Shaykh Muḥammad al-Baṣrīqī

The heretical Baṣrīqīya sect is attributed to him. This sect denies the mighty and majestic Creator, and does not accept the existence of the Lord whose names are sacred. Muḥammad al-Baṣrīqī's father, Jamāl al-Dīn ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn ʿUmar al-Mawṣilī, was a righteous man among the Shāfiʿī scholars. He taught in several madrasas in Dimashq. His son was raised among the fuqahāʾ (jurists) and pursued knowledge. Then he affiliated himself with a tariqa (Sufi path). A congregation believing in him gathered around him. When the Maliki judge ruled for the shedding of his blood, he fled eastward. Later, when he proved that there was enmity between himself and the witnesses who testified against him, the Hanbalī judge ruled for his life to be spared. He resided in Kābūn for a few years. Finally, he passed away on the sixteenth of Rabīʿ al-Ākhir, on a Wednesday night. He was buried in a dome at the foot of the mountain near the Maġārat al-Dhinn (Cave of the Jinn) in the Qāsyūn Cemetery. He was sixty years old at the time of his death.