Nasir Khusraw

Nasir Khusraw (born 1004, died between 1072 and 1088) was an Iranian Isma'ili poet, philosopher, traveler and missionary who served the Fatimid Caliphate. Born in Qubadiyan near Balkh into a family of officials, he worked as a financial administrator under the Ghaznavids and Seljuks until, around the age of forty one, he underwent a spiritual conversion, resigned his post and converted to Isma'ilism, undertaking a pilgrimage of nearly seven years that took him through Iran, Armenia, Asia Minor and Arabia to Cairo, where he studied under the Isma'ili scholar al-Mu'ayyad fi'l-Din al-Shirazi and rose to the rank of missionary and Proof of Khurasan. Facing persecution on his return to Central Asia, he settled in Yamgan in Badakhshan, where he spent his final decades. He is best known to general readers as the author of the Safarnama, an account of his travels, but his philosophical works, including Gushayish va Rahayish and Rawshana-i-nama, set out Isma'ili doctrine, metaphysics, ethics and cosmology, and are notable for being composed in Persian rather than Arabic.