Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad ibn al-Khafif (882-982) known as al-Shaykh al-Kabir or Shaykh al-Shirazi was a Persian[5] mystic and sufi from Iran. He is credited with bringing Sufism (tasawwuf) to Shiraz.[6][7]
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.[8]
^Lewis, B.; Menage, V.L.; Pellat, Ch.; Schacht, J. (1986) [1st. pub. 1971]. Encyclopaedia of Islam. Vol. III (H-Iram) (New ed.). Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. p. 823. ISBN9004081186.
^Lewis, B.; Menage, V.L.; Pellat, Ch.; Schacht, J. (1986) [1st. pub. 1971]. Encyclopaedia of Islam. Vol. III (H-Iram) (New ed.). Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. p. 823. ISBN9004081186.
^Irwin, Robert, ed. (2010). The new Cambridge history of Islam. Vol. 4 (1. publ. ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 72. ISBN978-0-521-83824-5.
^Limbert, John W., Shiraz in the Age of Hafez: The Glory of a Medieval Persian City. University of Washington Press. 2004. ISBN0-295-98391-4. p.112.