Sahl al-Tustari

Sahl al-Tustari
Born	c818 C.E. (203 AH) in Shushtar, Iran
Died	c896 C.E. (283 AH) in Basra, Iraq
Ethnicity	Persian
Era	Islamic golden age
Region	ahwaz
Religion	Islam
Main interest(s)	Sufism, Islamic Theology
Notable work(s)	Tafsir

Sahl al-Tustari (Persian: سهل شوشتری‎‎) or al-Tustari, born Abu Muhammed Sahl ibn 'Abd Allah (c818 C.E. (203 AH) - c896 C.E. (283 AH)), was a Persian Muslim scholar and early classical Sufi mystic. He founded the Salimiyah Muslim theological school, which was named after his disciple Muhammad ibn Salim.

Tustari is most famous for his controversial claim that "I am the Proof of God for the created beings and I am a proof for the saints (awliya) of my time" and for his well-known Tafsir, a commentary on and interpretation of the Qur'an.

Sahl Al-Tustari was born in the fortress town of Tustar (Arabic) or Shushtar (Persian) in Khūzestān Province in what is now southwestern Iran.

From an early age he led an ascetic life with frequent fasting and study of the Qur'an and Hadith, the oral traditions, of the Prophet Muhammad. He practised repentance (tawbah) and, above all, constant remembrance of God (dhikr). This eventually culminated in a direct and intimate rapport with God with whom he considered himself a special friend and one of the spiritual elect.

Tustari was under the direction of the Sufi saint Dhul-Nun al-Misri for a time, and Tustari in his turn was one of the Sufi mystic and later martyr Mansur Al-Hallaj's early teachers. In these early days when the Sufis were becoming established mostly in Baghdad (the capital of modern Iraq), the most notable Sufis of the time elsewhere were: Tustari in southwestern Iran, Al-Tirmidhi in Central Asia and the Malamatiyya or "People of Blame".

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