Nasir Khusraw
1004 CE–1088 CE · Merv
Nasir Khusraw (born 1004 CE / 394 AH) was a Persian-language poet, philosopher and traveler, and the leading Ismaili Shi'i figure of medieval Khurasan (a region spanning today's northeastern Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia). Born at Qubadiyan near Balkh, he served for years as a financial administrator. By his own account he abandoned this career around 1045 after a dream that sent him on a "quest for truth."
His travelogue, the Safarnama ("Book of Travels"), records a roughly seven-year journey (1046–1052) through Syria and Palestine to Jerusalem, on pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca, and to Cairo, capital of the Ismaili Fatimid caliphate. There he embraced Ismaili Islam and, tradition and his own poetry hold, was appointed hujjat ("proof") of Khurasan — a senior rank in the Ismaili missionary (da'wa) hierarchy. The Safarnama, prized for its vivid observation, is his most widely read work.
Returning home to preach Ismailism in largely Sunni territory, he met fierce opposition and fled to the remote valley of Yumgan in Badakhshan (today northeastern Afghanistan), under the protection of a local ruler. There he spent his final decades writing philosophical and poetic works that fuse Ismaili theology with Neoplatonic philosophy (falsafa). His Divan laments his isolation. He is revered today as a founder-figure by the Ismailis of Badakhshan. Whether he was a practicing Sufi mystic is disputed among scholars.
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Merv
What they did here
Served as a financial administrator and held a post associated with Marv (Merv). His Safarnama records that he set out in 1046; Britannica gives Marv as the journey's starting point, but other readings name Balkh, so the precise departure node is not settled.
About Merv
Merv was a great oasis city on the Silk Road, near modern Mary in Turkmenistan, and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was the centre of the Achaemenid province of Margiana, a long-standing centre of Buddhist learning, and from the 5th to the 11th century the seat of a Church of the East metropolitan. After the Arab conquest of 651 it became capital of Umayyad Khurasan; the Abbasid cause was proclaimed there in 748, and the caliph al-Ma'mun resided there from 813 to 818. As a Seljuk capital it may have been the world's largest city around 1150, and Yaqut al-Hamawi counted ten great libraries there before the Mongols devastated it in 1221.
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Nasir Khusraw’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
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