Fazlallah Astarabadi

Who was Fazlallah Astarabadi?

Fażlu l-Lāh Astar-Ābādī, also known as Fażlullāh Tabrīzī Astarābādī by a pseudonym al-Ḥurūfī and a pen name Nāimī, was an Iranian mystic who founded the Ḥurūfī movement. The basic belief of the Ḥurūfiyyah was that the God was incarnated in the body of Fażlullāh and that he would appear as Mahdī when the Last Day was near in order to save Muslims, Christians and Jews. His followers first came from the village of Toqchi near Isfahan and from there, the fame of his small community spread throughout Khorasan, ʿErāq, Azerbaijan and Shirvan. The center of Fażlullāh Nāimī's influence was Baku and most of his followers came from Shirvan. Among his followers was the famous Ḥurūfī poet Seyyed Imadaddin Nasimi, one of the greatest Turkic mystical poets of the late 14th and early 15th centuries.