Ja'far al-Khuldī the Unknown Sufi of Baghdad

Abstract

The School of Baghdad is the most important schools among the Sufism and still has its influence on the other Sufi Schools. Although there are inquiries about some of the members of this school such as al-Junayd, al-Shiblī and particularly al-Ḥallāj but there are others masters who are not less important but nothing has said about them. One of these "unknown" masters is Abu Muḥammad Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr b. Qāsim al-Khawwāṣ al-Baghdadī (867-959) known as Jaʿfar al-Khuldī, one of the great Sufis and Muḥaddith of 9th and 10th centuries in Baghdad. This essay studies shortly the life, thoughts, and works of him. He was born, grew up, and then died in Baghdad; and although he travelled to other Sufi centers and learned from their great Sufis, during his long life was able to be a shaykh of Baghdad Sufis and to see an ups and downs of the Sufism of Baghdad. It is true that most of the Sufis of that time, including Jaʿfar al-Khuldī, were belong to Sunni thought but he looks to the Ahlulbayt in a way that perhaps we can call him a semi-Shiʿa Sufi.