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Dhul-Nun al-Misri (Arabic: ذو النون المصري) (d.859) was a famous Egyptian Sufi (full name, Dhul-Nun Abu Faid Thawban ibn Ibrahim al-Misri).
Life Born in Akhmim in upper Egypt in AD 796, al-Misri is considered among the most prominent figures of early Sufism and holds a position in the Sufi chronicles as high as Junayd (d.910) and Bayazid (d.874). He studied under various teachers and travelled extensively in Arabia and Syria. In 829 he was arrested on a charge of heresy and sent to prison in Baghdad, but after examination he was released on the caliph's orders to return to Cairo, where he died in 859; his tombstone has been preserved. A legendary alchemist and thaumaturage, he is supposed to have known the secret of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. His sayings and poems, which are extremely dense and rich in mystical imagery, emphasize knowledge or gnosis (marifah) more than fear (makhafah) or love (mahabbah), the other two major paths of spiritual realization in Sufism. None of his written works have survived, but a vast collection of poems, sayings, and aphorisms attributed to him continues to live on in oral tradition. Notes | ||||||||
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