The Tatars descended upon Khwarazm in Rabīʿ al-Awwal of the year 618 AH. Najm al-Dīn al-Kubrā was among those who went out for jihad. They fought at the city gate until they were all killed, and the shaykh himself was slain while in his eighties (1).
In some of his discourse there is a trace of the philosophers’ brand of Sufism (2).
Abū ʿĀṣim Nāfiʿ al-Hindī narrated to us; my master Saʿīd ibn al-Muṭahhar (3) informed us; Abū al-Jannāb Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar, in the year 615 AH, said:
I read to Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Ḥāfiẓ, who reported to us from ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad, who reported from Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad, who reported from Ismāʿīl al-Ṣaffār, from al-Ḥasan ibn ʿArafah, from Salm ibn Sālim, from Nūḥ ibn Abī Maryam, from Thābit, from Anas, who said:
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ was asked about the verse, “For those who have done good is the finest [reward] and even more” (4). He replied: “For those who excelled in righteous deeds in this world there is al-ḥusnā—that is, Paradise—and the ‘even more’ is to gaze upon the noble Face of Allah.”
Nūḥ is discarded, and Salm has also been declared weak (5).
(1) When the infidel Tatars attempted to storm the town, Shaykh Najm al-Din rallied his remaining companions with the call: “al-salat jamiʿa” (assemble for prayer). He then said, “Rise, let us fight in the path of Allah.” He entered his house, donned the Sufi khirqah that his own shaykh had invested him with, and charged the enemy, pelting them even with stones until an arrow struck him in the chest and killed him. May Allah have mercy on him and on all martyrs who defended the sanctuary of Islam against unbelievers, renegades, charlatans and impostors.
(2) The author states in his Tarikh al-Islam: “Our shaykh ʿImad al-Din al-Hizami held him in great esteem, but later showed me a passage of his that hinted at some implications of ittihad (pantheistic union). God willing, he is free of that, for he was a hadith transmitter well-known for his adherence to the sunnah and for his exceptional devotion. Among his virtues is that he was martyred in the path of Allah … They were killed while advancing, not retreating.”
(3) al-Bakharzi.
(4) Qurʾan, Surah Yunus, 10 : 26.
(5) See Mizan al-Iʿtidal, 2 / 185. Al-Suyuti quotes the report in al-Durr al-Manthur, attributing it to Abu Shaykh, Ibn Mandah, al-Daraqutni in al-Ruʾya, Ibn Mardawayh, al-Lalikai and Ibn al-Najjar. The author adds in Tarikh al-Islam: “This hadith is objectionable; it is related only by Salam b. Salim al-Balkhi, who is unanimously regarded as weak.”