Abū Bakr ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Shāhāwar al-Asadī al-Rāzī, also known as Najm al-Dīn Dāya, was a Sufi theorist active in the thirteenth century. He was born in 573/1177 in the town of Ray. He left his hometown around 599/1203, taking up residence in Cairo and Damascus in 600/1204. He proceeded to travel widely in Khwarazm, Khorasan, Azerbaijan, the Hejaz, Anatolia, and Iraq. While in Nishapur during this period of his life, he met the Sufi master Shaykh Muḥammad Kūf. In Khwarazm, he entered into the company of Najm al-Dīn Kubrā (d. 618/1221) and Majd al-Dīn Baghdādī (d. 607/1210), the latter of whom became Dāya’s spiritual master. Possibly due to an anti-Sufi ambience at the court of the Khwārazm Shāh, and the execution of his master Majd al-Dīn, Dāya left Khwarazm for an itinerant life in Iran. He visited Mecca on Hajj during this time. In 618/1221, Dāya fled from an advancing Mongol army, self-admittedly abandoning his own family to die in Rayy. Dāya traveled through Hamadan, Erbil, and Diyarbekir until settling in Kayseri during the month of Ramaḍān 618/1221. While in Anatolia, Dāya served as an envoy to the Seljuk ruler ʿAlā al-Dīn Kayqubād (d. 364/1237) from the Abbasid Caliph al-Nāṣir (d. 622/1225). While serving in this capacity, he met the Sufi master Shihāb al-Dīn Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī (d. 632/1234) in the town of Malatya, on his return trip to Baghdad. Dāya then moved to Erzincan, to the court of the Mengücek ruler ʿAlā al-Dīn Dā ʾūd (r. 325/1228). In 622/1225, he entered the service of the Abbasid Caliph al-Ẓāhir (d. 623/1226). Around this time, he visited Jalāl al-Dīn Khwārazm Shāh (d. 628/1231) in Tabriz. Dāya spent the remainder of his life in Baghdad, taking up a position of leadership in a Sufi hospice and composing Arabic-language works. Dāya died in Baghdad in 654/1256 and was buried in the Shunīziyya cemetery, in the Karkh Quarter. It is possible he had a disciple named Dimyāṭī.