Shams al-Dīn Aḥmad Aflākī ʿĀrifī (d. 761/1360) was a Persian Ṣūfī writer, the author of Manāqib al-ʿārifīn ("Feats of the gnostics"), a biography of the leaders of the Mawlavī Ṣūfī order, including Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī. The origins of Aflākī are uncertain. He may have come from Sarāy, the capital city of the Golden Horde on the Volga River (the Golden Horde was a Mongol, later Turkicised, khānate, 640s-908/1240s-1503, that comprised the northwestern part of the Mongol empire). Aflākī's father is described "a