This paper argues that Bahaa Taher’s Sunset Oasis (2006) employs a Sufi approach in its evaluation of the Egyptian national project and the European genre of the bildungsroman as a universal education narrative. Taher employs the Sufi concepts of journey and dreams as a familiar, local, religious epistemology through which to explore the stunted personal and political growth of the middle-aged protagonist Mahmoud Abd el Zahir. Focusing on Mahmoud's struggle to come to terms with his betrayal of the 1881-1882 ‘Urabi Revolution, Sunset Oasis begins in 1902, twenty years into the British occupation and moves between the late nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century. As Mahmoud assumes his new position as the new Chief of police in Siwa, an oasis in Egypt’s Western Desert close to the Libyan border, he reflects on his failures. His political betrayal, seen in his decision to denounce the revolution and its leader in order to escape the government’s retribution, has followed on the heels of a personal betrayal. Mahmoud has rejected his Sudanese concubine, Neꜥma, whom he loves and who leaves him upon realizing that he regards her as no more than a commodity and a symbol of Egypt’s mastery over Sudan. His failure with Neꜥma is repeated in Siwa when he fails to protect Maleeka, a young Siwan widow who comes to his house seeking his wife’s friendship. Mahmoud has three dreams that mark his progression on the path of self-examination. By prodding him to confront his personal and political disloyalty, they open up a space for critiquing the racial and patriarchal structures upon which Egyptian identity rests. At the same time, they pinpoint Egyptians’ own incrimination in exclusionary ideologies. To evoke both Sufi dream terminology and bildungsroman narrative, Maleeka and Ni‘ma – the two marginalized women whom Mahmoud wrongs irreparably – alternately figure as his guides/mentors who reveal to him the truth about himself and, in the process, insert minority women’s histories in the national narrative. It is these enlightening dreams that push Mahmoud towards his final act of suicide or self-martyrdom. Mahmoud blows up an ancient Egyptian temple as a call for a fresh start and a new form where defining the Self is not contingent on marginalizing the Other. By destroying all cultural signifiers and the concomitant histories, hierarchies, and fixed power structures that they generate, he creates a blank slate where the margin does not exist.