Morocco has long been one of the most important crucibles of Islamic mysticism. Moroccan religious and intellectual movements often created ebb tides of intellectual and cultural influence that flowed toward the Muslim East. The wide geographical extent of the Tijaniya and the Shadhiliya orders underscores the importance of this lacuna. Instead of been merely imitative, many of the doctrines and institutions that were created such as the al-Qarawiyyine of Fez had profound effect on the Maghrib and the rest of the Islamic world. The foundation of Sufism in Morocco came, of course, from the East, as did Islam. Yet the unusual type of Islam in Morocco, its life-style, its calligraphic art, its mosque architecture, and the coherently crystalline nature of its urban architecture—to say nothing of its Malikism—existed from the very early generations of Islam. These general traits where reinforced when, with the rise of the Abbasids in the second/eight century and the foundation of the Sharifian dynasty by Mawlana Idriss b. Abdellah al-Kamil (d. 177/762), Morocco cut itself from the East and began to develop organically in its own fashion.
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We are launching a brand new forum dedicated to Moroccan Sufism; http://www.dar-sirr.com/forum/. The forum will eventually replace the "Yahoo Moroccan Sufism Forum". We urge all the members to use the new forum for anything Maghrebi-Sufi related. I will continue moderating the "Yahoo Moroccan Sufism Forum. Eventually the "Yahoo Moroccan Sufism Forum will be closed and archived. Join now, http://www.dar-sirr.com/forum/