al-Sari al-Saqati
c. 772 CE–c. 867 CE · Baghdad
Al-Sari al-Saqati (born traditionally c. 155 AH / 772 CE, died c. 253 AH / 867 CE) was an early Sufi of Baghdad. "Sufi" (tasawwuf) names the inward, ascetic-mystical current of Islam, and al-Sari is counted among the figures who helped give it a settled vocabulary in the Abbasid capital. His byname al-Saqati comes from his trade as a saqat — a dealer in secondhand goods and small wares — a livelihood later tradition presents as a sign that he combined ordinary work with deep piety rather than withdrawing from society.
He is consistently reported to have been a disciple of the ascetic Maʿruf al-Karkhi (d. c. 200/815) and the maternal uncle and spiritual master of al-Junayd al-Baghdadi, the most influential teacher of the Baghdad Sufi circle; through Junayd much of what is reported about al-Sari reaches us. Later sources credit him with being among the first to teach publicly in Baghdad on tawhid (the absolute oneness of God) and on the love of God (maḥabba), themes that became central to Sufi thought.
Much of his life-story survives only in later devotional collections (the manaqib, or accounts of saints) by Sulami, Abu Nuʿaym, and ʿAttar, which recount his sayings, his scrupulous honesty in trade, and a journey to the Byzantine frontier where he is said to have fallen ill at Tarsus. These accounts are pious tradition rather than documented history. He is said to have died in Baghdad and been buried in the Shunuziyya cemetery, later beside Junayd.
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BaghdadIraq
What they did here
Biographical tradition places his birth in Baghdad (the Karkh quarter) c. 155 AH / 772 CE; some accounts give 762 CE. The date is a traditional estimate calculated back from a reported death at age 98, not an attested record.
About Baghdad
Baghdad, on the Tigris, is the capital of modern Iraq. The Abbasid caliph al-Mansur founded it in 762 as his capital, and for five centuries it was a leading centre of Islamic learning, with the House of Wisdom, the Nizamiyya madrasa and many jurists, Sufis and scientists; Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, eponym of the Qadiriyya order, is buried there. The Mongol sack of 1258 ended the caliphate, and the city later passed to Ottoman rule. It was also a seat of the patriarchs of the Church of the East and of the exilarch who headed Babylonian Jewry. Its Jewish community, whose foremost nineteenth-century rabbi was Yosef Hayyim (Ben Ish Chai), almost entirely emigrated to Israel in 1950-52.
Across the traditions, in Baghdad at the same time
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with al-Sari al-Saqati’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Across the traditions
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with al-Sari al-Saqati’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works
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