Qutb
Sufi spiritual leader
The term qutb (Arabic: قطب) means 'axis', 'pivot', or 'pole'. Qutb can refer to celestial movements and be used as an astronomical term or a spiritual symbol.
In Sufism, a qutb is the perfect human being, al-Insān al-Kāmil ('The Universal Man'), who leads the saintly hierarchy. The qutb is the Sufi spiritual leader who has a divine connection with God and passes knowledge on which makes him central to, or the axis of, Sufism, but he is unknown to the world.
According to the Institute of Ismaili Studies, "In mystical literature, such as the writings of al–Tirmidhi, Abd al–Razzaq and Ibn Arabi (d. 1240), [qutb] refers to the most perfect human being who is thought to be the universal leader of all saints, to mediate between the divine and the human and whose presence is deemed necessary for the existence of the world."
Scriptural evidence
In the teachings of Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi, there is evidence to suggest that the qutb is the head of the saintly hierarchy which provides scriptural evidence to support the belief in the qutb. The hadīth attributed to Ibn Mas‘ūd has been used as proof that a qutb exists.
Temporal qutb and cosmic qutb
Temporal qutb
There are two different conceptions of the qutb in Sufism: temporal qutb and cosmic qutb. The temporal and cosmic qutb are connected, which guarantees that God is present in the world at all times. The temporal qutb is known as "the helper" or al-ghawth and is located in a person on Earth.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4249459. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1240.
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This entry incorporates text from “Qutb” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.