al-Aḥsāʾī, Aḥmad - Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
[Article]
Amir-Moezzi, Mohammad Ali
Leiden
Brill
(1,116 words)
Shaykh Aḥmad b. Zayn al-Dīn al-Aḥsāʾī (1166-1241/1753-1826) was an ʿālim , an Imāmī mystic and philosopher, and the eponymous leading figure of the theological-mystical school of the Shaykhiyya. He was born in al-Aḥsāʾ (also known as al-Ḥasā), in al-Baḥrayn (in the premodern sense, referring to the mainland of eastern Arabia), to a family that had converted to Imāmī Shīʿism five generations earlier. Little is known of the first years of his life but that he had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Neither