Sufi Book of Spiritual Ascent: Al-Risala Al-Qushayriya By Abu’l-Qasim Al-Qushayri

This work is the abridged form of Qushayri’s Risalah, one of the most widely read Sufi treatises in Arabic.

A Sufi textbook of the highest order where Sufi practices, states and stations, rules of travel, dreams and advice to the spiritual seeker, among other topics are related to Quranic verses, Traditions of the Prophet and sayings of early Sufis. This was a book that Rumi read and recommended to his students as a book popular among Sufis.

About the author: Abu-l-Qasim al-Qushayri was born in July 986 AD (d. 1072 AD) in northwestern Iran in the province of Khurasan, the richest center of eastern Islamic civilization down to the 13th century AD. In spite of his intellectual grounding in the Quran, Quanic exegesis and Traditions, he was dragged from his house by a mob and imprisoned in the citadel of Nishapur because of a letter he had written, “The Complaint of the People of the Sunnah Relating the Persecution that Has Befallen Them” in favor of the Asharites. Friends stormed the citadel and released him. He fled to Baghdad where he taught until 1063 AD., later to return to Khurasan where he died.