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Mashrabaمشربة

Atlas

Chains of transmission from the Prophet, read as the sources give them.
About this atlas

The atlas holds the chains of transmission from the Prophet as the standard references and the classical sources record them: the Sufi orders, the chains of Qurʾān recitation, the teachers of the schools of law and ḥadīth, and the lines of the Prophet's family, with the places they spread and the living houses and teachers who carry them today. Every link shows its sources; where they differ, both readings are shown, and we do not rule on any community's claims. Ibn ʿArabī's own life, teachers and readers are on their own page.

Change chain set

Kubrawiyya الكبروية

Sufi orders · Najm al-Dīn Kubrā · c. 1200 · Khiva (Khwarazm) · 97 routes to the Prophet recorded

Founded in Khwarazm by Najm al-Dīn Kubrā (d. 1221). TDV traces his chain through Ammār Yāsir al-Bitlīsī and Abū l-Najīb al-Suhrawardī; some sources trace it through Ismāʿīl al-Qaṣrī. His disciples carried it to Iran, Central Asia and India; TDV links the Nūrbakhshiyya and Dhahabiyya to Hamadānī's line through Khuttalānī.

How to read the marks
  • Two sources: a solid rule. Two independent references give the same link.
  • One source: a lighter rule, so labelled.
  • The community's own account: a dotted rule. The order tells it; we have not yet read it against a reference source.
  • A gap in the rule: the sources omit names between the two. The label says which.
  • The sources differ: tap the ≠ to read each reading with its source.
  • A ring: a spiritual link, without a meeting (uwaysī).
Route 1 of 97, the best-sourced: other routes (96)

Routes are ordered by how many steps rest on two sources, then by how few rest on the community's own account or on another chain set's record, then by length. The best-sourced opens first.

Dates are given where the sources give them. Years are CE; the Hijri year is in each name's detail.

  • two sources
  • one source
  • the community's own account
  • names omitted
  • sources differ
  1. 632

  2. two sources · this step is recorded in Qirāʾāt: the ten canonical readings, not in Kubrawiyya

    661

  3. one source · omits: al-Ḥusayn, ʿAlī Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, Muḥammad al-Bāqir, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, Mūsā al-Kāẓim (Trimingham App. A chart).

    818

  4. two sources

    815

  5. one source · omits: Sarī al-Saqaṭī, al-Junayd and the Junaydī masters down to Aḥmad al-Ghazālī (Trimingham text and App. A chart).

    1168

  6. two sources

  7. two sources

    1221

Founded in Khwarazm by Najm al-Dīn Kubrā (d. 1221). TDV traces his chain through Ammār Yāsir al-Bitlīsī and Abū l-Najīb al-Suhrawardī; some sources trace it through Ismāʿīl al-Qaṣrī. His disciples carried it to Iran, Central Asia and India; TDV links the Nūrbakhshiyya and Dhahabiyya to Hamadānī's line through Khuttalānī.

How to read the marks
  • Two sources: a solid rule. Two independent references give the same link.
  • One source: a lighter rule, so labelled.
  • The community's own account: a dotted rule. The order tells it; we have not yet read it against a reference source.
  • A gap in the rule: the sources omit names between the two. The label says which.
  • The sources differ: tap the ≠ to read each reading with its source.
  • A ring: a spiritual link, without a meeting (uwaysī).

Branches (4)

Each opens as a side-chain from the founder, with the same marks.

Hamadāniyyaالهمدانية14th c. · Hamadan · 3 names
  1. محمود المزدقاني

  2. two sources

    السيد علي الهمداني1385

  3. two sources

    مير محمد الهمداني
Nūrbakhshiyyaالنوربخشية15th c.; Shiʿi in Safavid era · Rey / Sūlikān · 3 names
  1. خواجه إسحاق ختلاني1424

  2. two sources

    محمد نوربخش1464

  3. two sources

    قاسم فيض بخش
Dhahabiyya (Zehebiyye, Iʿtishāshiyya)الذهبية15th c. · 2 names
  1. خواجه إسحاق ختلاني1424

  2. two sources

    عبد الله برزش آبادي1468
Firdawsiyyaالفردوسيةlate 13th c. · Delhi · 2 names
  1. سيف الدين الباخرزي

  2. one source · omits: Badr al-Dīn Firdawsī al-Samarqandī (Trimingham text and chart).

    نجيب الدين الفردوسي
Bākharziyyaالباخرزية13th c. · Bukhara

No chain is recorded for this branch in the sources read.

Rukniyya (Simnānī)الركنية14th c.

No chain is recorded for this branch in the sources read.

Living today

Public roles only, as the communities and the press report them, dated.

No living people are recorded for this chain set yet.

How to cite

Mashraba Reader, Atlas of transmission, “Kubrawiyya”, https://www.mashraba.org/atlas/kubrawiyya (data of 31 October 2026).

Not yet confirmed (3)

These links are told by an order or a secondary source and still have to be read against a primary or reference source.

  • (Kubrawiyya) Second chain, via Ismāʿīl al-Qaṣrī, goes to ʿAlī through Kumayl b. Ziyād.
  • (Kubrawiyya) Same chain names ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd with Kumayl; their order and adjacency are not stated by TDV (chronology makes a direct link doubtful).
  • (Kubrawiyya) Qaṣrī chain passes through ʿAbd al-Wāḥid; intermediates omitted.
Where the sources differ (8)
  • (Kubrawiyya)
    • Jāmī (Nafaḥāt, pp. 42–43) names Dāwūd al-Ṭāʾī as the shaykh Maʿrūf kept company with and gives al-Riḍā only as the master of Maʿrūf's father; Trimingham's Appendix A chart also shows Dāwūd al-Ṭāʾī (d. 781) beside the ʿAlid line.
  • (Kubrawiyya)
    • TDV Necmeddîn-i Kübrâ: Kubrā's chain runs through his shaykh Ammār Yāsir and Abū l-Najīb to Maʿrūf al-Karkhī; Kubrā's own works name only Ammār.
    • Fasīḥ Aḥmad-i Khwāfī (Mujmal-i Faṣīḥī, II, 319), as reported by TDV, records a silsila in which Kubrā benefited from Abū l-Najīb directly. The same TDV entry, citing Jāmī, names Ammār and Ismāʿīl Qaṣrī as the shaykhs who trained him (see Suhrawardiyya).
    • Trimingham (1971, p. 55): ʿAmmār was one teacher, but Kubrā's real training took place under Ismāʿīl al-Qaṣrī, who gave him the khirqa of tabarruk.
  • (Kubrawiyya)
    • TDV: the accounts of Iqbāl Sīstānī (relaying Simnānī) and Kamāl al-Dīn Khwārazmī of Kubrā's early training differ; TDV says it cannot be decided which is right, Fritz Meier judged Sīstānī's the more plausible, and both name Rūzbihān, Ammār and Qaṣrī.
    • Some sources (al-Zabīdī, Itḥāf al-aṣfiyāʾ, as cited by TDV) trace Kubrā's silsila through Qaṣrī, ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd and Kumayl b. Ziyād to ʿAlī.
    • Trimingham (1971, p. 55) calls the khirqa from al-Qaṣrī a khirqa of tabarruk (of blessing).
  • (Kubrawiyya)
    • Majd al-Dīn is omitted from the silsila as he died before Kubrā; some sources place him between Kubrā and ʿAlī Lālā.
  • (Kubrawiyya)
    • Trimingham (1971, p. 56, n. 4 and chart): most derivative branches stem from the line of Majd al-Dīn al-Baghdādī; the chart does not make clear whether ʿAlī Lālā is drawn from Kubrā directly or through Majd.
  • (Kubrawiyya)
    • Trimingham (1971, p. 57) dates Khuttalānī's death to 826/1423; the atlas figure has 827/1424 (TDV).
  • (Kubrawiyya)
    • TDV Nurbahşiyye: a fellow disciple dreamt of a light descending on Sayyid Muḥammad and spreading to the others; Khuttalānī then named him Nūrbakhsh. He read the dream as a sign that he was the Mahdī, and his shaykh is recorded as supporting that reading; some sources say it was Khuttalānī who convinced him. His followers later differed, some taking 'mahdī' in its lexical sense (one who guides).
    • TDV Necmeddîn-i Kübrâ: according to the sources, the Nūrbakhshiyya regards Khuttalānī as one who confirmed Nūrbakhsh rather than as its source.
  • (Kubrawiyya)
    • TDV Zehebiyye (a cross-reference entry): a Kubrawī branch, the Kubrawiyya itself being listed among the Suhrawardī branches, 'attributed to' Barzishābādī (d. 872/1468).
    • TDV Necmeddîn-i Kübrâ: Barzishābādī continued Khuttalānī's line without doctrinal change; the fully Shiʿi Dhahabiyya appeared about four generations later, mainly in western Iran. TDV finds no sign that Barzishābādī or his mostly Sunni khalīfas were Shiʿi, and suggests the branch took a distinct Shiʿi form through Ghulām ʿAlī Nīshābūrī.