294 – al-Farāmidī, Abū ʿAlī al-Faḍl ibn Muḥammad al-Khurasānī
The eminent imam, shaykh of the Sufis, Abū ʿAlī al-Faḍl ibn Muḥammad al-Farāmidī al-Khurasānī, the preacher.
He was born in 407 AH.
In his adulthood he heard hadith from Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Bākūyah, the theologian Abū Manṣūr ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī, Abū Ḥassān al-Muzakkī, and a number of others.
Those who narrated from him include ʿAbd al-Ghāfir ibn Ismāʿīl, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlī al-Kharkūshī, Abū al-Khayr Jāmiʿ al-Saqqā, and others.
ʿAbd al-Ghāfir said: “He was the shaykh of the shaykhs of his age, unmatched in his distinctive method of exhortation—a method to which none before him attained—for the elegance of his phrasing and its refinement, the beauty of his delivery, the grace of his metaphors, the subtlety of his allusions, the delicacy of his diction, and the effect his words had upon hearts.
He kept the company of al-Qushayrī and pursued strenuous spiritual exertion. The imam regarded him with special care and furnished him with the path of guidance. Thereafter he returned to Ṭūs and became the son-in-law of Abū al-Qāsim Kurrakān (1). He was held in extraordinary esteem as a preacher; Niẓām al-Mulk honored him greatly and spent on the Sufis most of what he received.
The master Abū ʿAlī passed away in Rabīʿ al-Ākhir, 477 AH.