Ahmad al-Badawi


Aḥmad al-Badawī, also known as Al-Sayyid al-Badawī, or as al-Badawī for short, or reverentially as Shaykh al-Badawī by all those Sunni Muslims who venerate saints, was a 13th-century Moroccan Sunni Muslim mystic who became famous as the founder of the Badawiyyah order of Sufism. Originally hailing from Fes, al-Badawi eventually settled for good in Tanta, Egypt in 1236, whence he developed a posthumous reputation as "Egypt's greatest saint." As al-Badawi is perhaps "the most popular of Muslim saints in Egypt", his tomb has remained a "major site of visitation" for Muslims in the region.

History

According to several medieval chronicles, al-Badawi hailed from an Arab tribe of Syrian origin. A Sunni Muslim by persuasion, al-Badawi entered the Rifa'iyya spiritual order in his early life, being initiated into the order at the hands of a particular Iraqi teacher. After a trip to Mecca, al-Badawi is said to have travelled to Iraq, "where his sainthood clearly manifested itself" through the miracles he is said to have performed. Eventually, al-Badawi went to Tanta, Egypt, where settled for good in 1236. According to the various traditional biographies of the saint's life, al-Badawi gathered forty disciples around him during this period, who are collectively said to have "dwelt on the city’s rooftop terraces," whence his spiritual order were informally named the "roof men" in the vernacular. Al-Badawi died in Tanta in 1276, being seventy-six years old.

Spiritual lineage

As with every other major Sufi order, the Badawiyya proposes an unbroken spiritual chain of transmitted knowledge going back to the Prophet Muhammad through one of his Companions, which in the Badawiyya's case is Ali.