Yusuf Hamadani

Part of a series on Islam Sufism
Ideas Abdal Al-Insān al-Kāmil Baqaa Dervish Dhawq Fakir Fanaa Haal Haqiqa Ihsan Irfan Ishq Keramat Kashf Lataif Manzil Marifa Nafs Nūr Qalandar Qutb Silsila Sufi cosmology Sufi metaphysics Sufi philosophy Sufi poetry Sufi psychology Salik Tazkiah Wali Yaqeen
Practices Anasheed Dhikr Haḍra Muraqaba Qawwali Sama Whirling Ziyarat
Sufi orders Akbari Alians Ashrafia Azeemia Ba 'Alawi Bayrami Bektashi Burhaniyya Chishti Galibi Gulshani Haqqani Anjuman Hurufi Idrisi Issawiyya Jelveti Jerrahi Khalidi İskenderpaşa İsmailağa Khalwati Kubrawi Madari Meivazhi Malamati Mevlevi Mouridi Noorbakshia Naqshbandi Naqshbandi Haqqani Nasuhi Ni'matullāhī Nuqtavi Qadiri Qalandari Rifa'i Safavi Saifia Shadhili Shattari Suhrawardi Sunbuli Sülaymaniyya Tijani Ussaki Uwaisi Zahedi Zikris
List of sufis Notable early Notable modern Singers
Topics in Sufism Tawhid Sharia Tariqa Haqiqa Ma'rifa Art History Music Shrines
Portal

Abu Yaqub Yusuf Hamdani (born 1062 /440 H - died March 1141 /Rajab 535 H) is the first of the group of Central Asian Sufi teachers known simply as Khwajagan (the Masters) of the Naqshbandi order. His shrine is at Merv (Turkmenistan).

Life

Part of a series on Sunni Islam
Beliefs Monotheism Prophets and messengers Holy books Angels Judgement Day Predestination
Five Pillars Declaration of Faith Prayer Charity Fasting Pilgrimage
Rightly-Guided Caliphs Abu Bakr Umar ibn al-Khattab Uthman ibn Affan Ali ibn Abi Talib
Sunni schools of law Hanafi Maliki Shafi‘i Hanbali Others Ẓāhirī Awza'i Thawri Laythi Jariri
Sunni schools of theology Ash'ari Maturidi Traditionalist Others: Muʿtazila Murji'ah
Contemporary movements al-Ahbash Ahl-i Hadith Barelvi Deobandi Islamic Modernism Salafi movement Wahhabism
Holy sites Jerusalem Mecca Medina Mount Sinai
Lists Literature Kutub al-Sittah
Islam portal

Born in Buzanjird near Hamadan in 1062, he moved from Hamadan to Baghdad when he was eighteen years of age. He studied the Shafi'i school of fiqh under the supervision of the master of his time, Shaykh Ibrahim ibn Ali ibn Yusuf al-Fairuzabadi. He kept association in Baghdad with the great scholar, Abu Ishaq ash-Shirazi, who gave him greater deference than to any of his other students although he was the youngest. But he adhered to the Hanafi school unlike his teachers.

According to Ibn Khallikan, he began his religious career with the cultivation of the religious sciences, becoming both a respected scholar of hadith and fiqh and a popular preacher in Baghdad. He was so brilliant a jurisprudent that he became the Marja of his time for all scholars in that field. He was known in Baghdad, the center of Islamic knowledge, in Isfahan, Bukhara, Samarqand, Khwarazm, and throughout Central Asia.

Later he abandoned these pursuits, adopting an intensely ascetic way of life and travelled east, first settling in Herat and later in Merv, where his tomb is still reputed to exist. He became an ascetic and engaged in constant worship and mujahada (spiritual struggle), instructed by Shaykh Abu 'Ali al-Farmadhi. He associated with Shaykh Abdullah Ghuwayni and Shaykh Hasan Simnani. He named four khalifas or successors, a pattern that repeated itself for several succeeding generations of the Khwajagan, including Ahmed Yesevi and Khwaja Abdul Khaliq Gajadwani, the next link in the Naqshbandi silsila.

Sources

The Naqshbandi Order, Hamid Algar Wafayat al-A'yan, Ibn Khallikan

Bibliography

• Abu Ya`qub Yusuf ibn Ayyab ibn Yusuf ibn al-Husayn al-Hamadani——May Allah Sanctify His Soul; https://web.archive.org/web/20120303111446/http://www.naqshbandi.org/chain/9.htm
• Omar Ali Shah (1998). The Rules or Secrets of the Naqshbandi Order. Tractus Books. ISBN 2-909347-09-5.
• John G. Bennett (1995). The Masters of Wisdom. Bennett Books. ISBN 1-881408-01-9.

See also

• Naqshbandi