Ibrahim Ibn Adham - Historicity and Literary Reception

Historicity and Literary Reception

The medieval narratives of the life of Ibrahim are semi-historical. Ibrahim may have been a historical Sufi of the 8th century, whose legend was embellished in later accounts. The Persian Memorial of the Saints by Attar, for example, remains one of the richest sources on Ebrahim's conversion and early life as the king of Balkh. It was through the Persian memorials that literature on Ibrahim passed into the legendary literature of India and Indonesia, where further unhistorical embellishments were added.

One of the main features of non-Arabic literature on Ibrahim is the feature of full-length biographies on the figure, as opposed to anecdotes centering around the main incidents in his life. Moreover, many of the non-Arabic accounts on Ebrahim's life preceded with a short account of the life of his father, Adham. One of the most famous of these biographies was written in Persian by Rumi, which was adapted into Arabic form. Other such biographies were written in Urdu and Malay, which laid the basis for short biographies in Javanese and Sundanese.