Back to Table of Contents (5)
To next page

Ruzbihan Baqli (d1209) Shah-I-shathiyyat
(Commentary on Ecstatic Sayings) from Persia
-------------------------------------------

 

Sheikh Ruzbihan al Baqli reclining before a brazier.

 

Taken from: Carl W. Ernst: The Shambhela Guide to Sufism
(He was a Sufi saint)(Taken from his description of the different saints through whom God governs the world).

He salutes the twelve thousand saints of India, Turkestan (1), Zanzibar, and Ethiopia: the four hundred elite in Anatolia (2), Khurasan (3),

and Iran: the four hundred on the seacoast; the three hundred in lodges on the coasts of Egypt and the Maghrib; the seventy in different
parts of Arabia; the forty in Iraq and Syria; the ten in Mecca, Medina, and the Ka'ba; the seven who travel the world; the three of whom
one is in Persia, one in Anatolia, and one among the Arabs; and the ghawth (4) or qutb (5) who is the world axis.

(1) Turkestan: also spelled Turkistan, is a historical region in Central Asia corresponding to the regions of Transoxiana and Xinjiang.

(2) Anatolia: Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor (modern Turkey).

(3) Khurasan: Khorasan: Afghanistan + Eastern Iran.

(4) Ghawth: Only among the Sufis, in every generation, there was a special person who had the title or position of “Ghawth” without whom this the earth would cease to exist. The meaning of “Ghawth” is “someone who comes to one’s aid when one calls to him.

(5) Qutb: the title Qutb is given according to the Sufis to the one who is the pole of the universe around which the whole world revolves.