Najmuddin Kubra - Biography

Biography

Born in 540/1145, Najm al-din Kubra began his career as a scholar of hadith and kalam. His interest in Sufism began in Egypt where he became a murid of Shaykh Ruzbihan Baghli Shirazi, who was an initiate of the Oveisy order. After years of study, he abandoned his exploration of the religious sciences and devoted himself entirely to the Sufi way of life. Sufi shaikh Zia-Al-Din-'Ammar Bedlisi was Kubra's teacher, who tried to present Sufi thought in a new way to provide contemplation and influence for the reader. After receiving his khirka, Kubra gained a large following of gnostics and writers on Sufism. Because his followers are predominantly Sufi writers and gnostics, Kubra was given the title "manufacturer of saints" and his order was named the Kubraviyah. Kubra's main body of works concerns the analysis of the visionary experience. He wrote numerous important works discussing the visionary experience, including a Sufi commentary on the Qu'ran that he was unable to complete due to his death in 617/1220. Kubra died during the Mongol conquests after refusing to leave his city, where he fought in hand-to-hand combat against the Mongols. Overall, Kubra is remembered as a pioneer of the Sufi tradition and explanation of spiritual visionary experiences. Kubra's work spread throughout the Middle East and Central Asia where it flourished for many years, until it gradually was taken over by other similar more popular ideologies and Sufi leaders. Another version of his death was narrated by Tarikh-e-Soheili ""The master was old and half blind but he reused the grant of Mughals for his own life only and asked the invaders to leave, when the Mughals entered the city he was standing in the main square and had stones in his lap while throughing them on Mughals"