al-Qushayri

Abu al-Qasim 'Abd al-Karim ibn Hawazin al-Qushayri (376/986–465/1072) was a scholar of the Khurasan region of north-eastern Iran who united three strands of learning that were often kept apart: Islamic law in the Shafi'i school (madhhab), the Ash'ari school of theology (kalam, reasoned argument about doctrine), and Sufism (tasawwuf, the mystical and ethical path of the heart). He was born into the Arab Banu Qushayr in the district of Ustuwa, near Nishapur, and as a young man went to the city of Nishapur, then a major centre of learning. There he became the foremost disciple of the Sufi teacher Abu 'Ali al-Daqqaq, married his daughter, and in time succeeded him at the head of his school; he also studied with the Sufi and hadith scholar al-Sulami. Al-Qushayri performed the pilgrimage (hajj) and travelled to Baghdad, where reports say he taught Prophetic traditions (hadith). His best-known book, al-Risala al-Qushayriyya ("The Qushayrian Epistle"), argues that Sufism is a legitimate Islamic science fully in harmony with Sunni belief and law; it remains a classic. He also wrote a Qur'an commentary, Lata'if al-Isharat. He lived through a period of conflict in which Ash'ari scholars were persecuted under a Seljuk vizier, which sources say drove him from Nishapur for a time. He returned and died there. His framing of Sufism shaped how later generations understood the mystical path.