أبو العباس المرسي

Abu al-'Abbas al-Mursi (RH)

Abu al-'Abbas Ahmad al-Mursi

Also known as: al-Mursi, Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi, Sidi Abu al-Abbas, Shihab al-Din Ahmad ibn 'Umar al-Mursi

616–686 AH · 1219–1287 CE

Sufism & Theology Maliki Sufism

Andalusian successor of al-Shadhili, who led the Shadhili path in Alexandria and was the master of Ibn 'Ata'illah and al-Busiri.

Abu al-'Abbas al-Mursi was born in 1219 in Murcia in al-Andalus, to a family of merchants. In 1242 he set out for Hajj with his parents and brother, but their ship was wrecked off the North African coast; his parents drowned, and he and his brother reached Tunis. There he met Abu al-Hasan al-Shadhili and became his closest disciple, and he went with him to Egypt, where they settled in Alexandria.

When al-Shadhili died in 1258, al-Mursi succeeded him and led the Shadhili path in Alexandria for nearly thirty years. Like his master, he wrote no books; his sayings and teachings are known through his disciple Ibn 'Ata'illah, who recorded them in Lata'if al-Minan and became the next master of the path. The poet al-Busiri was also among his followers. He died in Alexandria in 1287, and the mosque built over his tomb near the Eastern Harbour, rebuilt in its present form in the 1940s, is the best known in the city.

Open on the map →

Places in their life