Awhad al-Din Kermani

Awḥad al-Dīn Ḥāmid ibn Abi ʾl-Fakhr Kirmānī^[a] (Persian: اوحدالدین حامد بن ابی الفخر; died 21 March 1238) was a Persian poet and Ṣūfī mystic.

Kirmānī studied under Rukn al-Dīn al-Sijāsī and joined the ṭarāʾiq (orders) of Quṭb al-Dīn al-Abharī and Abū Najīb al-Suhrawardī.^[1] He traveled from Kirmān through Azerbaijan, Iraq and Syria and met many leading mystics and philosophers of the day, including Shams al-Dīn Tabrīzī, Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, ʿUthmān Rūmī, Saḍr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī and Fakhr al-Dīn al-ʿIrāqī.^[1][2] In Damascus, he met Ibn ʿArabī, who exercised a great influence on his ideas. He ended his life a teacher in Baghdad, where he was rewarded by the caliph al-Mustanṣir in 1234/1235. He probably died on 21 March 1238.^[1]

Kirmānī's writings belong to the tradition of Shāhidbāzī, seeing divine beauty in earthly things.^[1] He was criticized for the homoerotic nature of some of his writings.^[3].

Notes

1. Also Awḥad-al-Dīn Kermānī or Shaikh Abu Hamid Auhadeddin Kermani.