摘要：Nineteenth-century Egypt witnessed a drastic change in the relation of ṭarīqa s with both the government and the public. In 1812, the newly established Mu∆ammad ‘Alī government introduced a centralized control system over ṭarīqa s by conceding the shaykh of the al-Bakrī family (Shaykh al-Bakrī), a distinguished Sharifian family in Egypt, the jurisdiction over the Egyptian ṭarīqa s. As for the relation of ṭarīqa s with the public, the change of the situation came to be visible in 1880s, when some ṭarīqa practices began to meet with criticism from several intellectuals, and in 1890s, the ṭarīqa issue constituted a topic for public debate. It must be noted here that the critics regarded ṭarīqa practices as a problem not only because of their illegality in view of Islamic Law but also because of their irrationality and regression. Moreover, the criticism reflected the nationalist sentiment arising in this period; in this context, ṭarīqa s were regarded as the main cause of poverty and factionalism in the society, which might prevent national unity. At this point, the question of how the Sufis responded to the criticism bearing these modern features arises. In this paper, by examining the Ṭarīqa reform carried out from 1895 to 1905 under the leadership of Mu∆ammad Tawfμq al-Bakrī, Shaykh al-Bakrī of the time, I would like to explore the reasoning and strategies by which the Sufis defended ṭarīqa s. It is said that the Ṭarīqa reform was initiated primarily as a passive response to critics and that its main objective was to silence their growing criticism. However, it must be noted that Bakrī himself was actually a reformist thinker, and his reform plan clearly reflected the modern concepts shared by the critics. By comprehensively analyzing Bakrī’s reform plan, this paper aims to reveal in his discourse the kind of values and roles that were expected to be assumed by ṭarīqa s in modern Egyptian society and the basis of the justification of his idea.
