They are the followers of Abu Abdullah al-Harith b. al-Asad Muhasibi. All of his contemporaries are agreed upon that he was a man of approved spiritual influence and mortified passions. He was learned in theology, jurisprudence, and mysticism. His discourse is on detachment from world, proofs of unification, and accuracy of outward and inward states. The oddity of his doctrine is that he does not reckon rida (satisfaction) among the maqamat (stations). He considers rida amongst the types of ahwal (states). He was the first to hold this view, which was adopted later on by the people of Khurasan. The Sheikhs of Iraq on the contrary, asserted that rida is one of the stations and it is the extreme of tawakul (trust in Allah). The controversy between them is still on and we start our discussion from this point.

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