There were people before Abu Hashim who were famous for...

There were people before Abu Hashim who were famous for their asceticism ( zuhd ), piety ( war `), engagement in the science of practical religion, trust in God, and love; but it was Abu Hashim who first of all came to be called by the name of Sufi.

The first monastery where the Sufis began to gather for exchange of ideas, and mutual discussion about their mystic experiences was established by some wealthy Christian in Ramlah in Syria where he had observed some Muslim saints engaged in mystic exercises in the open. According to Sufyan Thauri, Abu Hashim knew the subtlety of riya' (showing off) more than anybody else.

Abu Hashim once said that it was far easier to pull down a mountain with the help of a needle than to remove vanity and arrogance from one's heart. On seeing a judge coming out of the house of a minister, he remarked: May God protect people from knowledge that does not lead to the benefit of the heart.[^8] All these incidents point to the fact that, according to Abu Hashim, inner transformation of the heart was the essence of Sufism. 3. Ibrahim b. Adham (d. 160/777) Ibrahim b.

Adham, whom Junaid of Baghdad called the key to Sufism, also advocated asceticism which, according to him, involved otherworldliness, celibacy, and poverty.

For him a true saint is one who covets nothing of this world, nothing of the next, and devotes himself exclusively to God.[^9] In the same strain he told a questioner who had asked him about his occupation that he had left the world to the seekers of the world and the hereafter to the seekers of the hereafter, and had chosen for himself the remembrance of God in this world and the beatific vision in the next.[^10] He advocated celibacy and poverty as the prerequisites of true asceticism.

According to him, he who adopts poverty cannot think of marriage, for it becomes impossible for him to fulfil the needs of his wife. When a Sufi marries, he enters, so to say, a boat, but when he gets a child, his boat sinks and his asceticism disappears.[^11] A certain man was bewailing of his poverty. Ibrahim b. Adham remarked that he had paid nothing for this poverty of his. The man was surprised and asked: Is poverty a thing to be bought?

Ibrahim said: Yes, I chose it of my own free-will and bought itt at the price of worldly sovereignty and I am ready to exchange one instant of it with a hundred worlds.[^12] In Ibrahim b. Adham we meet with the practice of courting blame ( malamah ) for the purpose of self-discipline.