Tunisia is today a popular tourist destination in North Africa. It's a country that has beautiful sandy beaches, incredible architecture, delicious cuisine and a lot of culture to explore and get immersed in. But what many people don't realize or aren't aware of is the strong mystical history of this place, particularly its relationship with Sufism.
The country has a long history as an important cultural center. Of course, in ancient times, it was the location of Carthage, one of the most significant cities of the ancient world, that also had a very famous beef with the Romans. But later in history, under the Islamicid empires, it continued to play a major role. The city of Qayrawan is sometimes considered the fourth holiest city in Sunni Islam due to its prominence as a cultural and religious center in the early centuries, housing one of the oldest mosques in the world. And the current capital of Tunis, in the north of the country, has also hosted some of the most significant scholars and mystics in history.
When you walk the modern streets of Tunis today, it can be hard to imagine the deep mystical roots that hide beneath your feet and all around you. But once you know where to look, they're actually pretty easy to find. In the so-called Medina, the old city district, lies the great Zeytuna Mosque, another one of the oldest in the entire world. Originally built around the year 731, but with most of the current structure dating from the mid-9th century, Zeytuna has always been at the center of social and religious life in Tunis.
Here, all the great scholars that visited the city would have come to pray and sometimes also to teach. People like Ibn Arabi, Abu al-Hassan al-Shadili, Ibn Khaldun and everyone that we will talk about today visited and worshipped in this beautiful structure, the minaret of which towers over the busy streets. In a way, Tunis is a city of saints. And only a few minutes walk from Zaytuna Mosque we find the Zawiyah of Sidi Mahrez.
Now Zawiyah is a word commonly used in the Maghreb in western North Africa. to refer to a house or institution associated with a Sufi order. It's a place where Sufis will gather to pray together, recite litanies and to do communal dhikr.
A zawiya is often built in association with the gravesite or mausoleum of a saint, which is important to that order. And sometimes the word zawiya simply refers to a mausoleum in that sense without necessarily connections to a Sufi order. And this is the case here.
Sayyidi Mahrez was an important scholar and figure in the early history of Islamic Tunisia. He was a great scholar of the Maliki school of law and became considered a Wali, which is what we sometimes problematically translate as saint here. Wali literally means something like friend of God and is given to people considered to have had a special spiritual status.
Sayyidi Mahrez is often considered the patron saint of the city of Tunis. And his mausoleum is an absolutely beautiful and peaceful place which people regularly visit to be in the presence of his Baraka, or spiritual grace. Sidi Mahadis wasn't necessarily associated with Sufism per se, even though he would become important to later Sufis in the region.
But his mausoleum is definitely one of the most ornate and impressive in the country due to his great importance. But as Sufism in its more developed form started to flourish in the following centuries, Tunis and its surrounding regions became a meeting point for some of the most celebrated mystics in history. Perhaps the greatest expounder of Sufi medicine, The physics in history, the Sheikh al-Akbar or greatest master, Muhyiddin ibn Arabi, visited the city on two occasions.
Indeed, it was here that one of his principal spiritual teachers resided, Abdulaziz al-Mahdawi, and ibn Arabi stayed with him and his group of disciples twice. Once in 1194, when he was 29 years old, a stay which lasted for over a year, and another time in 1201, just before he permanently left for the eastern Islamic lands. It was in Tunis and under the discipleship of al-Mahdawi that Ibn Arabi had some of his most significant spiritual visions and experiences. It is for example here that he entered what he calls God's vast earth or the earth of reality, signifying one of the highest stations on the spiritual path. Indeed, Ibn Arabi considered al-Mahdawi to be so important and dear to him that that he dedicated his massive magnum opus Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyah, the Meccan Revelations, to this great master.
Abdelaziz al-Mahdawi is a significant figure in himself, even putting aside his role as a teacher to Ibn Arabi. He was one of the central and most revered Sufi teachers in the region at the time, having a kind of school of disciples in Tunis. He himself had been a student of the North African Sufi Abu Madian, which in itself gave him great status. Some might even have considered him the Qutub, the spiritual pole of his age, and in general, he was held in great esteem. He was, as mentioned, a teacher of the great Ibn Arabi, but also of the more controversial Ahmad al-Buni, author of the original Shams al-Ma'arif.
But aside from accounts by these students, we don't know all that much about his actual life, given the fact that both Ibn Arabi and al-Buni are strongly preoccupied with the mystical powers of the Arabic alphabet, we might speculate that Al-Mahdawi might be the connecting link here, thus himself being involved in that kind of science in some way. But this is just that, speculation. Nonetheless, this great wali died in 1221 and was buried in the town of La Marsa, just a few kilometers outside of central Tunis and right by the Mediterranean coast.
His humble mausoleum still stands here today with a beautiful view of the Mediterranean Sea. I did visit the site while I was there, but it was a really beautiful moment with the caretaker of the Zawia, so it felt kind of inappropriate to get my camera out. I did get these pictures of the surrounding cemetery though. Also right by the Mediterranean coast and not far from La Marsa is the picturesque town of Sidi Bou Said. A very popular tourist destination and rightfully so due to its increa- incredible location and beautiful architecture.
But even here, while you are navigating the tourist traps, there is a central undercurrent of religious and mystical history. I am currently in the beautiful little town of Sidi Bou Said in northern Tunisia, just a few kilometers outside of the capital Tunis. This is a very popular tourist destination. It's very famous for its blue and white architecture, as you can see here behind me. Many, many tourists come here every year.
But what a lot of people don't know is that this city or town has a very strong connection to Sufism or Islamic mysticism. The town is named after a Sufi saint from the 13th century called Abu Sa'id al-Baji who would come up to this mountain on which this town is located called Jebel al-Manar, which means the mountain of fire basically, to meditate and pray for long periods of time and then go down to the capital Tunis to the Zaytuna Mosque to teach because he was also of course a spiritual teacher. It is said that he also built a kind of fortress here so that he could keep out for any enemies or armies that were approaching Tunis and thus could warn the population in time.
During his lifetime he was a very respected Sufi master, a spiritual master associated with people like Abdul Aziz al-Mahdawi in Tunis who was a teacher also of Ibn Arabi. It's quite likely that Abu Sayyid also himself met Ibn Arabi and associated with him at some point, so he was a very significant figure at his time. After he died in the mid-13th century a mazali, a mazawiyya, a spiritual master, was born. as it's called here, was built, which you can see right behind me. The Zawiya is still a place of kind of pilgrimage for many Muslims around the world, who, and especially in Tunisia, who come here to seek the Baraka, or spiritual grace of the old master.
I've been told that Sufis of the Shadrli order still gather weekly at the Zawiyah for Hadra, which literally means gathering in Arabic. A gathering where rituals like dhikr or remembrance is performed involving communal recitations of God's names or phrases like La ilaha illallah for long periods of time. It's a kind of meditation, you could say.
The Zawiyah is literally in the middle of the town, among tourist-filled streets. You can easily miss it, but the town is literally built on its mystical Sufi history, and around the Zawiyah of Sidi Abu Sa'id al-Baji. As you walk the main street of Sidi Bou Said, you will probably encounter a cute café reached by a flight of stairs. This is Qahwa Al Aliyah, literally the High Café.
It sits right at the base of the Zawiyah and in fact used to be the old entrance for male worshippers. Inside the café you will find a very traditional looking room where they serve some delicious mint tea. And even this place has a connection to Sufism. Not only was it previously one of the main entrances to the zawiyah above, but according to the travel publication Sacred Footsteps, it has also long served as a gathering place for Sufi practitioners, particularly in the evenings after a long hadra session. Walking down the stairs from the zawiyah after doing zikr for several hours, the male Sufis would proceed to the cafe, continue to recite the prayers and eventually have some very strong Arabic coffee.
Well deserved if you ask me. It's quite amazing to imagine when you sit here drinking your tea or coffee that within these walls so many prayers have been sung and stories have been told. And in general, to walk the streets of Sidi Bou Said among the crowds of fellow tourists, it can be hard to see past the modern coat of paint.
But the great mystic that the town is named after, Abu Sa'id al-Baji, remains a constant presence here. He too was a student of the famous Abu Madian in the West and became one of the great mystics of his age, especially in this region. He chose this mountain as a place where he would go every day to meditate and come close to God, to find intimacy with the reality that lies at the core of existence.
And especially when you turn away from the relatively modern structures, beautiful as they may be, and instead look out over the ocean and mountains that surround you. at those natural features that have remained unchanged and would have looked basically exactly the same way to Abu Sa'id as he sat here 800 years ago, you kind of understand why. According to some stories, Abu Sa'id al-Bajji was also the teacher of one of the most famous and important Sufi personalities in history. But for that story we'll have to return to Tunis proper, because it is here, close to the city center of Tunis, sitting on top of a hill by the Jalaz cemetery, that we find Zawiya Belhassan.
The name Belhassan refers to Abul Hassan al-Shadhali, the founder and main figure of the Shadhali Sufi order, and a mystic who is considered one of the greatest saints in Islamic history. Abul-Hassan Ash-Shadili was originally from Morocco and became a Sufi there under the discipleship of Abdus-Salam ibn Mashish. But it wasn't until he moved to Tunisia that he started his career as a spiritual teacher and sheikh himself.
Indeed, the name Ash-Shadili comes from a village outside of Tunis called Shadila where he resided for a period. Eventually though, he moved to Tunis itself and started teaching there. building his first community of Sufi students.
Regularly he would retreat to a small cave on top of the hill in the city to meditate and pray in the darkness for long periods of time, at other times emerging to guide his students on the spiritual path to God. Eventually Ashadli left Tunis and settled in Egypt where he established his tariqa proper. He is buried in Humeithara in Egypt where he died while on pilgrimage to Mecca. The Sufi Tariqa or order that he started, or was formed around him and his teachings, known as the Shadiliya, quickly became one of the largest and most prominent in the world, a position that it retains to this day. Particularly in North Africa, the Shadiliya is unquestionably the most widespread and popular Sufi order.
And in Tunisia, his disciples continue to grow and teach. Tunis had, after all, been one of the main centers where Ashadli spent his time. Shortly thereafter, a zawiya was built for the Shadli order in Tunis.
However, this zawiya was not built on the resting place of the master, as is usually the case, his mausoleum was in Egypt after all. Instead, this zawiya was established right on top of the cave where he would famously go to meditate. This became the zawiya belhassan, or the Zawiyah of Abul Hasan al-Shaadali, which remains the main center for the Shaadali order in Tunisia. It's still active today as Shadli Mureeds will gather here every Saturday morning for Hadrah, where they recite the litanies of the order and perform intense dhikr together.
If you've ever been to a Hadra or a Dhikr session, you'll know that it is a very powerful experience. The purpose of zikr is right in the name, remembrance, to remember God and come closer to God. It's a kind of meditation, you could say, where one focuses all of one's consciousness on the divine reality and thus purifies oneself of egoism and self. The ultimate goal of zikr is to reach an ecstatic state, for the self to be annihilated completely in God, to realize God's all-encompassing reality and become... united with him, although this uniting is a complicated concept and can be very easily misinterpreted.
Once a week, the zawiyah of Abul Hasan is filled with the ecstatic mystical chanting of the Shadali Sufis, a haunting call of divine longing in words that date back hundreds of years. The place is filled with the presence and barakah of Abul Hasan al-Shadali, one of the great mystics in history and in different ways, not least because his his cave of meditation lies directly under the building, a cave that can still be visited today. Morids will go into the cave, into the very place where Ashadli would have sat, to pray and meditate themselves. An incredibly special and powerful experience that connects them spiritually to the great founder of the Shadali order.
The stature of Ashadli looms over the whole city. It's incredible to think that all the figures we have talked about today, with the exception of Sidi Mahrez, lived and mingled here basically at the same time in the 13th century. What a place it must have been. And we're not even done yet, because one of Ashadli's students in Tunis was a woman who would become incredibly famous and revered in her own right, and is still an important figure in the region.
Her name was Aisha al-Manubia. but is affectionately referred to as Saida Manubia. She was from the region of Manuba, which today is basically a part of the city of Tunis, and was born into a prominent family, her father being an important religious authority in some way.
Eventually, she chose to go her own way and travel to Tunis proper to study the religious sciences, of which she became very proficient. A turning point came when she met and became a student of Abul Hasan Ashadli, as he was establishing himself as a spiritual teacher in the city. In fact, she became one of the leading authorities, especially as Ashadli left for the east.
Putting aside her role as Ashadli's student, Saida Manobia became a revered and significant personality and mystic in her own right. As a woman, she was quite unique in her position as a spiritual and religious leader for both fellow women and for men. It wasn't uncommon for women to be spiritual teachers at this time, even to men, as we can see from many accounts by people like the aforementioned Ibn Arabi.
So the common idea that she was completely unique in this regard isn't entirely justified. Still, this was certainly not the norm, and in this way Sayyidah Manubiah was of course very special as she broke some of the gender assumptions at the time. She would engage in debates with male scholars and in general became a great authority.
And for this reason, Saida has become a powerful symbol for women to this day, representing the spiritual and intellectual power that women have had in history and still have today. Some even consider her a kind of feminist icon for her breaking of social norms, although this should be somewhat nuanced as we have said. She was an accomplished mystic who reached the heights of spiritual experience and journeying, which was also reflected outwardly. Saida was known as an incredibly caring and compassionate person, spending much of her time giving to the poor and needy and taking care of those humans and animals that were less fortunate. In this way she represented the important Sufi principles of love, a love that is directed primarily towards God, but which for that reason is also extended to a caring love for fellow creatures as not only creations of God, but as reflections and manifestations of God's being and attributes.
The Zawiya or Mausoleum of Saida Manubiah stands in Manuba, the place where she grew up, and is still active today. It's become an important place for women in particular, who will gather there regularly to seek her blessings and to perform zikr, chanting ecstatically, playing percussion instruments and performing ritual dance as a form of worship of God, which is common in some Sufi circles. But it isn't exclusively for women of course, as men will often come here too, even though they are often separated during the rituals themselves. In general, Saida Manubhya and her Zawiya is a place of grace for many people. A safe space not only for women, but for other groups of people shunned by society in different ways.
The compassion and caring nature of Saida Manubhya is a place of grace for many people. thus lives on in her place of rest, where people from all walks of life come to worship God in a welcoming environment. As we visited the Zawiya, we were greeted by the caretaker there, who was an incredibly kind and welcoming woman that gladly answered questions and offered us gifts. Something in the kindness of her eyes and conduct reflected the character of Saidah Manubiah, the tomb of whom she was the caretaker, as did the peaceful nature of the place itself.
It can be a wonderful experience to walk the streets of Tunis, the markets of the Medina, to smell the spices and the incense. It's an exciting modern city that has a lot to offer in different ways. But hiding beneath the layers of modernity lies a history of mysticism and Sufism.
Great saints and mystics whose lives and teachings have shaped not only Tunisia itself, but the whole world. And actually not just a history of Sufism, but a living and thriving tradition still practiced today that stretches back into the distant past. An undercurrent of divine love, ecstatic longing and spirituality that has woven the threads on which even a modern city like Tunis rests.