| Sidi Aḥmad al-Badawī | |
|---|---|
| Mystic, Jurist | |
| Born | 1200 CE (596 AH) Fez, Almohad Caliphate (present-day Morocco) |
| Died | 1276 CE (674 AH) Tanta, Mamluk Sultanate (present-day Egypt) |
| Venerated in | In some versions of Sufism |
| Major shrine | Mosque of Aḥmad al-Badawī, Tanta, Egypt |
| Feast | A few days every October (mawlid) |
| Tradition or genre | Sufi Islam (Jurisprudence: Shafi'i) |
| Part of a series on Islam Sufism |
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Aḥmad el-Badawī (Egyptian Arabic: أحمد البدوى, Egyptian Arabic pronunciation: [ˈæħmæd elˈbædæwi]), also known as Elsayyid Elbadawī (السيد البدوى [esˈsæjjed elˈbædæwi]), or as Elsayyid for short, or reverentially as Elsayyid Elbadawi by Sufi Muslims who venerate saints, was a 13th-century Arab Sufi Muslim mystic who became famous as the founder of the Badawiyyah order of Sufism. Born in Fes, Morocco to a Bedouin tribe originally from the Syrian Desert, al-Badawi eventually settled for good in Tanta, Egypt in 1236, whence he developed a posthumous reputation as "One of the greatest saints in the Arab world" 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, Elbadawi hailed from an Arab tribe of Syrian origin. A Sufi Muslim by persuasion, Elbadawi entered the Rifaʽi sufi order (founded by the renowned Shafi'i mystic and jurist Ahmad al-Rifaʽi ) 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 believed to have clearly manifested itself" through the karamat "miracles" he is said to have performed.
Eventually al-Badawi went to Tanta in the Sultanate of Egypt, where he 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" (aṣḥāb el-saṭḥ) in the vernacular. Elsayyid Elbadawi 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 Muhammad through one of his Companions, which in the Badawi's case is Ali (d. 661). In this regard, Idries Shah quotes al-Badawi: "Sufi schools are like waves which break upon rocks: from the same sea, in different forms, for the same purpose."
See also
- Ibrahim al-Desuqi, a contemporary and founder of the Burhaniyya.
- List of Sufis
References
- ʿAbd al-Samad al-Miṣrī, al-Jawāhir al-saniyya fī l-karāmāt wa-l-nisba al-Aḥmadiyya, Cairo 1277/1860–1
- Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen, Al-Sayyid Aḥmad al-Badawî. Un grand saint de l'Islam égyptien, Cairo 1994
- ^ Mayeur-Jaouen, Catherine. "al-Badawī%2C+al-Sayyid (search results)". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (3rd ed.). Brill Online. ISSN 1873-9830.
- ʿAbd al-Wahhab b. Aḥmad al-Shaʿrānī, Lawāqih al-anwār fī tabaqāt al-akhyār and al-Tabaqāt al-kubrā (Beirut 1988), 1:183
- "Hazrat Sayyidina Ahmad al-Badawi", aalequtub, 25 July 2019
- Irving Hexham, The Concise Dictionary of Religion (Regend, 1993), p. 14
- Bosworth, C.E. (1960–2005). "Rifāʿiyya". The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition (12 vols.). Leiden: E. J. Brill.
- Galin, Müge (1997). Between East and West: Sufism in the Novels of Doris Lessing. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. pp. xix, 5–8, 21, 40–41, 101, 115. ISBN 0-7914-3383-8.
- Taji Farouki and Nafi, Basheer M., Suha (2004). Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century. London, UK/New York, NY: I.B.Tauris Publishers. p. 123. ISBN 1-85043-751-3.
Further reading
- Al-Imām Nūruddīn Al-Halabī Al-Ahmadī, Sīrah Al-Sayyid Ahmad Al-Badawī, Published by Al-Maktabah Al-Azhariyyah Li Al-Turāth, Cairo.
- Mayeur-Jaouen, Catherine, Al-Sayyid Ahmad Al-Badawi: Un Grand Saint De L'islam egyptien, Published by Institut francais d'archeologie orientale du Caire
External links
- Pilgrimage/Carnival photos by BBC
- A short Egyptian documentary on the Mawlid of Al-Sayyid Ahmad al-Badawi
- A short biography
- Egypt: Handbook for Travellers : Part First, Lower Egypt, with the Fayum and the Peninsula of Sinai by Karl Baedeker (1885)
- Shafi'is
- Sunni Sufis
- Sunni Muslim scholars of Islam
- Founders of Sufi orders
- Moroccan Sufis
- Religious leaders from Fez, Morocco
- Moroccan emigrants to Egypt
- Moroccan people of Arab descent
- Sunni Muslims
- Moroccan religious leaders
- Sufi saints
- 13th-century jurists
- 13th-century Arab people
- 13th-century Moroccan people
- 1200 births
- 1276 deaths
- Bedouins