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Biographical note on
Ahmad al-Badawi
(d. 675 H. in Tanta, Egypt)
By courtesy of www.dar-sirr.com

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Sidi Ahmed al-Badawi al-Fasi
(d. 675/1260)

The second most widespread Sufi order in Egypt after the Shadhiliya order, founded by the Moroccan sharifian Shaykh Sidi Abul Hassan Shadhili (d. 656/1241), is that of the Badawiya Brotherhood, founded by another Moroccan, the most popular luminary in Egyptian Sufism, the Rifaite master Sidi Ahmed Badawi al-Fasi.  His disciples in Egypt number in hundreds of thousands, and the main religious festival (mawlid) held in his honour each year in the Nile Delta city of Tanta, where he lived and died, attracts more than two million Egyptians. Shaykh Sidi Ahmed Badawi al-Fasi, whose family had emigrated from Fez to the East, spent his youth in Mecca among the bedouin and won a reputation as a daring horseman and courageous knight. While still a young man, he experienced a spiritual transformation, devoting himself to the transformation and to meditation. Sidi Ahmed al-Fasi travelled to southern Iraq, where he received training in the way of the Rifaiya, named after the Hassanid sharif Sidi Ahmed Rifai (d. 678/1236), at the hand of great master Sidi Ahmed ibn Ali Rifai. Sent to Egypt by his master upon the death of the Rifaiya representative in Egypt, Sidi Ahmed al-Fasi settled in Tanta and quickly acquired a large following that ranged from vast numbers of ordinary Egyptians to Mamluk amirs. The Mamluks were the newly empowered slave rulers of Egypt, who were to reign in Cairo and serve as patrons and protectors of one of the most glorious phases of Islamic civilisation for more than four hundred years. The Mamluks almost invariably allied themselves as a ruling establishment to the Sufi orders as institutions out of personal conviction and a quest for legitimacy. Sufism was not simply a popular religious attitude to be supported, but I many cases a spiritual discipline to be persuaded personally. Sidi Ahmed al-Fasi lived in Tanta for forty-one years, during which time he received divine permission (idhn) to establish his own order independent of the Rifaiya. Many miracles have been attributed to him, before and after his death, as a vehicle for God's grace (fadl), and he is viewed as one who may intercede in heaven for the ordinary believer.