Ibrahim al-Biqa'i the Sufi

إبراهيم البقاعي الصوفي

c. July 1479 CE · Rabi' I 885 AH – c. 6 April 1530 CE · 11 Sha'ban 935 AH

The speed-reader mystic — read all of Sahih al-Bukhari on al-Badr al-Ghazzi in six days and Sahih Muslim in five sittings within twenty days; al-Ghazzi wrote him up as 'one of the saints who do not know themselves'; martyred by dysentery Tuesday 11 Sha'ban 935 1.

Depth

At a glance

Roles
Scholar · mystic
Counted among
Sunni
Era
The Mongol and Post-Mongol Era
Region
Levant & Iraq
Review
Draft Completeness 2/5 · Help complete it

Life in time

14301440145014601470148014901500151015201530154015501560 c. c. c. c.
The Crusades, Ayyubids and Mamluks · The Gunpowder Empires · The Mongol and Post-Mongol Era Contemporaries: Al-Balawi, Ahmad ibn Ali · al-Dalji al-'Uthmani · al-Tanbadhawi al-Bakri al-Siddiqi · Al-Tattai, Muhammad ibn Ibrahim · al-Tayyib al-Makhrama al-'Adani

Scripture and its sciencesSpirituality and Sufism

Summary

Burhan al-Din Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Abi Bakr al-Biqai, a Hanbali who later became a Shafii. He was born in Rabi al-Awwal of the year 885, and studied the foundations of law and Arabic with al-Badr al-Ghazzi 1.

A reader of books in days

He read the whole of Sahih al-Bukhari with al-Badr al-Ghazzi in six days, beginning on Saturday, the eleventh of Ramadan in the year 930. In the month of Ramadan of the year 931 he read the whole of Sahih Muslim in five separate sittings spread over twenty days. He also read the first half of al-Shifa with him, and more. Al-Badr described him as one of the saints who were not aware of their own sanctity. He died as a martyr in the plague in al-Batn on Tuesday, the eleventh of Sha'ban in the year 935 1.

People and things also explored

The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam· Prophetic adab (proper conduct)· Akhi Baba (title of the guild shaykh and tanners' head)· The seven ahruf· Hadith· The angelic and the satanic inspiration (lamma)· Asking people for help (al-masala)· The soul (nafs) and the spirit (ruh)

Sources

  1. Shadharat al-Dhahab — Ibn al-Imad al-Hanbali , p. 594
Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “Ibrahim al-Biqa'i the Sufi”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/ibrahim-al-biqai-sufi/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-19.

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Wing

People

Prophets, companions, scholars, rulers, scientists, poets, travelers: women and men who shaped the story.
Related

The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam

A book by Muhammad Iqbal in a preface and seven lectures, in which he tries to reconstruct Muslim religious philosophy in the light of its philosophical tradition and of modern knowledge. Lecture I asks how knowledge and religious experience relate and proposes two tests for the claims that experience makes.