Sufism in Fatimid Egypt and The Problem of Historiographical Inertia

Modern historians typically narrate a seamless history of Sufism in Egypt that begins with Dhū l-Nūn al-Miṣrī (d. 245/859), continues through the Ayyubid, Mamluk, and Ottoman eras, and extends up to the present day. However, that smooth narrative arc obscures a glaring lacuna in the medieval and contemporary historiography: Sufism during the 200 years of Shiʿi Fatimid rule (358–567/969–1171). In this article I address that lacuna from two directions. First, I demonstrate that there were Sufis in Fatimid Egypt and reconstruct the broad historical contours of the movement. Second, I argue that early Sufi historians created the lacuna by ignoring Fatimid Egypt because of their ideological commitment to the construction of a normative Sunni Sufism. This ideological construction was taken up nearly whole cloth by subsequent Sufi authors through the Mamluk and Ottoman periods and then, in turn, by modern historians

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Historiography · Ideology · Islam · Literature · Mamluk · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Sufism · Families in Therapy and Culture · Islamic Studies and History · Islamic Thought and Society Studies · History · Law · Philosophy

• Reading across confessional lines in Ayyubid Egypt

  Open Access•Nathaniel A Miller•Bulletin of the School of…•2023

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