Encyclopedia of Islam

Rifai Sufi Order

The Rifai Sufi Order takes its name from Ahmad 

al-Rifai (1106–82), a Shafii legal scholar and 

mystic from the marshlands of southern i

raq

.

He was a contemporary of a

bd

 

al

-q

adir

 

al

-J

ilani

(d. 1166), the eponymous founder of the q

adiri

s

UFi

  o

rder

, and disciples claimed he was from 

the household of m

Uhammad

, the Prophet. Details 

about al-Rifai’s life are sketchy, other than that he 

was raised by his paternal uncle, Mansur, after the 

death of his father. Mansur had initiated a 

der

-

vish

 order called the Rifaiyya, which Ahmad led 

after his uncle’s death. He was 28 years old at the 

time. His tomb in the village of Umm Ubayda in 

southern Iraq had become a large dervish hospice 

by the time i

bn

 b

attUta

 visited it in the mid-14th 

century. The famed Rifai Mosque in c

airo

 is also 

thought to contain his remains, but because this 

is a late-19th century 

mosqUe

, it most likely con-

tains the remains of one of his descendants or a 

Rifai shaykh.

As has often been the case for Islamic organi-

zations, it was Ahmad’s disciples who developed 

the order’s rituals, rules, and doctrines. They 

also established branches throughout the Middle 

East and southeastern Europe. It remained the 

most widespread order in Sunni a

rab

 lands 

until the 15th century, when it was superseded 

by the Qadiri order. The Ottoman 

sUltan

 Abd 

al-Hamid II (d. 1918) renewed its importance as 

part of his effort to promote 

pan

-i

slamism

. Today 

the most prominent Rifai branches are in i

raq

, 

s

yria

, p

alestine

, e

gypt

, t

Urkey

, Bosnia and Her-

zegovina, Albania, Bulgaria, and Greece. There 

are branches in coastal cities of i

ndia

, especially 

Surat, where it is the most important Sufi order. 

Several branches have also been established in 

the United States, including in California and 

New York.

According to a 16th-century source, the Rifais 

credited their founder with teaching about five 

stages (maqamat) of spiritual development: pious 

circumspection (waraa), worship (taabud), love 

(mahabba), mystical insight or gnosis (maarifa), 

and unity with God (

tawhid

). The Rifai order 

is most famous for its ecstatic rituals, which 

included riding lions, snake-handling, walking 

on fire, eating glass, and piercing the body with 

hooks, swords, and skewers. The shaykh of the 

order purifies the wounds of the dervishes with 

his spittle. The absence of bleeding is taken as a 

demonstration of the 

saint

’s miraculous powers. 

Such practices came to be widely condemned in 

the Muslim community only in the 19th and 20th 

centuries, when political authorities, liberals, 

and Wahhabi-minded reformers denounced such 

K  592  

ridda

---

practices as un-Islamic innovations. Nevertheless, 

they are still conducted among some Rifai groups 

today.

See also 

ahl

 

al

-

bayt

; b

adaWi

, a

hmad

 

al

-; 

bidaa

; 

maqam

; 

mawlid

; 

miracle

; s

UFism

.