Muhāsibiyyūn

Muhāsibiyyūn (the Muhāsibīs) is the name given to those affiliated with Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ḥāris al-Asad al-Muḥāsibī. Al-Muḥāsibī was a person whose character and words were accepted by all his contemporaries. He was someone who knew both the essence and the branches of the sciences of ḥaqīqa (inner reality). His discourse on the isolation of tawhid (the oneness of God) was shaped by his soundness in both outward and inward dealings. The distinctiveness of his view stemmed from his assertion that riḍā (contentment with God's decree) is a ḥāl (spiritual state), not a maqām (spiritual station). Al-Muḥāsibī was the first to put forward this different opinion, and eventually the people of Khurasan also advanced the same view. The Iraqis, on the other hand, claimed that riḍā is a maqām and that tawakkul (reliance upon God) is its culmination. This disagreement has continued among the Sufis up to the present day. (Hujwīrī, 209-210)