Biography
Najm al-Dīn Rāzī lived at a time when the Islamic Middle East was going through a turbulent period of its history, marked by may disruptions and calamities, culminating in the Mongol invasion. The Crusaders descended on the Islamic world from the west, and the Mongols from the east. But Rāzī, who like Ghazālī adhered to the Sunnite branch of Islam and followed the Ash'arite theology, focused his attention on the exploration and analysis of the visionary states experienced by the Sufis in the course of their mystical journey.
Dāya was born in Rey, then one of the major centers of urban life and culture in pre-Mongol Iran, in 1117. At the age of 26, Rāzī travelled through Syria, Egypt, Ḥejāz, Iraq, and Azerbaijan. He finally settled in Kārazm and soon become a morīd to Najm al-Dīn Kubrā, a mystical Sufi and founder of the Kubrawiyya Order. Rāzī wasthen tutored by Shaikh Majd al-Dīn Baḡdādī, who Rāzī often refers to as "our shaikh." Rāzī then flees Kārazm due to Kubrā’s prophecy of a Mongol invasion. Finally, Rāzī fled Rey as well, willingly abandoning his family to the Mongol invasion. Traveling via Hamadān, Erbīl, and Diyarbekir, he reached Kayseri in central Anatolia in Ramadān 618/October 1221. Thanks to Seljuq patronage, Anatolia was a center for the cultivation of Persian literature.
At Malatya, Razi met Shaikh Sehab al-Din Abu Hafs ‘Omar al-Sohravardi, nephew of the founder of the Sohravardi order. In October 1221 he reached Kayseri. He completed the Merad at Sivas in August 1223.
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