Topic summary
Muslim scholar
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Ulama.
Sufism
Early on in Islamic history, a line of thought developed around the idea of mysticism, striving for the perfection (Ihsan) of worship. During the first Islamic century, Hasan al-Basri (642–728 AD) was one of the first Muslim scholars to describe, according to Albert Hourani (1991) "the sense of the distance and nearness of God ... in the language of love". During the 7th century, the ritual of Dhikr evolved as a "way of freeing the soul from the distractions of the world". Important early scholars who further elaborated on mysticism were Harith al-Muhasibi (781–857 AD) and Junayd al-Baghdadi (835–910 AD).