Maruf Karkhi

Maʿrūf Karkhī (Persian: معروف کرخی‎), known also by his full name Abū Maḥfūẓ Maʿrūf Ibn Firūz al-Karkhī, was a Sufi Saint who came from a Christian background.[1]

Maruf Karkhi
Bornc. 750-60 C.E.
Baghdad
Diedc. 815-20 C.E.
Venerated inIslam
InfluencesAli ibn Musa and Dawud Ta'i
InfluencedSari al-Saqati
Part of a series on Islam
Sufism
 Islam portal

Biography

Maruf was born in the district of Wasit or Karkh in Baghdad. His father's name was Firuz, which suggests that he was of Persian origin.[2] His original religion is usually understood to have been Christian, which may mean that the Armenian Islamic preacher and mystic, Farqad Sabakhi, may have mentored Maruf Karkhi [3] Attar narrates in his Memorial of the Saints that Maruf converted to Islam at a young age at the hands of Ali ibn Musa, after rejecting all forms of polytheism. Tradition recounts that he immediately went and told his father and mother, who rejoiced at his decision and became Muslims themselves. After accepting Islam, Maruf became a student of Dawud Ta'i, and underwent a severe trial of his discipleship. Maruf, however, remained steadfast and proved himself so devout that his righteousness became locally famous.

Sufi tradition

In Sufism, those of the order of Marufi are those connected to Maruf Karkhi. Maruf thus forms a penultimate link in what is known as the Golden Chain (silsilah) of Sufism, the initiation line which forms an unbroken chain to Muhammad. Maruf, being the disciple of Ali ar-Ridha, formed part of that lineage, while at the same time maintaining the teachings of his master Dawud Ta'i and thus being his successor as well. Sufis venerate Maruf highly for the multiple spiritual chains which interlock in his teachings.[4]

gollark: Idea: also make it able to scan maps, regular printed books, maybe enchanted books, sort of thing.
gollark: If so, just say that you're... using a general-purpose hardware neural network implementation... to... store inputted data and rewrite it on other media.
gollark: By that do you mean "remember the text and typing it out again"?
gollark: Or we could just use modems.
gollark: Clever idea!

See also

Notes
  1. Memorial of the Saints, Attar, Maruf al-Karkhi, p. 161.
  2. Cyril Glasse, "The New Encyclopedia of Islam", Published by Rowman & Littlefield, 2008.
  3. Historical dictionary of Sufism By John Renard, p. 87.
  4. What is Sufism?, M. Lings, p. 120, Suhail Academy.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.