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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

Suhrawardiyya السهروردية

Sufi orders · Shihāb al-Dīn ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī · c. 1100s-1200s · Baghdad · 47 routes to the Prophet recorded

Named for Shihāb al-Dīn ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī (d. 632/1234), nephew of Abū l-Najīb, in Baghdad. He sent khalīfas to Iran, India and Turkistan. The Indian line from Multan became its central branch; the Zayniyya spread from Herat.

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 47, the best-sourced: other routes (46)

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. the community's own account

    661

  3. one source

    728

  4. the community's own account · omits: intermediaries the data does not name

    815

  5. two sources

    867

  6. two sources

    909

  7. two sources

    934

  8. the community's own account

  9. two sources

  10. two sources

  11. two sources

  12. two sources

    1126

  13. two sources

    1168

  14. two sources

    1234

Named for Shihāb al-Dīn ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī (d. 632/1234), nephew of Abū l-Najīb, in Baghdad. He sent khalīfas to Iran, India and Turkistan. The Indian line from Multan became its central branch; the Zayniyya spread from Herat.

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 (2)

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

Bahāʾiyya (Multan)البهائيةfounder d. 661/1262 or 666/1267 · Multan · 4 names
  1. شهاب الدين عمر السهروردي1234

  2. two sources

    بهاء الدين زكريا الملتاني1262

  3. two sources

    صدر الدين محمد عارف

  4. the community's own account

    ركن الدين أبو الفتح
Bukhāriyya (Uch)البخاريةfounder d. 691/1292; revived by Makhdūm-i Jahāniyān d. 785/1384 · Uch · 3 names
  1. بهاء الدين زكريا الملتاني1262

  2. the community's own account

    جلال الدين حسين البخاري1292

  3. the community's own account · omits: intermediaries the data does not name

    مخدوم جهانيان1384
Jalāliyyaالجلاليةprobably after the 17th century (TDV, tentative) · India (unspecified)

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

Buzghushiyya (Najībiyya)البزغشية13th century · Shiraz · 2 names
  1. شهاب الدين عمر السهروردي1234

  2. two sources

    نجيب الدين علي بن بزغش الشيرازي
Zayniyyaالزينيةfounder d. 838/1435 · Herat · 2 names
  1. نور الدين عبد الصمد النطنزي

  2. the community's own account

    زين الدين الخوافي1435

Living today

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

A contested succession: Bahāʾiyya (Multan)

The claimants side by side, each with the source for it. We do not rule between them.

What is reported

How to cite

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

Not yet confirmed (10)

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

  • (Suhrawardiyya) TDV states the chain reaches ʿAlī; the step from the Prophet is implied, not stated.
  • (Suhrawardiyya) TDV: from Maʿrūf one line goes via al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, the other via the Ahl al-Bayt imams, to ʿAlī. Intermediates between al-Baṣrī and Maʿrūf are not named in this article. [omits: Ḥabīb al-ʿAjamī, Dāwūd al-Ṭāʾī (or Farqad al-Sabakhī in Ibn al-Nadīm's chain)]
  • (Suhrawardiyya) Same silsila (Hulvī, in TDV).
  • (Suhrawardiyya) TDV: his uncle Wajīh al-Dīn ʿUmar gave him the khirqa and ijāza and made him chief successor (per Hulvī). Wajīh al-Dīn's own upstream chain is not given in the TDV entries read.
  • (Suhrawardiyya) TDV: Quṭb al-Dīn-i Abharī was his chief successor and founded the Ebheriyye.
  • (Suhrawardiyya) TDV Suhreverdiyye continues the line to the grandson Rukn al-Dīn Abū l-Fatḥ (Rukn-i ʿĀlam).
  • (Suhrawardiyya) TDV Suhreverdiyye: Jalāl al-Dīn Surkh-posh al-Bukhārī was one of Bahāʾ al-Dīn's khalīfas; he built his lodge in Uch.
  • (Suhrawardiyya) TDV: his grandson Makhdūm-i Jahāniyān (d. 785/1384) revived the Bukhārī line. [omits: Aḥmad Kabīr (Makhdūm's father)]
  • (Suhrawardiyya) TDV: the Zayniyya descends from the line of Nūr al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ṣamad; Zayn al-Dīn al-Khwāfī founded it at Herat. The exact step between them is not given in the passage read.
  • (Suhrawardiyya) TDV: Imām-i Rabbānī received khilāfa through his father ʿAbd al-Aḥad, who belonged to the Bahāʾī (Bahāʾ al-Dīn Zakariyyā) line.
Where the sources differ (7)
  • (Suhrawardiyya)
    • The other route runs through the Ahl al-Bayt imams, left unnamed in TDV.
    • Trimingham (App. A): the oldest silsilas (Ibn al-Nadīm; al-Qushayrī) do not name ʿAlī; he enters Sufi chains only in the 5th/11th century.
  • (Suhrawardiyya)
    • Fasīḥ Aḥmad-i Khwāfī adds Muḥammad al-Ghazālī between Nassāj and Aḥmad al-Ghazālī.
  • (Suhrawardiyya)
    • Some sources attribute the order to Abū l-Najīb himself; on that reading Ebheriyye and Kübreviyye would be Suhrawardī branches.
  • (Suhrawardiyya)
    • The same TDV entry, citing Jāmī (Nafaḥāt), names Ammār-i Yāsir al-Bitlīsī and Ismāʿīl Qaṣrī as the shaykhs who trained Kubrā. TDV Necmeddîn-i Kübrâ calls Ammār a khalīfa of Abū l-Najīb, so on that reading the chain reaches Abū l-Najīb through Ammār (see Kubrawiyya).
  • (Suhrawardiyya)
    • The Bahāʾ al-Dīn entry names a different companion, Jalāl al-Dīn-i Tabrīzī, as a khalīfa of Shihāb al-Dīn who parted from him at Nishapur.
  • (Suhrawardiyya)
    • Shah Mahmood Qureshi: Wikipedia describes him as the sajjāda-nishīn of the Bahāʾ al-Dīn Zakariyyā (and Rukn-i ʿĀlam) shrines, whose hereditary custodians claim descent from Zakariyyā; Dawn (24 Aug 2023) calls him 'the shrine caretaker'.
    • Mureed Hussain Qureshi (his brother): Dunya News (undated; excerpt) reports that he announced Shah Mahmood's removal from the gaddi, saying he had earlier appointed him after their father's death; Dawn (24 Aug 2023) reports him overseeing the ʿurs and in disagreement with Shah Mahmood over the shrine.
  • (Suhrawardiyya)
    • Shah Mahmood Qureshi: Wikipedia describes him as the sajjāda-nishīn of the Bahāʾ al-Dīn Zakariyyā (and Rukn-i ʿĀlam) shrines, whose hereditary custodians claim descent from Zakariyyā; Dawn (24 Aug 2023) calls him 'the shrine caretaker'.
    • Mureed Hussain Qureshi (his brother): Dunya News (undated; excerpt) reports that he announced Shah Mahmood's removal from the gaddi, saying he had earlier appointed him after their father's death; Dawn (24 Aug 2023) reports him overseeing the ʿurs and in disagreement with Shah Mahmood over the shrine.