SUFI ORDERS IN EGYPT 1517 - 1805
Dhu al-Nun al-Misri (d. 245 AH / 859 AD) is considered the first to lay the foundations of Islamic Sufism in Egypt, and Sufism derived after him a method of a special, individual nature, until the Ayyubid era when Sultan Saladin al-Ayyubi established the Khanqah of Sa’id al-Sa’da in the year 569 AH / 1173 AD as a stable. Sufism became a social presence with its status and independence through its favor with the state and the endowments allocated to it. Then the Sufi orders coming from Iraq and Morocco began to spread widely in Egypt, the most important of which were the Rifa’iyya, the Qadiriyya, the Ahmadiyya, and the Shadhiliyya. Sufism witnessed a great boom in terms of the number of people belonging to it and the nature of the Sufism. The thought associated with it in the Mamluk era 1250 AD - 1517 AD, when the Mamluks respected their sheikhs and their belief in them increased. Imam Abd al-Wahhab al-Shaarani (d. 1565 AD) is considered the most prominent Sufi man in Egypt in the early Ottoman era, i.e. the sixteenth century AD, and his approach embodied the connection between the science of Sharia (jurisprudence) and the science of method (truth), so there is no separation between them in his concept. It is noted that the Sufi orders coming from outside Egypt: Iraq, Morocco, the Levant, and Turkey were the most widespread in Egypt. Although the Shadhiliyya order was the oldest intellectually, the Ahmadiyya order was the most widespread, popular and present, to the point that it had 16 branches in various parts of Egypt. The Desouki order was the only Egyptian order, but it was related to it after the Ahmadiyya in terms of influence. Sheikh Qasim al-Khani (d. 1697 AD), Sheikh Muhammad al-Munir al-Samnoudi (d. 1785 AD) and Sheikh Ahmed al-Dardir (d. 1786 AD) emerged as the most prominent men of the Sufi order in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries AD through their writings that were widely circulated among the Sufis, especially the followers of the order. Seclusion, especially Al-Khani’s writings related to the spiritual journey to God Almighty, which he divided into seven levels
Keywords: Dhu al-Nun al-Misri, Sufi orders, Egypt, Abd al-Wahhab al-Shaarani.