Muhammad ibn Abd al-Jabbar al-Niffari

Muhammad ibn Abd al-Jabbar ibn al-Hasan al-Niffari was an Iraqi Sufi, author of al-Mawaqif wa-l-Mukhatabat ¹. The source used here is Mostafa Mahmoud's Ra'aytu Allah, a modern writer who admires al-Niffari, so what is reported here is that book's account.

Mostafa Mahmoud writes that the details of al-Niffari's life are "unknown", and that no more is known of him than that he lived in the fourth century after the Hijra in the town of Niffar in Iraq, loved solitary retreat and spent most of his life in worship and contemplation ¹. He calls him "the knowing imam" and "the Sufi" ^{2 1}.

According to the same source, al-Niffari's book is "a collection of scraps" he left at his death, gathered by his followers, which speak of the spirit, the body and the self and explain tawhid, Islam and the Qur'an "in a language of great depth" ¹. Among the sayings Mostafa Mahmoud quotes is that God "is the proof of things and is not proved by them" ².

Mostafa Mahmoud holds that al-Niffari has no doctrine of his own but walks the Sufi path, standing out by "an astonishing power of expression and a burning language" ³. He sums up his doctrine of divine knowledge as transcendence and crossing over: leaving self and body while "keeping to servanthood all the time" ⁴.

• His death date is not given in the source used; an early biographical source is needed to fix it.
• Afif al-Din al-Tilimsani wrote a commentary on the Mawaqif, according to his record in the museum.