Abū Yazīd Ṭayfūr b. ʿĪsā b. Surūshān al-Bisṭāmī , commonly known in the Iranian world as Bāyazīd Bisṭāmī , was a Persian Sufi from north-central Iran. Known to future Sufis as Sultān-ul-Ārifīn , Bisṭāmī is considered to be one of the expositors of the state of fanā, the notion of passing away in mystical union with Allah. Bastami was famous for "the boldness of his expression of the mystic’s complete absorption into the mysticism" Many ecstatic utterances have been attributed to Bisṭāmī, which lead to him being known as the "drunken" or "ecstatic" school of Islamic mysticism. One of these shathiyāts, "Glory to me" remains a huge controversy within Islam. Such utterance may be said to be "blasphemy, insanity," or as Bisṭāmī's followers would argue, Bisṭāmī has passed away with mystical union and the deity is speaking through his tongue. Bisṭāmī also claimed to have ascended through the seven heavens in his dream. His journey, known as the Mi'raj of Bisṭāmī, is clearly patterned on the Mi'raj of the Prophet Muhammad. Bisṭāmī is characterized in three different ways: a free thinking radical, a pious Sufi who is deeply concerned with following the sha'ria and engaging in "devotions beyond the obligatory," and a pious individual who is presented as having a dream similar to the Mi'raj of Muhammed. The Mi'raj of Bisṭāmī seems as if Bisṭāmī is going through a self journey; as he ascends through each heaven, Bisṭāmī is gaining knowledge in how he communicates with the angels and he the number of angels he encounters increases.
His grandfather Surūshān was born a Zoroastrian, an indication that Bastami had Persian heritage, despite the fact that his transmitted sayings are in Arabic. Very little is known about the life of Bastami, whose importance lies in his biographical tradition, since he left no written works. The early biographical reports portray him as a wanderer but also as the leader of teaching circles. The early biographers describe him as a mystic who dismissed excessive asceticism; but who was also scrupulous about ritual purity, to the point of washing his tongue before chanting God's names. He also appreciated the work of the great jurists. A measure that shows how influential his image remains in posterity is the fact that he is named in the lineage of one of the largest Sufi brotherhoods today, the Naqshbandi order.
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“The thing we tell of can never be found by seeking, yet only seekers find it.”
Quoted in James Fadiman and Robert Frager, eds., Essential Sufism (Castle Books, 1998, ISBN 0-7858-0906-6, p. 37.
Quoted earlier in " Translations of Eastern Poetry and Prose https://archive.org/stream/translationsofea00nich#page/140/mode/2up/search/impossible" by RA Nicholson (p.140) (Macmillan, 1922)
