Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi


Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, full name Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Ali ibn al-Hasan ibn Bashir al-Tirmidhi was a Sunni jurist and traditionist of Khorasan, but is mostly remembered as one of the great early authors of Sufism.
Information about his life and scientific and creative activities can be found in the works by Taj ad-Din Subki, Khatiba Baghdad, Ibn Hajara AshkAlani, Sulami and in a number of other treatises.
Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi speaks about his life in his book Bad'u Shaani Abu Abdullah, published in Beirut in 1965 by Yakh'ya Ismail Usman, together with the work of the scientist in Khatm Al-Avliya.

Life

Tirmidhi was apparently born between 820 and 825 AD in Termez, Khorasan, nowadays Uzbekistan. His father was a scholar of hadith and a jurist; his early education appears to have been very orthodox. He was reared as a scholar of hadith and fiqh, more specifically, the Hanafi school of law that was dominant in eastern territories of Iran. The range of Tirmidhi's education did include the sciences, such as Greek natural science and philosophy. His subsequent reference to learning the use of the astrolabe, implying a knowledge of astronomy and mathematics, has been given different interpretations. "There is no trace of influence from 'natural science' in his writings." But being a Sufi Master is enough to accept that he did. However, his general pursuit of knowledge gained him the name of "al-hakim".

Early years

Different dates are used in written sources and present literature to indicate al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi's date of birth and death. Some authors, Khwaja Khalif in particular, in his Kashf as-Zunun, give the year 255 in Hijra / 869 AD as Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi's date of death. The same date was written on Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi's tomb. If we proceed from the fact that Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi lived more than one hundred years, some sources say 112, 116 or 120 years, he was born approximately between 750–760 AD. At the same time, Abdulfattah Abdullah Baraka who wrote his great "Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi and Nazariyyatukhu fil" thirty years ago, said that Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi, was born in 205 in Hijri / 820 and died in 320 in Hijri / 932 and lived 112 years.
Detailed information about Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi's childhood and youth is not available in the sources. According to his "autobiography", he started learning religious sciences when he was eight, and he made a Hajj to Mecca when he was twenty-eight.

Later life

Returning from Mecca, Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi became a Sufi follower; he withdrew from people and learned treaties.
His father Ali bin Hassan was a leading scholar, a Hadith specialist, who, looking for knowledge, went to Baghdad and took an active part in scientific discussions with prominent scholars of the time on various problems of Hadith. His mother and uncle were considered to be experts of Hadith. Consequently, Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi grew up in the circle of educated and scientific people, which influenced greatly on his ideology.
Some written sources contain reliable information about Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi's teachers. His teacher was his father Ali bin Al-Hassan at Tirmidhi "History of Baghdad" by Khatib Al-Bagdhadi contains some information. Among his other teachers were Kutaiba bin Sayid as-Sakafi Al-Balkhi, Salih bin Abdullah al-Tirmidhi of much interesting facts had been written in the book "Books about Famous People" by Ibn Khibbana; Salih bin Muhammad al-Tirmidhi who was former qazi of Termiz for some time, Sufyan bin Vaki, Hassan bin Umar bin Shafiq Al-Balkhi, Ahmad bin Khadravayh, Abu Turab An-Nakhshabi, and Yahya bin Maaz Ar-Razi.
Based on data given in the written sources Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi's life can be divided into the following periods:
Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi had many of students, including: Abu Muhammad Yahya bin Mansur Al-Kadi, Abu Ali Mansur bin Abdullah bin Khalid Al-Zuhli Al Hiravi; Abu Ali Al-Hassan bin Ali Al-Jurjani. He also taught Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Isa, Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn Umar Al-Al Hakim Al-Varrak, Muhammad bin Jaafar bin Muhammad bin Al-Haisam bin Umran bin Buraida, and others.
Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi's scientific and creative activity is closely connected with his travels to other countries and cities. He visited Balkh, Nishapur, and Baghdad, where science and culture reached its zenith, and he met famous scholars and took part in discussions. Nevertheless, Termiz, his native city played an important role in his scientific and creative activity, and there he created his basic works. His sermons and as well as some works, first of all, Hatam Al-Avliya, Hal Ash-Shari'a in which are discussed Muslim rituals, about "love for God" and about various categories of mystics, about "the Seals of Saints", along with existing "Seals of Prophets", had dissatisfied some parts of the falikh and rich. Escaping from his enemies' chase, Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi had to move to Balkh and then to Nishapur, where he was very well accepted and where he obtained a large number of followers later.

Works

According to Radtke and O'Kane, "he is the first and, up until the time of Ibn al-Arabi, the only mystic author whose writings present a broad synthesis of mystic experience, anthropology, cosmology and Islamic theology... Tirmidhi's system of thought is representative of an old Islamic theosophy which had not yet consciously assimilated elements from the Aristotelian-Neoplatonic philosophic tradition."
He had 62 editions and 108 titles. His works can be divided into six parts: Tafsir, Hadith, Fiqh, Arabic terminology, anthropology, and the theory of sainthood. Some of his works are: