Sīdī ʿAlī ibn Ḥirzihim: Morocco's First Sufi Shaykh and the Rābiṭa That Built Moroccan Sufism

Sīdī ʿAlī ibn Ḥirzihim (d. 559/1164) — Morocco's first authentic Sufi shaykh, founder of the first urban rābiṭa in Fez, and master of Abū Madyan al-Ghawth — stands at the origin of everything Moroccan Sufism became. He introduced the Malāmatiyya, connected Baghdad's methods to the Qarawiyyīn and the rural ribāṭs, and navigated the Almoravid-Almohad rupture at the cost of his own imprisonment. His shrine outside Bāb al-Futūḥ — the second most important in Fez after Mawlāy Idrīs — has been held by the Dabbāgh family since the early ʿAlawī period. The first in a series on the saints whose shrines DAR.SIRR's founding family preserves.