Nimatullahi Order

The Ni'matullahi, also spelled Nimatollahi or Nematollahi, is a Sufi order originating in Iran, named after its fourteenth century founder and qotb Shah Nimatullah, who settled and is buried in Mahan, Kerman Province, where his tomb remains an important pilgrimage site. Shah Nimatullah was a disciple of the Suhrawardiyya Sufi Abd-Allah Yafi'i, and the order traces a chain of succession claimed to extend back to Ma'ruf al-Karkhi; from its founding it rejected seclusion and quietism in favor of meaningful participation in society. Moojan Momen estimated Iran's Nimatullahi population in 1980 at between 50,000 and 350,000, and after Javad Nurbakhsh and other dervishes emigrated following the 1979 Iranian Revolution the order attracted followers outside Iran, mostly in Europe, West Africa and North America, its first khaniqah outside Iran having been established in San Francisco in 1975.