on the technical terminology of Sufism; 5. depiction of the actual experiences
of certain Sufis and material evidence of their communion with God.
Abu ‘Abd al Rahman al Sulami
(d. 1021) of Nishapur is the author
of the first collection of biographies of the Sufis,
Tabaqat al Sufiya (Classes of
the Sufis
). Based on stories contained in this work, ‘Abdu’llah al Ansari al
Harawi delivered lectures on the life and teachings of earlier Sufis and on
the basis of Ansari’s lectures a new work in Persian emerged also called
Tabaqat al Sufiya
. Thus Sulami’s
Tabaqat
laid the foundations of a genre of
biographical literature, which classified the Sufis of one generation, or three
or four decades, under separate chapters, calling them
tabaqat,
or classes.
He usually focuses on what best represents the particular person’s life and
sayings. The work is concise and has only 105 entries.The data is compact,
the
isnads
abridged, the style lucid and flowing. It is modeled on the
biographical dictionaries of narrators or transmitters of the
hadith,
such as
the
Kitab al Tabaqat al Kabir
.
17
The leading work in this category is the
Hilyat-al Auliya
of
Abu Nu’aym
al
Isfahani
(d. 1038). It is an anthology of 689 biographies, starting with
the Prophet and his wives and daughters. All men of piety, Sufi or not, are
given attention. However, the narrative is uneven and lacks the symmetry of
Sulami’s work. Some entries are very long, the longest being of 142 pages,
while others extremely short.
Abu’l Qasim al Qushayri
(d.1072) was a native of Iran who wrote in
Arabic and his most famous work,
Al Risala
, is a very comprehensive summary
of Sufism. Brief biographical sketches of the great Sufis are followed by
detailed descriptions of the spiritual states and stages of the Sufi path. Like
17
Rizvi, S.A.A., A History of Sufism in India, Vol. I, Delhi, 1997, pp.62-63
