Myriad studies, from perspectives as diverse as psychology, religion and anthropology, have analyzed Sufi conceptions of selfhood. Variously described as the “human microcosm”, “subtle spiritual centers”, or “bodily presence”, the human being (dhāt al-insān) appears composed of body (jasm), ego (nafs), heart (qalb), intellect (ʿaql), spirit (rūḥ), and “secret” (sirr). Most analyses concern medieval Sufism, often in its Persian or Indian expression. Despite a plethora of prior literature, remaining important questions include the relationship of this conception to Sufi revivalism in the eighteenth century, its resonance in the Maghrib and Africa, and its apparent displacement with (Western?) notions of selfhood based on the familiar spirit-mind-body division from the late nineteenth century. This paper returns to earlier discussions of the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century phenomenon of “Neo-Sufism” or the Ṭarīqa Muḥammadiyya in dialogue with conceptions of selfhood. My analysis draws on source material that has largely escaped previous accounts, such the primary sources of the Tijāniyya and the works of the formative thinkers Muḥammad al-Sammān (d. 1775, Medina) and Maḥmūd al-Kurdī (d. 1780, Cairo), the latter who figure prominently in eighteenth-century Sufi revivalist networks. Textual analysis focuses on 1) expressions of paradigmatic human identity in relationship to self-actualization or knowledge inscription (taḥqīq); 2) resulting visionary potentialities, particularly in reference to seeing the Prophet Muḥammad; and 3) the envisioned social role of self-actualized saints. These sources are analyzed in dialogue with field research in centers of the Tijāniyya in Morocco and Senegal. My argument is that preexisting conceptions of Sufi self-actualization gained heightened importance in the late eighteenth century, culminating in the emergence of renowned Sufi saints perceived to be in constant contact with the enduring bodily presence (dhāt) of the Prophet Muḥammad. Such saints in turn became the focal points for Ṭarīqa Muḥammadiyya Sufi revivals impacting the whole of the Muslim world. Students used the paradigmatic bodily presences of such masters to elaborate transcendent communal identities in times of historical uncertainty. Later modernist shifts in learning methods and epistemology reconstructed classical Sufi notions of human identity to promote a restricted vision of individual selfhood more easily controlled by the emergent modern state.