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Ibrahim ibn Adham
(إبراهيم بن أدهم)
Ibrahim ibn Adham; (إبراهيم بن أدهم)
	A miniature depicting Sultan Ibrahim ibn Adham of Balkh visited by angels, 1760-70.
Mystic
Born	Ibrahim ibn Mansour ibn Zayd ibn Jabir Al-'Ijli; c. 718; Balkh
Died	c. 782
Venerated in	Islam
Major shrine	Mosque of Sultan Ibrahim Ibn Adham, Jableh, Syria
Influences	Al-Fuḍayl ibn ʻIyāḍ
Influenced	Khwaja Sadid ad-Din Huzaifa al-Marashi, Shaqiq al-Balkhi

Ibrahim ibn Adham also called Ibrahim Balkhi and Ebrahim-e Adham (Persian: ابراهیم ادهم); c. 718 – c. 782 / AH c. 100 – c. 165^[1] is one of the most prominent of the early Sufi saints known for his zuhd (asceticism).

The story of his conversion is one of the most celebrated in Sufi legend, mentioned in the Tazkirat al-Awliya of Attar of Nishapur .^[2] Sufi tradition ascribes to Ibrahim countless acts of righteousness and his humble lifestyle, which contrasted sharply with his early life as the king of Balkh (itself an earlier centre of Buddhism). As recounted by Abu Nu'aym al-Isfahani, Ibrahim emphasized the importance of stillness and meditation for asceticism. Rumi extensively described the legend of Ibrahim in his Masnavi. The most famous of Ibrahim's students is Shaqiq al-Balkhi (d. 810).

Life

Ibrahim's family was either from Persian nobles of the region or from Arab origins from Kufa in what is now Iraq. He was born in Balkh, now in Afghanistan. Most prominent sources and writers traced his lineage back to Abdallah al-Aftah, the son of Ja'far al-Sadiq, himself the son of Muhammad al-Baqir, and the great-great-grandson of Husayn ibn Ali.^{[citation needed]} According to some historians he was descended from the Rashid caliph Umar.^[who?]^{[citation needed]}^{[dubious – discuss]}

Accounts of Ibrahim's life are recorded by medieval authors such as ibn Asakir and Muhammad al-Bukhari.

Ibrahim was born into the Arab community of Balkh as the king of the area in around 730 CE, but he abandoned the throne to become an ascetic. He received a warning from God through Khidr, who appeared to him twice and abdicated his throne to take up the ascetic life in Syria. Having migrated around 750 CE, he lived the rest of his life semi-nomadic, often travelling as far south as Gaza. Ibrahim abhorred begging and worked tirelessly for his livelihood, frequently grinding grain or tending orchards. In addition, he is also said to have engaged in military operations on the border with Byzantium and his untimely death is supposed to have occurred on one of these naval expeditions.^[3]

Legend states his earliest spiritual master was a Christian monk named Simeon.^[4] Ibrahim then recounted his dialogue with Simeon in his writings:

I visited him in his cell, and said to him, "Father Simeon, how long hast thou been here?" "For seventy years," he answered. "What is thy food?" I asked. "O Hanifite," he countered, "what hast caused thee to ask this?" "I wanted to know," I replied. Then he said. "Every night, one chickpea." I said, "What stirs thee in thy heart so that this pea suffices thee?" He answered, "They come to me one day in every year and adorn my cell and process about it, so doing me reverence; and whenever my spirit wearies of worship, I remind it of that hour, and endure the labors of a year for the sake of an hour. Do thou, O Hanifite, endure the labor of a year for the glory of eternity.^[5]

According to the records of the Chishti Order of Sufism, he is among their early masters and was also taught for some time by al-Fuḍayl ibn ʻIyāḍ.^[6]

As is often with the graves of saints, numerous locations have been placed as the burial place of Ibrahim ibn Adham. Ibn Asakir stated that Ebrahim was buried on a Byzantine island,^[7] While other sources state his tomb is in Tyre, in Baghdad, in the "city of the prophet Lot," ^[8] in the "cave of Jeremiah" in Jerusalem and, in the city of Jablah on the Syrian coast, where a mosque bearing his name is located (35.3626975, 35.9244253). However, in the city of Sur in the Sultanate of Oman, a small shrine is a place of pilgrimage (22.5528326, 59.5295567).^[9]

Historicity and literary reception

The medieval narratives of the life of Ibrahim are semi-historical. Ibrahim may have been a historical Sufi of the 8th century whose legend was embellished in later accounts. Attar's Tazkirat, for example, remains one of the richest sources on Ebrahim's conversion and early life as the king of Balkh.^[10] Through the Persian memorials, literature on Ibrahim passed into the legendary literature of India and Indonesia, where further unhistorical embellishments were added.

One of the main features of non-Arabic literature on Ibrahim is the feature of full-length biographies on the figure, as opposed to anecdotes centring on the main incidents in his life. Moreover, many of the non-Arabic accounts on Ebrahim's life preceded with a short account of the life of his father Adham. One of the most famous of these biographies was written in New Persian by Rumi, which was adapted^{[according to whom?]} into Arabic.^[9] Other such biographies were written in Urdu, Awadhi,^[11] and Malay, which laid the basis for short biographies in Javanese and Sundanese.

English poet Leigh Hunt's poem "Abou Ben Adhem" is a story of Ibrahim ibn Adham.^[12] In turn, the musical Flahooley features a genie named Abou Ben Atom, played in the original 1951 Broadway production by Irwin Corey.^[13]

References

^ Frye, Richard Nelson (1975). The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 4: The Period from the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs. Cambridge. p. 450. ISBN 9780521200936.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^ "Ibrāhīm b. Adham". The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition (12 vols.). Leiden: E. J. Brill. 1960–2005.
^ Abu Nu'aym, vii, 388.
^ Schuon, Frithjof (1976). Islam and the Perennial Philosophy. World of Islam Festival Publishing Company Limited. ISBN 978-0-905035-06-2.
^ Glassé, Cyril (1989). The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam. Harper & Row. p. 178. ISBN 978-0-06-063123-9.
^ Siyar ul Auliya i Chisht, 1884 reprint Delhi.
^ Ibn Asakir, Tarikh kabir, Damascus, ii, 1330, 167–96.
^ Encyclopedia of Islam, Vol. III, pg. 985.
^ ^a ^b "Ibrahim Ibn Adham: The prince of Sufis - Inspiring Minds - Folk". Ahram Online. Retrieved 2020-06-04.
^ Muslim Saints and Mystics, Attar, trans. Arberry, Ebrahim ibn Adham.
^ Sultan Bodh, Kabir Sagar, Khemraj Shree Krishan Das Press
^ The Sufis, Idries Shah, Doubleday, 1964, p. 47 (paperback edition).
^ T. Rees Shapiro, "Irwin Corey, 102: Comedian Billed Himself as 'World's Foremost Authority'", Washington Post, February 8, 2017, p. B5.