Introduction

The first Sufis in Upper Egypt appear in the historical record at the end of the Fatimid period. By the early Mamluk era the region's towns and villages boasted some of the most famous and enduring personalities of medieval Egyptian Sufism. But despite their prominence in medieval Arabic sources, these Sufis have received almost no attention in studies of Sufism or in Mamluk studies more broadly. There is no monograph in a European language on Upper-Egyptian Sufism. Apart from a few studies in Arabic there are only a handful of articles on the subject. This state of affairs is regrettable, although perhaps not surprising given that these Sufis left very little in the way of literature or enduring social formations. The most important source for Sufism in Upper Egypt during this period is Ibn Nūa al-Qū‚ ī's (d. 708/1308) al-Wa aīd fī sulūk ahl al-taw aīd (‘The Unique Guide Concerning the Comportment of the People of Unity’). This text is a large compendium of diverse biographical and doctrinal material, the publication of which is a major desideratum for the study of medieval Sufism. And as far as I know the existence of Sufi-related manuscripts at the shrines and mosques of Upper Egypt has not been explored. Thus, other than Denis Gril's preliminary studies, without which my work here would have been impossible, the subject of Upper-Egyptian Sufism is mostly terra incognita. The following three chapters therefore represent a tentative and preliminary exploration of and statement about Upper-Egyptian Sufism in the Ayyubid and early Mamluk period. My focus is these Sufis’ unique origins, social formations, relational structures and strategies of legitimation. In particular, I stress the ways in which these unique characteristics were to a great extent the product of the specific geographic, demographic and political contexts of the region. In addition to filling out the larger picture of Ayyubid and early Mamluk Sufism in Egypt, then, these chapters will also contribute to an emerging discourse that is attentive to the distinction between rural and urban Sufis and the role environment plays in social formation.