes possession of is” (Makkī, II, p. 198). This detachment did not prevent him from claiming to be the seven abdāl of his time united in one person (Sahlajī, p. 111; Eṣfahānī, X, p. 37; Ebn al­-Jawzī, p. 333), the tablet kept in heaven (Sahlajī, pp. 80, 113), the limitless ocean (Ebn al-Jawzī, p. 332), or the divine throne (ʿAṭṭār, I, p. 171). Bāyazīd also expressed the wish to be condemned to hell, because that as much as reaching paradise would ensure him of God’s favor (Ebn al-Jawzī, p. 329), and to be so enlarged that no one else would find space in hell (Sahlajī, p. 115; Ebn al-­Jawzī, p. 334). He believed that hell would be extin­guished by his glance (Sahlajī, p. 114; Ebn al-Jawzī, p. 329) or that he would smother hellfire with the hem of his coat (Ebn al-Jawzī, p. 331).

Although Bāyazīd is said to have cautioned against miracle workers (Eṣfahānī, X, p. 40; Sahlajī, pp. 69,126) and maintained that he was in need of God the giver of gifts, not of miracles (ʿAṭṭār, I, p. 153), various miracles (karāmāt) are ascribed to him in Sufi literature. Food is said to have appeared before him whenever he desired it (p. 142), and once rain was sent in answer to his prayer (Sahlajī, p. 112; ʿAṭṭār, I, p. 150). The burden was lifted mysteriously from his camel on the way to Mecca (Sahlajī, pp. 89-90; ʿAṭṭār, I, p. 137). On one occasion he moved the mountain Abū Qobays (Sahlajī, p. 106); at another, however, he paid for a ferry across the Tigris, even though the river had become narrow enough to let him step across (ʿAṭṭār, I, p. 153; cf. Rosenthal, II, pp. 179-80). Although he was believed to have walked on water, traveled through the air, and made the journey to Mecca in a single night, he himself minimized these karāmāt, on the grounds that a piece of wood can float on water, a fish can swim in water, birds can fly through the air, and demons move from east to west in a split second (Sarrāj, p. 324; Qošayrī, p. 164; ʿAṭṭār, I, pp. 169-70).

Bāyazīd employed the term ʿešq for love of God and insisted that divine love precedes man’s love of God. “In the beginning I was in error about four things: I imagined that I recollected God, knew Him, loved Him, and searched for Him. At the end I realized, however, that His recollection preceded mine, His knowledge was prior to mine, His love came before my own, and His search was there before I sought Him” (Solamī, pp. 64-­65; Sahlajī, p. 96; Eṣfahānī, X, p. 34; ʿAṭṭār, I, p. 170). Bāyazīd defended the mystic’s love of God as mutual love between God and man (Eṣfahānī, X, p. 242) and maintained that “love consists in regarding your own much as little and your Beloved’s little as much” (Hojvīrī, p. 402, tr. p. 311). When Yaḥyā b. Moʿāḏ confessed that he had become intoxicated in drinking from the cup of love of God, Bāyazīd replied that he had drunk empty the oceans of the heavens and the earth and still his thirst was not quenched and his tongue was hanging out for more (Sahlajī, p. 136; Hojvīrī, p. 233; ʿAṭṭār, I, p. 143).

In the 4th-5th/10th-11th centuries Bāyazīd’s followers appear to have had sufficient cohesion to perpetuate a small Sufi group at the shaikh’s tomb in Besṭām. Indeed, one of them, Sahlajī, compiled Ketāb al-nūr, in which he mentions Bāyazīd’s honorific “Lord of the mystics” (solṭān al-ʿārefīn), first attested in a statement by a certain Abu’l-ʿAlāʾ b. Abi’l-Fażl Šāwarābādī (cf. Sahlajī, p. 147), repeated by ʿAṭṭār (I, p. 134), and popularized by Šams-al-Dīn Aflākī in the 8th/14th century (I, p. 259). Next to Abū ʿAbd-Allāh Moḥam­mad b. ʿAlī Dāstānī (d. 417/1026), one of the authorities cited in the Ketāb al-nūr (cf. Hojvīrī, pp. 205-06), Abu’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Aḥmad Ḵaraqānī (d. 425/1033; cf. ʿAṭṭār, II, pp. 201-55) appears to have been Bāyazīd’s principal spiritual heir in Iran and a frequent visitor to his tomb at Besṭām (cf. Mīnovī, pp. 29-30). Ḵaraqānī, who had met Abū Saʿīd b. Abi’l-Ḵayr (q.v.; d. 440/1049; Mīnovī, pp. 11, 15, 17-26, 34-­36), thus became the link between Bāyazīd and Abū ʿAlī Fārmaḏī (d. 477/1084) in the Sufi line of the Naqšbandīya. Hojvīrī (pp. 228-35) classified Bāyazīd’s followers as Ṭayfūrīya and observed that their ideal of love of God (ʿešq) was characterized by spiritual intoxication (sokr), in contrast to the mystical sobriety (ṣaḥw) professed by the Jonaydīya of Baghdad. In the 9th/15th century spiritual descent from the Ṭayfūrī tradition was claimed, without apparent historical connection, by the Šaṭṭārīya of India (cf. Ḡawṯī, pp. 284-88); such a descent was also ascribed to two obscure Sufi “orders,” the ʿEšqīya of Transoxiana and the Besṭāmīya in Ottoman Turkey (cf. Trimingham, pp. 97-98). Today a popular form of Indian Sufism lives on at Bāyazīd’s memorial in Naṣīrābād outside Chittagong, in Bangladesh (cf. ʿAbdur Rabb, p. 79).

 

Bibliography:

M. ʿAbdur Rabb, The Life, Thought and Historical Importance of Abu Yazid Al­-Bistami, Dacca, 1971.

Šams al-Dīn Aflākī, Manāqeb al-ʿārefīn, ed. T. Yazıcı, 2 vols., Ankara, 1959.

A. J. Arberry, “A Bisṭāmī Legend,” JRAS, 1938, pp. 89­-91.

Idem, Revelation and Reason in Islam, London, 1957.

Shaikh Farīd-al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār, Taḏkerat al-awlīāʾ, ed. R. A. Nicholson, 2 vols., London, 1905-07.

Ḵᵛāja ʿAbd-Allāh Anṣārī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfīa, ed. ʿA. Ḥabībī, Kabul, 1340 Š./1961.

Ebn al-Jawzī, Talbīs Eblīs, Cairo, n.d. Abū Noʿaym Eṣfahānī, Ḥelyat al-awlīāʾwa ṭabaqāt al-aṣfīāʾ, 10 vols., Cairo, 1351-57/1932-38.

M. Ḡawṯī, Golzār-e abrār, Lahore, 1395/1975.

R. Gramlich, Die schiitischen Derwischorden Persiens, 3 vols., Wiesbaden, 1965-81.

ʿAbd-al-Rafīʿ Ḥaqīqat, Solṭān al-ʿārefīn Bāyazīd Besṭāmī, Tehran, 1362 Š./1983.

ʿAlī b. ʿOṯmān Hojvīrī, Kašf al-maḥjūb, ed. V. Zhukovskiĭ, Leningrad, 1926; repr. Tehran, 1336 Š./1957; tr. R. A. Nicholson, London, 1911.

M. Horten, Indische Strömungen in der islamischen Mystik, Heidelberg, 1927.

Jāmī, Nafaḥāt. Abū Ṭāleb Makkī, Qūt al-qolūb, 4 vols., Cairo, 1351/1932.

L. Massignon, Essai sur les origines du lexique technique de la mystique musulmane, Paris, 1968, pp. 273-86.

M. Mīnovī, Aḥwāl o aqwāl-e Šayḵ Abu’l-Ḥasan Ḵara­qānī, Tehran, 1401/1359 Š./1980.

R. A. Nicholson, “An Early Arabic Version of the Miʿrāj of Abū Yazīd al-Bisṭāmī,” Islamica 2, 1926, pp. 402-15.

Abu’l-­Qāsem Qošayrī, al-Resāla, Cairo, 1368/1948.

H. Ritter, “Die Aussprüche des Bāyezīd Bisṭāmī,” in Westöstliche Abhandlungen, ed. F. Meier, Wiesbaden, 1954, pp. 231-43.

Idem, Das Meer der Seele, Leiden, 1955. F. Rosenthal, The Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldun, 3 vols., New York, 1958.

Rūzbehān Baqlī Šīrāzī, Šarḥ-e šaṭḥīyāt, ed. H. Corbin, Tehran, 1344 Š./1965.

Abu’l-Fażl Moḥammad b. ʿAlī Sahlajī, Ketāb al-nūr men kalemāt Abū Ṭayfūr, in Šaṭaḥāt al-ṣūfīya, ed. ʿA.-R. Badawī, Cairo, 1949.

Samʿānī, ed. Yamānī. Abū Naṣr Sarrāj, Ketāb al-lomaʿ fi’l-taṣawwof, ed. R. A. Nicholson, London, 1914.

Sebṭ b. al-Jawzī, Merʾāt al-zamān, printed as an appendix to Sahlajī, pp. 161-71.

Solamī, Ṭabaqāt. F. A. D. Tholuck, Ssufismus sive theosophia persarum pantheistica, Berlin, 1821.

J. S. Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam, Oxford, 1971.

R. C. Zaehner, “Abū Yazīd of Bisṭām. A Turning Point in Islamic Mysticism,” Indo-Iranian Journal 1, 1957, pp. 286-301.

Idem, Hindu and Muslim Mysticism, London, 1960.

88888888