Al-Junayd of Baghdad c. 830 – 910

Abu al-Qasim al-Junayd of Baghdad was a Persian Sunni Muslim mystic and theologian and the principal founder of the school of sober Sufism that traces its lineage through him. Trained in law as well as in mystical practice, he combined strict adherence to Islamic law with a deep spiritual interiority and is honored in the Sufi tradition as Sayyid al-Ta'ifa, the master of the order. Through his pupils and his short epistles he shaped much of the subsequent Sufi tradition, and almost every major Sufi order traces its spiritual descent through him. His austere doctrine of fana, the passing away of the self in God, balanced ecstatic with sober expression.