Abu Muhammad Sheikh Ruzbehan Baqli (1128–1209) was aPersian[1]poet,mystic, teacher andsufi master. He wrote about his own life as well as published commentaries on Sufi poets and ideas.
Baqli's most renowned work was his autobiographyUnveiling of Secrets orKashf al-asrar.
Ruzbihan Baqli was born in 1128 to a family ofDaylamite origin inFasa in what is todayIran.[2] As a teenager, Baqli worked as a grocer. Although Baqli claimed to have hadreligious visions at ages three, seven, and fifteen, he said that his family was not religious. He described these visions as dreams and powerful ecstasies inThe Unveiling of Secrets.
At age 15, Baqli left Fasa to spend 18 months in desert, during which time he claimed to receive more visions. After leaving the desert, he joined aSufi sect.[3] InThe Unveiling of Secrets, Baqli says he had his first "unveiling" while training with the Sufis. He eventually returned to Fasa to seek a master and spiritual guide; there he met and became a disciple of Shaykh Jamal al-Din Abi al-Wafa’ ibn Khalil al-Fasa’I.[4]
It is speculated that Baqli spent the next years travelling toSyria,Iraq,Kerman in Iran,Arabia, making thehajj twice. He returned toShiraz in 1165 and set up a hospice[5] where he taught for 50 years. He married several wives and had two sons and three daughters.
Baqli died in 1209 in Shiraz.
Baqli's center for Sufi training and his teachings remained popular several generations after his death.[6] Ruzbihan Baqli died in 1209 in Shiraz and was placed in a tomb in hisribat. For several generations after his death, Ruzbihan Baqli's legacy as a Sufi master continued and Shiraz became a place ofpilgrimage. However, the popularity of his order waned and eventually disappeared and his tomb fell into disrepair.
In 1972, Baqli's tomb was restored by the Iranian Department of Antiquities.[7]
The two most importanthagiographies about him were written by family members almost a century after his death:The Gift to the People of Gnosis, in Memory of the Chief Axis of the World, Ruzbihan (1300); andThe Spirit of the Gardens, on the Life of the Master Ruzbihan (1305).[8] Some groups in the Middle East,Central Asia,India, and Persia still study his texts today.[9]
Baqli wrote his spiritual experiences and his poetry in a dense,rhetorical prose style. He composed mostly inArabic andPersian.[10] His writings are unique because, while they do not include many dates orchronology, he talks about his personal life and his family, while not mentioning other outside events.[11] Baqli was known for his fondness and defense of many early Sufis’ ecstatic sayings (shathiyat) and therefore was dubbed "Doctor Ecstaticus."
Baqli completed his bookCommentary on Ecstatic Sayings or Sarh al-shathiyyat in 1174.[12] He also wroteThe Spirits’ Font in 1184.The Unveiling of Secrets orKashf al-asrar was completed in 1189 after eight years. It is both anautobiography and a diary of visions and Sufi teachings.[13] Many of his works emphasize the Sufi theories of love, and also defend earlySufi saints in their ecstatic utterances. The Sufi saintHallaj was a primary example in Baqli's text.[14]
While direct literary references to Baqli in later Sufism were not common, perhaps because of the difficulty of the texts, he was known for his love of beauty: fine fragrances, a beautiful face, and sweet voices. His texts were studied, however, byJāmi of the fifteenth century and aMughal prince of the seventeenth century.[15]
