Shaykh Abul Qasim Gurgani (رحمتہ اللہ علیہ)
Hazrat Shaykh Abul-Qāsim ibn Alī ibn Abdullāh Gurgānī (رحمتہ اللہ علیہ), was a glorious Sufi master and gnostic of the secrets of Almighty. He is one of the grand shaykhs of Naqshbandī Sufi order as well as some other Sufi orders.

He was born in Gorgan (situated in northern Iran) in 380 AH. He received the spiritual secrets from the master of Sufis Shaykh Abul-Hasan Kharaqānī (رحمتہ اللہ علیہ).

His master was Hadhrat Shaykh Abū-Usmān Sa’īd ibn Salām al-Maghribī (رحمتہ اللہ علیہ), who was a great walī (saint) and an eminent Sufi master of his times.

Shaykh Gurgani (رحمتہ اللہ علیہ) authored a book named “Fusūl al-Tarīqah wa Fusūl al-Haqīqah”. In that, he says:

The virtue of compliance with the brothers in a matter that is not a sin, is not less than voluntary fasting. And among the manners of fasting is that the fasting person should not consider any value for his fast. [Anees at-Talibeen]

The wisdom of his golden words:

A right patch is one that is stitched for poverty, not for show; if it is stitched for poverty, it is right, even though it be stitched wrong. And a right word is one that is heard esoterically (ba-hāl), not wilfully (ba-munyat), and is applied earnestly, not frivolously, and is apprehended by life, not by reason. And a right foot is one that is put on the ground with true rapture, not playfully and formally.

Shaykh Sharaf al-Dīn Yahyā Manerī (رحمتہ اللہ علیہ) reports in his letter 23 in the Hundred Letters, that once Shaykh Abū Alī Fārmadī (رحمتہ اللہ علیہ) asked his master about a dream he had had: “You spoke to me in such and such a fashion in the dream: why, O Shaykh?” Shaykh Abul Qāsim Gurgānī (رحمتہ اللہ علیہ) turned his face away and said: “If there were no room for ‘why’ in your heart, then it would not have found its way to your lips!”

Among his notable students was Sayyid Alī ibn Usmān al-Hujwerī Lāhorī (رحمتہ اللہ علیہ), popularly known as Dātā Ganj Bakhsh (رحمتہ اللہ علیہ).

His spiritual successor was his son-in-law Shaykh Abū-Alī al-Fārmadī (رحمتہ اللہ علیہ), who was also known to Sayyid Alī Hujwerī (رحمتہ اللہ علیہ), who has mentioned him in his book as:

All his disciples are ornaments of the society in which they move. Please God, he will have an excellent successor, whose authority the whole body of Sufis will recognize, namely, Abū Alī al-Fadl b. Muhammad al-Fārmadī (may God lengthen his days), who has not omitted to fulfil his duty towards his master, and has turned his back on all (worldly) things, and through the blessings of that (renunciation) has been made by God the spiritual mouthpiece (zabān-i hāl) of that venerable Shaykh.

Shaykh Abul Qasim Gurgani رحمۃ اللہ علیہ passed away on 23rd Safar 450 AH (19 or 20 April 1058 CE). His shrine is located in a small village, three kilometers south of Torbat Ḥeydarīyeh in Iran. He passed the secret of Golden Chain to his successor Shaykh Abū-Alī al-Fārmadī (رحمتہ اللہ علیہ).