This paper focuses on the early development of the Khurasani branch of the Kubravi Sufi order, known today as the Zahabiyyah.The sixteenth and early-seventeenth century records remarkably little about this branch’s history; however, during those years, it underwent a major transition from Sunnism to Shi’ism, adopting the designation “Zahabiyyah” along the way. DeWeese (1988) and Algar (1993) have suggested that the majority of these changes occurred during the mid-sixteenth century. This paper, however, will argue that there is good reason to believe that while the gradual process of transformation into Shi’ism was not completed until early-seventeenth century, the adoption of the designation “Zahabiyyah” dates even later, close to the end of seventeenth century. Thus, my findings suggest that Zayn al-‘Abidin Shirvani’s (d. 1837) dating of the emergence of the term Zahabiyyah in Bustan al-Siyahah (1815), which is not taken seriously by either Gramlich (1965) or Algar (1993) because of Shirvani’s anti-Zahabi bias, is roughly accurate. My argument is based upon, first, an understudied commentary on the thirtieth part of the Qur'an by Muhammad Mu’min Mashhadi (alive during Abbas I’s reign) who is claimed by Zahabis as well as Nurbakhshis as a ranking member of their respective order and the mentor of no less a figure than Shaykh Baha’i (d. 1621) and Fayz Kashani (d. 1680), and, second, a careful reading of several Zahabi treatises from Muhammad Ali Mu’azzin Khurasani (d. 1667), Najib al-din Riza Tabrizi (d. 1693), Qutb al-din Nayrizi (d. 1760) and others. A comparison between the print editions of these treatises and their relevant manuscripts reveals a very interesting pattern of redaction in which later Zahabi authors and copyists have made a consistent effort to revise earlier Sufi works - belonging to the rival Nurbakhshi order as well as the Barzishabadi lineage of the Kubraviyyah – in order to substantiate their claim to be the only Shi’a Sufi order and, simultaneously, to argue for an earlier date for the appearance of the designation Zahabiyyah.