The Sufi Legend of Sultan Ibrāhīm b. Adham

抄録

Ibrāhīm b. Adham al-Balkhī al-‘Ijlī (d. 161/777-8) was an ascetic and mystic belonging to the earliest period in the history of Islamic mysticism. Very little is known about him. He fled to escape Abū Muslim, the leader of the revolutionary Abbasid forces, and after having roamed the mountains and plains of Syria, he is said to have died during a raid (ghazwa) on Byzantian territory. Two or three centuries after his death there had evolved a legend (ḥikāya) which identified him as a pious and virtuous wandering saint (walī). Thus, by the eleventh to twelfth centuries there had been created, chiefly in Iran, Iraq and Syria, various legends about Ibrāhīm b. Adham in both Arabic and Persian, and these have been gathered together in collections. Moreover, with the wide circulation of these legends about Ibrāhīm throughout the Islamic world, many of the faithful began to visit his tomb in Jabala. We may ascertain that the legends of Ibrāhīm have diffused not only to the Middle East, but also to the regions of North India, Central Asia and Southeast Asia.