Zawiya (institution)

[6] In the Maghreb, the term is often used for a place where the founder of a Sufi order or a local saint or holy man (e.g. a wali) lived and was buried.

After his death, the zawiya usually houses his tomb, commonly inside a qubba (chamber covered by a dome or pyramidal cupola), which is sometimes a shrine that serves as the focus of a minor pilgrimage (a ziyarat).

[4] Some zawiyas, particularly in urban areas, are simply meeting places for local members of a wider Sufi order or brotherhood (tariqa), where they perform activities such as a haḍra or a dhikr.

[8] Their curriculum began with memorization of the Arabic alphabet and the later, shorter suras of the Qur'an; if a student was sufficiently interested or apt, it progressed to law (fiqh), theology, Arabic grammar (usually taught with ibn Adjurrum's famous summary), mathematics (mainly as it pertained to the complex legal system of inheritance distribution), and sometimes astronomy.

[citation needed] These are still operational throughout the Maghreb, and continue to be a major educational resource in the Sahel of West Africa, from Mauritania to Nigeria.

[citation needed] The zawiya as an institution pre-dates the arrival of formal tariqas in North Africa and traces its origins to the qubba tombs which sometimes acted as shrines and to the early ribats on the frontier of the Islamic world to which holy men sometimes retired with their followers.

[4] The Zawiya of Idris II in Fez was lavishly rebuilt by Moulay Isma'il in the early 18th century, becoming a major landmark and marking the growing importance of shrines related to the tombs of sharifian figures.

[14] During periods of weak central rule Sufi orders and zawiyas were able to assert their political power and control large territories.

In Mamluk Egypt a khanqah was a formal institution typically founded by an elite patron (the sultan or an emir) and not necessarily associated with a specific Sufi order.

Among the tariqas of major importance in West Africa were the Qadiriyya, a wide-ranging order originally begun by Abdul Qadir Gilani (d. 1166), and the Tijaniyya, whose founder Ahmad al-Tijani (d. 1815) is buried in his zawiya in Fez.

[4] In the rest of the Islamic world, similar Sufi institutions usually went by other names such as a khanqah, takya (or takiyya in Arabic, tekke in Turkish), or dargah (shrine), though these terms sometimes had more specific meanings.

[4][6][5][18] In the early Ottoman Empire, the cognate term zaviye usually designated a multi-purpose religious complex that catered to Sufis and served as a place of worship.