Ibrahim Ibn Adham - Life

Life

According to Muslim tradition, Ibrahim's family was from Kufa but he was born in Balkh. While some writers traced his lineage back to Umar, the most famous family tree of his Sufi ancestors, most authors trace it to 'Abdullah, the brother of Ja'far al-Sadiq, and son of Muhammad al-Baqir, the grandson of Husayn ibn Ali. It is also very important to not that Ibrahim was a Sunni Hanafi Muslim.

Accounts of Ibrahim's life are recorded by medieval authors such as Ibn Asakir and Bukhari.

Ibrahim was born into the Arab community of Balkh as the king of the area in around 730 C.E, but he abandoned the throne to become an ascetic. He received a warning from God, through Khidr who appeared to him twice, and, abdicated his throne to take up the ascetic life in Syria. Having migrated in around 750 C.E, he chose to live the rest of his life in a semi-nomadic lifestyle, often travelling as far south as Ghazzah. Ibrahim abhorred begging and worked tirelessly for his livelihood, often grinding corn or tending orchards. In addition, he is also said to have engaged in military operations on the border with Byzantium, and his untimely death is supposed to have occurred on one of his naval expeditions.

His earliest spiritual master was a Christian monk named Simeon.

Ibrahim later recounted later his dialog with Simeon in his writings:

I visited him in his cell, and said to him, "Father Simeon, how long hast thou been here?" "For seventy years", he answered. "What is thy food?" I asked. "O Hanifite", he countered, "what hast caused thee to ask this?" "I wanted to know", I replied. Then he said. "Every night one chickpea." I said, "What stirs thee in thy heart so that this pea suffices thee?" He answered, "They come to me one day in every year and adorn my cell and process about it, so doing me reverence; and whenever my spirit wearies of worship, I remind it of that hour, and endure the labors of a year for the sake of an hour. Do thou, O Hanifite, endure the labor of a year for the glory of eternity."

As is often with the graves of saints, numerous locations have been placed as the burial place of Ibrahim ibn Adham. Ibn Asakir stated that Ebrahim was buried on a Byzantine island, while other sources state his tomb is in Tyre, in Baghdad, in the "city of the prophet Lot", in the "cave of Jeremiah" in Jerusalem and, finally, on the Syrian coast.