Sufism is commonly studied as individual or small group praxis. It is has been pursued from its texts and through ethnography. This paper adopts a different kind of approach. It hypothesizes that the form of Sufism reflects the form of the political economy, that Egypt over a period of a century went from a mercantilist state form which it had had for a long time to a capitalist nation state form. In the first, Sufism expressed iself through the tariqa rooted in trade and craft and class and in the second, while the tariqa remains, there is a crisis in organizational form as the political economy no longer reinfores the Tariqa type of group solidarity. The ethos is more atomized. It is in this context that Sufism gets challenged by the early Salafis who offer a generic Islamic way of life. The Sufism remaining becomes a part of elite practices and or became mixed on a popular level with saint worship and the like. It loses ground among the middle strata previously its mainstay. This later period, the period of the nation state saw Salafi attacks on the Mawlid al-Badawi and the attempt to control the Mawlid al-Nabi and tighter government cvontrol and regulation of all the orders. While other papers in the panel will pursue these themes, this paper concentrates on the earlier breakdown of Sufism as reflected both institutionally and personally, some attention given to a particular Khalwati, Shaykh Hasan al-`Attar (d. 1835) and the stages of his development in which he was drawn into Tariqa-sufism and then later essentially withdrew. A number of interelated considerations have to be addressed for this to emerge clearly, not the least of which is the changing relationship of al-Azhar to society and to Sufism, the availability of other sites of learning and reflection other than that of the Sufi Majlis and the repositioning of Egyptian merchant power to the provincial towns about which admittedly our knowledge is scant. These bear on our interpretation of Shaykh Hasan al-`Attar. Among points worth noting are his attempt to grasp Ibn `Arabi's idea of Wahdat al-wujud which he failed in his own view to do, and then following his rise in fortunes in later life, his decision not to attempt to work thorugh Sufi institutions but rather to remain on the margin of or within the new institutions of the Muhammad `Ali reform period.

Contemporary historiography of Egypt has often presented efforts to modernize the educational system as hampered by an ossified religious elite with a monopoly on education. The latter are depicted as inimical to change, mostly because of their complete isolation from modern socio-economic realities and the stakes inherent in the colonial threat. Using several case studies drawn from awqaf, and data from biographical literature, this paper will demonstrate that by the end of the eighteenth century, advanced study of the classic religious sciences was taking place not only at al-Azhar University, but in a spectrum of multifunctional religious spaces where the pious gathered for prayer and study. These include not only mosque and madrasa, but also shrine and zawiya, and almost every possible combination thereof. Furthermore, those studying and teaching were tightly knit into the fabric of Egyptian society through the Sufi orders. As members of these organizations, they performed administrative and symbolic leadership functions, for both private and public benefit. For this reason, the military government did not approach these individuals and institutions as ossified elements to be destroyed and rebuilt. Rather, they were actively integrated into the administration of the country by military governors, both before and during nineteenth century efforts to modernize the military. On the part of teachers and students in this informal educational environment, training in the religious sciences not preclude a kind of "rational" relationship with changing power structures. Individuals adapted to new bureaucratic devices, which facilitated access to new resources, just as these devices allowed for the cooption of these social elements in new ways. At the same time, more time-trusted forms of patronage and cooperation continued to be effective.

In 1904, Al-Azhar began extending its reach and incorporated existing institutions of education throughout the Egyptian Delta. Alexandria (1904), Tanta (1914), Damietta (1914), and Dissouq (1914) all became part of the Azhar system. The process of becoming part of the Azhar system included standardized testing and curriculum, the eventual appointment of local rectors, and mandatory residence for the young male students. Eventually, these students would travel to Cairo and attend al-Azhar's main campus and become ulema. They would receive an al-Azhar degree that brought them currency with the Cairo based ulema, but also would begin to purport an Azhari approach to Islamic law and thought. The incorporation of these institutes was meant to cleanse them of competing visions of Islam, particularly the local predominance of the Sufi Orders. The Ahmadi Institute in Tanta posed a particularly unique threat in that the Ahmadi Sufi Order was both the dominant social and religious institution. This paper will argue that at the end of the 19th century, al-Azhar crafted an "Egyptian" form of reform to cleanse the country of supra-national and international Sufi orders and that both elites and students at the Ahmadi Institute collaborated with these efforts, but strictly for economic and pragmatic reasons.