Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad ibn al-Khafif (882-982) known as al-Shaykh al-Kabir or Shaykh al-Shirazi was a Persian mystic and sufi from Iran. He is credited with bringing Sufism (tasawwuf) to Shiraz. He was a Baghdad-educated Shafi'ite legal scholar who had also studied under al-Ash'ari, the theologian in Basrah. In Baghdad he knew Ruwaym, Hallaj, and Shibli. After spending much of his life away from his hometown of Shiraz, he returned there to die. Biography His full name is Muhammad ibn Khafif ibn Asfakshad, Abu 'Abd Allah al-Shirazi al-Dibbi al-Shafi`i al-Sufi. Abu 'Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami (d. 412/1021) said of him: "The Folk (al-Qawm, i.e. the Sufis) do not have anyone older than him nor more complete in his state and reality today." He once said: "If you hear the call to prayer and do not see me in the first row, look for me in the cemeteries." He took kalam from Imam Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari, fiqh from Ibn Surayj, and tasawwuf from Ruwaym, Abu Muhammad al-Jariri (d. 311/923-24), and Abu al-'Abbas ibn 'Ata' (d. 309/921-22 or 311/923-24). Al-Dhahabi said of him: "He is at the same time one of the most knowledgeable shaykhs in the external sciences ('ulum al-zahir)." Ibn Taymiyya names him among the great Sufi representatives of the Sunnah. Ibn Khafif said, "In my beginnings I would recite in one cycle of prayer al-Ikhlas [Quranic chapter 112] ten thousand times, or recite the entire Qur`an in one cycle of prayer." Al-Sulami said, "Abu 'Abd Allah [ibn Khafif] came from a family of princes, but he practiced asceticism (zuhd) to the point that he said, 'I would collect rags from refuse-heaps, wash them, and mend whatever I could use for clothing, and I spent 14 months breaking my fast at night with a handful of beans.'" Ibn Khafif reported from his teacher Ibn Surayj that the proof that love of Allah was a categorical obligation (fard) was in the verses: "Say: If your fathers, and your sons, and your brethren, and your wives, and your tribe, and the wealth you have acquired, and merchandise for which you fear that there will be no sale, and dwellings you desire are dearer to you than Allah and His messenger and striving in His way: then wait till Allah brings His command to pass. Allah guides not wrongdoing folk." (9:24) For punishment is not threatened except due to a categorical obligation. He once