Fakhr al-Din Iraqi

Fakhr al-Din Ibrahim, known as 'Iraqi, was a Persian Sufi (Islamic mystic) poet, traditionally said to have been born around 610 AH / 1213-14 CE in Komjan, a village near Hamadan in western Iran, and to have died in 688 AH / 1289 CE in Damascus. Tradition holds that he was a precocious student in Hamadan before he joined a band of wandering dervishes (qalandars) and travelled with them to Multan, in what is now Pakistan. There he is reported to have become a disciple of Baha al-Din Zakariyya, a master of the Suhrawardiyya Sufi order, and to have married into his family. After his teacher's death he briefly led the lodge but, the sources say, was driven out by rivalry and departed.

Later accounts place him in Konya in Anatolia, where he attended the circle of Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi, the leading interpreter of the Andalusian mystic Ibn al-'Arabi. From Qunawi's lectures on Ibn al-'Arabi's thought, 'Iraqi is said to have drawn the inspiration for his most famous work, the Lama'at ("Divine Flashes"), a blend of prose and verse on divine love. He enjoyed the patronage of the local governor Mu'in al-Din Parvana, and after Parvana's execution (1277) reportedly fled, spending time in Egypt before settling in Damascus, where he died. He is said to be buried near Ibn al-'Arabi. His Lama'at and his Persian poems became widely loved across the Persianate world.