Fazlallah Astarabadi

Fażlu l-Lāh Astar-Ābādī (Persian: فضل‌الله استرآبادی‎‎) (born 1339/40 in Astarābād - died 1394 in Nakhchivan), also known as Fażlullāh Tabrīzī Astarābādī by a pseudonym al-Ḥurūfī and a pen name Nāimī, was an Iranian mystic who founded the Ḥurūfī movement. The basic belief of the Ḥurūfiyyah was that the God was incarnated in the body of Fażlullāh and that he would appear as Mahdī when the Last Day was near in order to save Muslims, Christians and Jews. His followers first came from the village of Toqchi near Isfahan and from there, the fame of his small community spread throughout Khorasan, ʿErāq, Azerbaijan and Shirvan. The center of Fażlullāh Nāimī's influence was Baku and most of his followers came from Shirvan. Among his followers was the famous Ḥurūfī poet Seyyed Imadaddin Nasimi, one of the greatest Turkic mystical poets of the late 14th and early 15th centuries.

Fażlullāh was born in Astarābād, Iran, circa 1339/1340, to a family of judges. According to the traditional Ḥurūfī biography, Fażlullāh Astarābādī was born in a household that traced its descent to the seventh Shī‘ah Imam, Musa al-Kazim. Fażlullāh's predecessor, in eighth or ninth generation, was Muhammad al-Yamanī, from the family which originated in Yemen, the center of heterodox Islam at the time. Fażlullāh's family was from the Shāfi‘ī school of Sunni Islam — however, this did not figure greatly in his religious development.

When his father died when he was still a child, Fażlullāh inherited his position and appeared at the courthouse on horse back everyday, acting as a figurehead while his assistants carried out the work of the court. At the age of eighteen he had an extraordinary religious experience when a nomadic dervish recited a verse by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi:

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