1.
Irish poetry
–
Irish poetry includes poetry in two languages, Irish and English. The earliest surviving poems in Irish date back to the 6th century and this culminated in the work of the poets of the Irish Literary Revival in the late 19th and early 20th century. Poetry in Irish represents the oldest vernacular poetry in Europe, the earliest examples date from the 6th century, and are generally short lyrics on themes from religion or the world of nature. They were frequently written by their authors in the margins of the illuminated manuscripts that they were copying. The best known example is Pangur Bán and it was practical for poems to be short because the Irish recognized that it was necessary to use any means necessary to make the poems lasting in their oral culture. To accomplish such a feat as well as they have, they used complicated rhyme schemes that would render a poem nonsensical if any of the key words were changed from the original version, in an oral culture, Irish poetry had many uses. A poem could be used to both the poet and the subject of the poem, oftentimes kings would commission poets to create a piece about them. Such poems would be passed on to descendants so they would remember the deeds of past generations. Kings would also commission poets to write poems of advertisement, speaking of the greatness and worthiness. Oral poetry, because it was in the vernacular, was used for entertainment. Poems that were entertaining could also be informative, teaching people lessons or offering them wisdom of experience for dealing with situations they would encounter in their everyday lives. Finally, poems, especially those featured in the sagas, were thought to be an instrument of the supernatural, Another source of early Irish poetry is the poems in the tales and sagas, such as the Táin Bó Cúailnge. Unlike many other European epic cycles, the Irish sagas were written in prose, Irish bards formed a professional hereditary caste of highly trained, learned poets. As officials of the court of king or chieftain, they performed a number of official roles and they were chroniclers and satirists whose job it was to praise their employers and damn those who crossed them. It was believed that a well-aimed bardic satire, glam dicin, the Metrical Dindshenchas, or Lore of Places, is probably the major surviving monument of Irish bardic verse. It is a great onomastic anthology of naming legends of significant places in the Irish landscape, the earliest of these date from the 11th century, and were probably originally compiled on a provincial basis. As a national compilation, the Metrical Dindshenchas has come down to us in two different recensions. Knowledge of the real or putative history of local places formed an important part of the education of the elite in ancient Ireland, verse tales of Fionn and the Fianna, sometimes known as Ossianic poetry, were extremely common in Ireland and Scotland throughout this period
2.
Sanai
–
He died between 1131 and 1141. He was connected with the court of the Ghaznavid Bahram-shah who ruled 1117 –1157 and he wrote an enormous quantity of mystical verse, of which The Walled Garden of Truth or The Hadiqat al Haqiqa is his master work and the first Persian mystical epic of Sufism. Dedicated to Bahram Shah, the work expresses the ideas on God, love, philosophy. For close to 900 years The Walled Garden of Truth has been read as a classic. According to Major T. Sanai taught that lust, greed, love and a social conscience are for him the foundation of religion, mankind is asleep, living in a desolate world. To Sanai common religion was only habit and ritual, sanais poetry had a tremendous influence upon Persian literature. He is considered the first poet to use the qasidah, ghazal, Rumi acknowledged Sanai and Attar as his two great inspirations, saying, Attar is the soul and Sanai its two eyes, I came after Sanai and Attar. The Walled Garden of Truth was also a model for Nizamis Makhzan al-Asrar, sanais poetry stresses the possibility of an awakening, While mankind remains mere baggage in the world It will be swept along, as in a boat, asleep. What can they see in sleep, what real merit or punishment can there be. He who knows not his own soul, how shall he know the soul of another, and he who only knows hand and foot, how shall he know the Godhead. The prophets are unequal to understanding this matter, why dost thou foolishly claim to do so, when thou hast brought forward a demonstration of this subject, then thou wilt know the pure essence of the faith, otherwise what have faith and thou in common. Thou hadst best be silent, and speak not folly, the learned talk nonsense all, for true religion is not woven about the feet of everyone. His means for this awakening is surrender to God, his poetry has been called the fragrance of the path of love. He hits out at human hypocrisy and folly, Others are heedless, —do thou be wise, the condition laid on such a one is that he should receive all food and drink from the Causer, not from the causes. Go, suffer hardship, if thou wouldst be cherished, and if not, none ever attained his object without enduring hardship. List of Persian poets and authors Persian literature Rumi Nizami Ganjavi Attar of Nishapur Hadiqat al-Haqiqa wa Shariat al-Tariqa In Encyclopædia Iranica by J. T. P, ISBN 0-7007-0406-X Jan Rypka, History of Iranian Literature. ISBN 90-277-0143-1 Bo Utas, A Persian Sufi Poem, Vocabulary, scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies Monograph Series, Curzon Press,1977. Sanai, D. L. Pendlebury The Walled Garden of Truth - Abridged English translation of parts of the Hadiqa The first book of the Hadiqatul-Haqiqat translated into English, at archive. org
3.
Sufism
–
Sufism or Taṣawwuf, which is often defined as Islamic mysticism, the inward dimension of Islam, or the phenomenon of mysticism within Islam, is a mystical trend in Islam characterized. These orders meet for sessions in meeting places known as zawiyas, khanqahs. They strive for ihsan as detailed in a hadith, Ihsan is to worship Allah as if you see Him, if you cant see Him, Rumi stated, The Sufi is hanging on to Muhammad, like Abu Bakr. Sufis regard Muhammad as al-Insān al-Kāmil, the perfect man who exemplifies the morality of God. The orders largely follow one of the four madhhabs of Sunni Islam, classical Sufis were characterized by their asceticism, especially by their attachment to dhikr, the practice of repeating the names of God, often performed after prayers. According to William Chittick, In a broad sense, Sufism can be described as the interiorization, historically, Muslims have used the Arabic word taṣawwuf to identify the practice of Sufis. In this view, it is necessary to be a Muslim to be a true Sufi. However, Islamic scholars themselves are not by any means in agreement about the meaning of the word sufi, Sufis themselves claim that Tasawwuf is an aspect of Islam similar to Sharia, inseparable from Islam and an integral part of Islamic belief and practice. Classical Sufi scholars have defined Tasawwuf as a science whose objective is the reparation of the heart and turning it away from all else, two origins of the word sufi have been suggested. Commonly, the root of the word is traced to ṣafā. Another origin is ṣūf, wool in Arabic, referring to the simple cloaks the early Muslim ascetics wore, the two were combined by the Sufi al-Rudhabari, who said, The Sufi is the one who wears wool on top of purity. Scholars generally agree that ṣūf or wool is probably the word of Sufi. This term was given to them because they wore woollen garments, the term labisal-suf meant he clad himself in wool and applied to a person who renounced the world and became an ascetic. Others have suggested that the word comes from the term ahl aṣ-ṣuffah and these men and women who sat at al-Masjid an-Nabawi are considered by some to be the first Sufis. Al-Qushayri and Ibn Khaldun both rejected all other than ṣūf on linguistic grounds. Sufi orders are based on the bayah that was given to the Prophet Muhammad by his Sahaba, by pledging allegiance to the Prophet Muhammad, the Sahaba had committed themselves to the service of God. According to Islamic belief, by pledging allegiance to Prophet Muhammad and it is through the Prophet Muhammad that Sufis aim to learn about, understand and connect with God. Such a concept may be understood by the hadith, which Sufis regard to be authentic, in which Prophet Muhammad said, I am the city of knowledge, eminent Sufis such as Ali Hujwiri refer to Ali as having a very high ranking in Tasawwuf
4.
Li Qingzhao
–
Li Qingzhao, pseudonym Yian Jushi, was a Song dynasty Chinese writer and poet. She is considered the greatest woman poet in Chinese history, Li Qingzhao was born 1084 in Zhangqiu into a family of scholar-officials. Her father was a student of Su Shi and he had a large collection of books and Li was educated during her childhood. She was unusually outgoing and knowledgeable for a woman of noble birth, before she got married, her poetry was already well known within elite circles. In 1101 she married Zhao Mingcheng, with whom she shared interests in art collection, after her husband started his official career, he was often absent. They were not particularly rich but shared enjoyment of collecting inscriptions and calligraphy which made their daily life count and this inspired some of the love poems that she wrote. Li and her husband collected many books and they shared a love of poetry and often wrote poems for each other as well as writing about bronze artifacts of the Shang and Zhou dynasties. The Northern Song capital of Kaifeng fell in 1127 to the Jurchens during the Jin–Song wars, fighting took place in Shandong and their house was burned. The couple took many of their possessions when they fled to Nanjing, Zhao died in 1129 en route to an official post. The death of her husband was a stroke from which Li never recovered. It was then up to her to keep safe what was left of their collection, Li described her married life and the turmoil of her flight in an Afterword to her husbands posthumously published work, Jin shi lu. Her earlier poetry portrays her carefree days as a woman of high society, Li subsequently settled in Hangzhou, where the Song government made its new capital after the war against the Jurchens. During this period, she continued writing poetry and she also kept working on completing the book Jin shi lu, which was originally written by Zhao Mingcheng. The book was mainly about the calligraphy on the bronze and stones, Jin shi lu also mentioned the documents Li and Zhao collected and viewed during the early period. According to some accounts, she was briefly married to a man named Zhang Ruzhou who treated her badly. She survived the criticism of this marriage, only around a hundred of her poems are known to survive, mostly in the ci form and tracing her varying fortunes in life. Also a few poems in the shi form have survived, the Afterword and her life was full of twists and turns and her poems can be split into two main parts - the dividing line being when she moved to the south. During the early period, most of her poems were related to her feelings as a maiden and they were more like love poems
5.
Song dynasty
–
The Song dynasty was an era of Chinese history that began in 960 and continued until 1279. It succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, coincided with the Liao and Western Xia dynasties and it was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or true paper money nationally and the first Chinese government to establish a permanent standing navy. This dynasty also saw the first known use of gunpowder, as well as the first discernment of true north using a compass, the Song dynasty is divided into two distinct periods, Northern and Southern. During the Northern Song, the Song capital was in the city of Bianjing. The Southern Song refers to the period after the Song lost control of its half to the Jurchen Jin dynasty in the Jin–Song Wars. During this time, the Song court retreated south of the Yangtze, the Southern Song dynasty considerably bolstered its naval strength to defend its waters and land borders and to conduct maritime missions abroad. To repel the Jin, and later the Mongols, the Song developed revolutionary new military technology augmented by the use of gunpowder, in 1234, the Jin dynasty was conquered by the Mongols, who took control of northern China, maintaining uneasy relations with the Southern Song. Möngke Khan, the fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire and his younger brother Kublai Khan was proclaimed the new Great Khan, though his claim was only partially recognized by the Mongols in the west. In 1271, Kublai Khan was proclaimed the Emperor of China, after two decades of sporadic warfare, Kublai Khans armies conquered the Song dynasty in 1279. The Mongol invasion led to a reunification under the Yuan dynasty, the population of China doubled in size during the 10th and 11th centuries. The Northern Song census recorded a population of roughly 50 million, much like the Han and this data is found in the Standard Histories. However, it is estimated that the Northern Song had a population of some 100 million people and this dramatic increase of population fomented an economic revolution in pre-modern China. The expansion of the population, growth of cities, and the emergence of a national economy led to the withdrawal of the central government from direct involvement in economic affairs. The lower gentry assumed a role in grassroots administration and local affairs. Appointed officials in county and provincial centers relied upon the gentry for their services, sponsorship. Social life during the Song was vibrant, citizens gathered to view and trade precious artworks, the populace intermingled at public festivals and private clubs, and cities had lively entertainment quarters. The spread of literature and knowledge was enhanced by the expansion of woodblock printing. Technology, science, philosophy, mathematics, and engineering flourished over the course of the Song, although the institution of the civil service examinations had existed since the Sui dynasty, it became much more prominent in the Song period
6.
Abraham ibn Ezra
–
Rabbi Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra was born in Tudela, Navarre in 1089, and died c. He was one of the most distinguished Jewish biblical commentators and philosophers of the Middle Ages, Abraham Ibn Ezra was born in Tudela, in the present-day Spanish province of Navarre, when the town was under the Muslim rule of the emirs of Zaragoza. In Granada, it is said, he met his future friend Yehuda Halevi and he left Spain before 1140 to escape persecution of the Jews by the new fanatical regime of the Almohads. There is a legend that he died in England from a fever and this legend is attached to the belief that he denied the existence of demons. The crater Abenezra on the Moon was named in his honor, at several of the above-named places, Ibn Ezra remained for some time and developed a rich literary activity. He also translated into Hebrew the two writings of Hayyuj in which the foundations of the system were laid down. Of greater original value than the works of Ibn Ezra are his commentaries on most of the books of the Bible, of which, however. Ibn Ezra wrote a commentary on Genesis as he had done on Exodus. There are second commentaries also by him on the Song of Songs, Esther, Ibn Ezra also wrote a commentary on the book of Ecclesiastes. The importance of the exegesis of Ibn Ezra consists in the fact that it aims at arriving at the sense of the text. For example, in his commentary, Ibn Ezra adheres to the sense of the texts, avoiding Rabbinic allegories and Cabbalistic interpretations. Indeed, Ibn Ezra is claimed by the proponents of the biblical criticism of the Torah as one of its earliest pioneers. In the mountain of God, He will appear, 5) behold, spinoza and later scholars were thus able to expand on several of Ibn Ezras hints and provide much stronger evidence for Non-Mosaic authorship. Ibn Ezras commentaries, and especially some of the longer excursuses, one work in particular that belongs to this province, Yesod Mora, on the division and the reasons for the Biblical commandments, he wrote in 1158 for a London friend, Joseph ben Jacob. In his philosophical thought neo-platonic ideas prevail, and astrology also had a place in his view of the world and they were written during his life of travel, and they reflect the unsteadiness of his outward circumstances. His chief work is the commentary on the Torah, which, like that of Rashi, has called forth a host of super-commentaries, and it is extant both in numerous manuscripts and in printed editions. The commentary on Exodus published in the editions is a work by itself. The complete commentary on the Torah, which, as has already mentioned, was finished by Ibn Ezra shortly before his death, was called Sefer ha-Yashar
7.
Al-Andalus
–
Al-Andalus, also known as Muslim Spain or Islamic Iberia, was a medieval Muslim territory and cultural domain occupying at its peak most of what are today Spain and Portugal. At its greatest geographical extent in the century, southern France—Septimania—was briefly under its control. Rule under these kingdoms led to a rise in cultural exchange, a number of achievements that advanced Islamic and Western science came from al-Andalus including major advances in trigonometry, astronomy, surgery, pharmacology, and other fields. Al-Andalus became an educational center for Europe and the lands around the Mediterranean Sea as well as a conduit for culture. For much of its history, al-Andalus existed in conflict with Christian kingdoms to the north, after the fall of the Umayyad caliphate, al-Andalus was fragmented into a number of minor states and principalities. Attacks from the Christians intensified, led by the Castilians under Alfonso VI, the Almoravid empire intervened and repelled the Christian attacks on the region, deposing the weak Andalusi Muslim princes and included al-Andalus under direct Berber rule. In the next century and a half, al-Andalus became a province of the Berber Muslim empires of the Almoravids and Almohads, ultimately, the Christian kingdoms in the north of the Iberian Peninsula overpowered the Muslim states to the south. In 1085, Alfonso VI captured Toledo, starting a gradual decline of Muslim power, with the fall of Córdoba in 1236, most of the south quickly fell under Christian rule and the Emirate of Granada became a tributary state of the Kingdom of Castile two years later. In 1249, the Portuguese Reconquista culminated with the conquest of the Algarve by Afonso III, finally, on January 2,1492, Emir Muhammad XII surrendered the Emirate of Granada to Queen Isabella I of Castile, completing the Christian Reconquista of the peninsula. The toponym al-Andalus is first attested to by inscriptions on coins minted by the new Muslim government in Iberia, the etymology of the name has traditionally been derived from the name of the Vandals. A number of proposals since the 1980s have contested this, Vallvé proposed a corruption of the name Atlantis, halm derives the name from a Gothic term *landahlauts. Bossong suggests derivation from a pre-Roman substrate and they crossed the Pyrenees and occupied Visigothic Septimania in southern France. Most of the Iberian peninsula became part of the expanding Umayyad Empire and it was organized as a province subordinate to Ifriqiya, so, for the first few decades, the governors of al-Andalus were appointed by the emir of Kairouan, rather than the Caliph in Damascus. Visigothic lords who agreed to recognize Muslim suzerainty were allowed to retain their fiefs, resistant Visigoths took refuge in the Cantabrian highlands, where they carved out a rump state, the Kingdom of Asturias. In the 720s, the al-Andalus governors launched several raids into Aquitaine. At the Battle of Poitiers in 732, the al-Andalus raiding army was defeated by Charles Martel, in 734, the Andalusi launched raids to the east, capturing Avignon and Arles and overran much of Provence. In 737, they climbed up the Rhône valley, reached as far as Burgundy, Charles Martel of the Franks, with the assistance of Liutprand of the Lombards, invaded Burgundy and Provence and expelled the raiders by 739. Relations between Arabs and Berbers in al-Andalus had been tense in the years after the conquest
8.
Zeng Gong
–
Zeng Gong, courtesy name Zigu, was a Chinese scholar and historian of the Song Dynasty in China. He was one of the supporters of the New Classical Prose Movement and is regarded by scholars as one of the Eight Great Prose Masters of the Tang and Song. Zeng Gong was born in Nanfeng, Jianchang and he is said to have written Liulun 六論 when he was only twelve. After the work was praised by Ouyang Xiu, one of the leaders of the era. In 1037, at the age of eighteen, he moved to Yushan county to accompany his father Zeng Yizhan, whilst in Yushan, he travelled extensively in its hinterlands and wrote You Xinzhou Yushan Xiaoyan Ji. The work was divided into five sections, the first describes the geography of Yushan, followed by sections on the caves, rocks etc. Zengs youthful descriptions show his vivid imagination and literary talent, in his twenties, Zeng Gong travelled widely throughout China, befriending the would be reformer Wang Anshi and later recommending him to Ouyang Xiu. In 1057, Zeng Gong achieved the degree of jinshi and was appointed to a military post in the provinces, the next year, he was recalled to the capital and served within the department of history - collecting and drafting documents. From 1069, he was appointed successively as the head of Qizhou, Xiangzhou, Hongzhou, Fuzhou, Mingzhou and Bozhou, in 1080, en route to a fresh appointment in Cangzhou, Zeng was granted an audience with Emperor Shenzong. The emperor was suitably impressed and allowed Zeng to stay at the capital to work on a history of the Five Dynasties period, Zeng Gong was promoted to become Aide to the Master of Writings in 1082. He died the year in Jiangning. The new monarch Emperor Lizong granted him the appellation of Wending. Zeng Gong produced some four hundred poems in his lifetime and a number of essays and his style of prose writing is mostly discursive rather than argumentative. In terms of philosophy, Zeng was a firm follower of Ouyang Xiu. For this reason his reputation as leader of one of the eight schools of philosophy has largely been overshadowed by that of his mentor. Among Zeng Gongs collected works are fifty chapters of Yuanfeng Leigao, forty chapters of the Xu Yuanfeng Leigao, in May 2016 a letter by Zeng sold for ¥207 million at auction, setting a new record for a piece of Chinese calligraphy
9.
Wang Anshi
–
Wang Anshi was a Chinese economist, statesman, chancellor and poet of the Song Dynasty who attempted major and controversial socioeconomic reforms known as the New Policies. These reforms constituted the core concepts of the Song-Dynasty Reformists, in contrast to their rivals, Wang Anshis ideas are usually analyzed in terms of the influence the Rites of Zhou or Legalism had on him. His economic reforms included increase currency circulation, breaking up of private monopolies and his military reforms expanded the use of local militias and his government reforms expanded the civil service examination system and attempted to suppress nepotism in government. Although successful for a while, he fell out of favor of the emperor. During the Song Dynasty, the development of large estates, whose owners managed to evade paying their share of taxes. The drop in revenues, a succession of budget deficits. Wang Anshi came from a family of scholars and was placed fourth in the imperial exam of 1042. He spent the first twenty years of his career in the government of the lower Yangtze region. During this period, he gained experience in local governance. This experience guided his analysis in formulating solutions to revitalize the ailing Song society, Wang came to power as 2nd privy councilor in 1069. It was there that he introduced and promulgated his reform policy, there were three main components to this policy, 1) state finance and trade, 2) defense and social order, and 3) education and improving of governance. He believed that foundation of the state rests on the well being of the common people, to limit speculation and eliminate private monopolies, he initiated price control and regulated wages and set up pensions for the aged and unemployed. The state also began to institute public orphanages, hospitals, dispensaries, hospices, cemeteries, the military reform centered on a new institution of the baojia system or organized households. This was done to ensure collective responsibility in society and was used to strengthen local defense. He also proposed the creation of systems to breed military horses, tests in law, military affairs and medicine were added to the examination system, with mathematics added in 1104. The National Academy was transformed into a school rather than simply a holding place for officials waiting for appointments. However, there was deep-seated resistance to the reforms as it hurt bureaucrats coming in under the old system. Although Wang had the alliance of such prominent court figures as Shen Kuo, imperial scholar-officials such as Su Dongpo and they believed Wangs reforms were against the moral fundamentals of the Two Emperors and would therefore prevent the Song from experiencing the prosperity and peace of the ancients
10.
Nasir Khusraw
–
He was born in Qabodiyon, a village in middle-age Bactria in the ancient Greater Iranian province of Khorasan, now in modern Tajikistan and died in Yamagan, now Afghanistan. He is considered one of the poets and writers in Persian literature. The Safarnama, an account of his travels, is his most famous work, Nasir Khusraw was born in 1004 AD, in Qabodiyon. He later chose Merv for his residence, and was the owner of a house and garden there. Until A. H.437, he worked as a secretary and revenue collector for the Seljuk sultan Toghrul Beg, or rather for his brother Jaghir Beg, the emir of Khorasan. The minute sketches of Jerusalem and its environs are even today of practical value. D. and he died in Yamagan in present-day northern Afghanistan. Safarnama Safarnama is his most famous work, after 1000 years, his Safarnama is still readable for Persian-speaking people. Gushayish wa Rahayish Another work of Nasir Khusraw is the Persian philosophical work Gushayis wa Rahayish which has translated into English by F. M. Hunzai under the title, Knowledge and Liberation, the work discusses creation, questions related to the soul, epistemology, creation, and Ismaili Islamic doctorines. From a linguistic point of view, the work is an example of philosophical writing in new Persian. It is the strain which runs, although in a somewhat lower key. It concludes with a vision of a beautiful work of spirits who have stripped off the fetters of earthly cares and sorrows and revel in the pure light of divine wisdom. Book on Mathematics Nasir Khusraw wrote a book on mathematics which has now been lost and he states in his other work that he could, not find one single scholar throughout all of Khorasan and eastern lands like myself could grapple with the solutions to these problems. The following poem speaks to this aspect of Khusraws poetry, by Nasir-i Khusrau Translated by Iraj Bashiri Copyright, Iraj Bashiri,2004 Reproach not the Firmament deep and blue, Forget thy stubborn nature to reveal a clue. Neither expect from the Firmament any joy, When your own star you knowingly destroy, Fruitless trees are, at best, fuel for fire, Fruitless men, alike, to oblivion retire. Forget about fragrant tresses and lips sweet, About hedges, lavish not praise on a filthy creature, With dastardly deeds as its only feature. Adore not with verse the Lie or the Greed, Smite down the infidels’ most cherished creed, be not Unsuri, who groveling worshiped Mahmud, Lavished on him all flattery and paean he could. I pledge never to sprinkle before the swine, These precious, the poetry of Nasir Khusraw is replete with advice and wisdom
11.
Khwaja Abdullah Ansari
–
Hazrat Shaikh Abu Ismaïl Abdullah al-Herawi al-Ansari or Khajah Abdullah Ansari of Herat also known as Pir-i Herat was a famous Persian Sufi who lived in the 11th century in Herat. He was born in the Kohandez, the old citadel of Herat and his father Abu Mansur, was a shopkeeper who had spent several years of his youth at Balkh. He practiced the Hanbali fiqh, one of the four Sunni schools of law or jurisprudence and his shrine, built during the Timurid Dynasty, is a popular pilgrimage site. He wrote several books on Islamic mysticism and philosophy in Persian and his most famous work is Munajat Namah, which is considered a masterpiece of Persian literature. After his death, many of his sayings that had been transmitted by his students along with others that were in his works were included in the Tafsir of Maybudi. This is among the earliest complete Sufi Tafsirs of Quran and has published several times in 10 volumes. He excelled in the knowledge of Hadith, history, and Ilm ul-Ansaab and he used to avoid the company of the rich, powerful and the influential. His yearly majlis-e-waaz was attended by people from far and wide, whatever his disciples and followers used to present to him was handed over to the poor and the needy. He is said to have had an impressive personality. Khwajah Abdullah Ansari of Herat was a descendant of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari. The Hanbali jurist Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya wrote a commentary on a treatise written by Ansari entitled Madarij al-Salikin. He expressed his love and appreciation for Ansari in this commentary with his statement Certainly I love the Sheikh, but I love the truth more. F. Haddad Stations of the Sufi Path, The One Hundred Fields of Abdullah Ansari of Herat, translated by Nahid Angha www. archetypebooks. com The Invocations of Abdullah Al Ansari at archive. org