Bayazid Bastami - Influence

Influence

Bayazid was in close contact with the Twelve Imams. He received initiation from Imam Ali ar-Ridha and died in either 874 or 877/8, indicating it is most likely he would have also associated with the succeeding Imams of the Family of the Prophet Muhammad, including Imam Muhammad at-Taqi (d.835 CE), Imam Ali al-Hadi (d.868 CE), and Imam Hasan al-Askari (d.874 CE), the paternal ancestors Baha-ud-Din Naqshband Bukhari, who would later lend his name to the chain of Central Asian Sufi Masters from the 10th to the 16th century known collectively as the Khwajagan. Bayazid's successor was Abu al-Hassan al-Kharaqani, who transmitted belief in the Twelve Imams to both Khwaja Abdullah Ansari, at whose shrine the names of the Twelve Imams are inscribed, and to Abu al-Hassan al-Kharaqani's successor Abul Qasim Gurgani (d. 1076), at whose shrine these names are also inscribed.

Bastami's predecessor Dhu'l-Nun al-Misri (d. CE 859) was a murid of Jābir ibn Hayyān, who was a student of the sixth Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq, as well. Al-Misri had formulated the doctrine of ma'rifa (gnosis), presenting a system which helped the murid (initiate) and the shaykh (guide) to communicate. Bayazid Bastami took this a step further and emphasized the importance of ecstasy, referred to in his words as drunkenness (shukr or wajd), a means of self-annihilation in the Divine Presence. Before him, Sufism was mainly based on piety and obedience and he played a major role in placing the concept of divine love at the core of Sufism.

Bastami was one of the first to speak of "annihilation of the self in God" (fana fi 'Allah') and "subsistence through God" (baqa' bi 'Allah). The "annihilation of the self" (fana fi 'Allah') refers to the annihilation of the ego or the individualized self with all its attachments which results in attaining union with God or becoming God realized. When a person enters the state of fana it is believed that one has merged in God. His paradoxical sayings gained a wide circulation and soon exerted a captivating influence over the minds of students who aspired to understand the meaning of the wahdat al-wujud, Unity of Being.

When Bayazid died he was over seventy years old. Before he died, someone asked him his age. He said: "I am four years old. For seventy years I was veiled. I got rid of my veils only four years ago.”

Bayazid died in 874 CE and is buried either in the city of Bistam in north central Iran, or in Semnan, Iran.