Najm al-Dīn Abū Bakr ʿAbdallāh b. Muḥammad b. Shāhāwar b. Anūshīrwān Dāya Rāzī (573-654/1177-1256) was a prominent member of the Kubrawī Ṣūfī order (originating with Najm al-Dīn Kubrā, d. 618/1221), celebrated above all for his compendious Persian-language handbook of Ṣūfī theory and practice, Mirṣād al-ʿibād min al-mabdaʾ ilā l-maʿād ("The path of God's bondsmen from origin to return"). His distinctive name "Dāya" (wetnurse) reflects the fancy that the novice on the Ṣūfī path is like a newborn in need