Ahmad al-Badawi
{{Short description|13th-century Moroccan founder of Badawiyyah Sufi order}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2017}}
{{Infobox saint
|honorific_prefix = Sidi
|name = Aḥmad al-Badawī
|image =
|caption = Wali al-Qutb
|titles = Mystic, Jurist
|birth_date = 1200 CE (596 AH)
|birth_place = Fez, Almohad Caliphate
(present-day Morocco)
|death_date = 1276 CE (674 AH)
|death_place = Tanta, Mamluk Sultanate
(present-day Egypt)
|feast_day = A few days every October (mawlid)
|beatified_date =
|beatified_place =
|beatified_by =
|canonized_date =
|canonized_place =
|canonized_by =
|major_shrine = Mosque of Aḥmad al-Badawī, Tanta, Egypt
|attributes =
|patronage =
|issues =
|suppressed_date =
|influences =
|tradition = Sufi Islam
(Jurisprudence: Maliki)ʿAbd al-Samad al-Miṣrī, al-Jawāhir al-saniyya fī l-karāmāt wa-l-nisba al-Aḥmadiyya, Cairo 1277/1860–1Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen, Al-Sayyid Aḥmad al-Badawî. Un grand saint de l'Islam égyptien, Cairo 1994
|venerated_in = In some versions of Sufism
}}
{{Sufism}}
Aḥmad el-Badawī ({{langx|arz|أحمد البدوى}}, {{IPA|arz|ˈæħmæd elˈbædæwi}}), also known as Elsayyid Elbadawī ({{lang|arz|السيد البدوى}} {{IPA|arz|esˈsæjjed elˈbædæwi|}}), or as Elsayyid for short, or reverentially as Elsayyid Elbadawi by Sufi Muslims who venerate saints,{{EI3|last=Mayeur-Jaouen|first=Catherine|title=al-Badawī%2C+al-Sayyid}} 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,ʿAbd al-Wahhab b. Aḥmad al-Shaʿrānī, Lawāqih al-anwār fī tabaqāt al-akhyār and al-Tabaqāt al-kubrā (Beirut 1988), 1:183 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"{{citation|url=https://aalequtub.com/hazrat-sayyidina-ahmad-al-badawi-رحمتہ-اللہ-علیہ/|title=Hazrat Sayyidina Ahmad al-Badawi|website=aalequtub|date=25 July 2019 }} As al-Badawi is perhaps "the most popular of Sufi saints in Egypt", his tomb has remained a "major site of visitation" for Sufis in the region.Irving Hexham, The Concise Dictionary of Religion (Regend, 1993), p. 14
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 [d. 1182]) 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. In Iraq, he visited the tombs of Adi ibn Musafir and Al-Hallaj.The Passion of Al-Hallaj, Mystic and Martyr of Islam, Volume 2: The Survival of Al-Hallaj, Louis Massignon, 2019, pp. 448, {{ISBN|9780691657219}}
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 Sufi 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).{{EI2|last=Bosworth|first=C.E.|title=Rifāʿiyya}}
In this regard, Idries Shah quotes al-Badawi: "Sufi schools are like waves which break upon rocks: [they are] from the same sea, in different forms, for the same purpose."{{cite book
| last = Galin
| first = Müge
| title = Between East and West: Sufism in the Novels of Doris Lessing
| publisher = State University of New York Press
| year = 1997
| location = Albany, NY
| pages = xix, 5–8, 21, 40–41, 101, 115
| isbn = 0-7914-3383-8}}
See also
- Ibrahim al-Desuqi, a contemporary and founder of the Burhaniyya.
- List of Sufis
References
{{reflist|2}}
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
- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/07/middle_east_egypt0s_biggest_moulid/html/1.stm Pilgrimage/Carnival photos by BBC]
- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tCAEHU-3ZY A short Egyptian documentary on the Mawlid of Al-Sayyid Ahmad al-Badawi]
- [http://www.maktabah-ibn-badawi.com/english/badawi.htm A short biography ]
- [https://books.google.com/books?id=cfgRAAAAYAAJ&dq=Tanta%2C+Egypt&pg=PA226 Egypt: Handbook for Travellers : Part First, Lower Egypt, with the Fayum and the Peninsula of Sinai by Karl Baedeker (1885)]
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{{Shafi'i scholars}}
{{Sufi}}
{{Authority control}}
Category:Sunni Muslim scholars of Islam
Category:Founders of Sufi orders
Category:Religious leaders from Fez, Morocco
Category:Moroccan emigrants to Egypt
Category:Moroccan religious leaders
Category:13th-century Arab people