Shihab al-Din Umar al-Suhrawardi

Abu Hafs Umar al-Suhrawardi (born 539 AH / 1145 CE in Suhraward, in what is now northwestern Iran; died 632 AH / 1234 CE in Baghdad) was one of the most influential teachers of tasawwuf — Islamic mysticism, the inner, spiritual dimension of the faith. He should not be confused with his older contemporary al-Suhrawardi "al-Maqtul" (d. 1191), the philosopher of Illuminationism; they share a name and a hometown but are different men.

Born into a family of Shafi'i jurists (scholars of one of the main Sunni schools of law), he moved to Baghdad and studied for years under his uncle Abu al-Najib al-Suhrawardi, who had founded a riverside lodge and the beginnings of what became the Suhrawardiyya, a Sufi order or "way" (tariqa). Umar consolidated and formalized that order. Sources report he later directed lodges (ribats) in Baghdad and was raised by the Abbasid Caliph al-Nasir li-Din Allah to high spiritual office, with titles such as "shaykh al-shuyukh" (master of masters). He became central to al-Nasir's reorganization of futuwwa — chivalric brotherhoods the caliph sought to bind to his authority — and was reportedly sent as the caliph's envoy to rulers including the Ayyubid al-Adil and the Seljuk sultan of Konya, Kayqubad I.

His enduring legacy is the 'Awarif al-ma'arif ("The Bounties of Spiritual Knowledge"), a systematic handbook of Sufi practice and ethics that became a standard text across the Muslim world. His disciples — among them Baha al-Din Zakariyya of Multan — carried his teaching into Anatolia, Iran, and South Asia.