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. Al-Maghreb al-Aqsa continues to this day to be a major centre of Sufism. is sufficient to visit the shrines of Moulay Idriss al-Azhar (d. 213/798) in Fez and Moulay Abdessalam ibn Mashish (d. 622/1207) in Jabal al-Alam to become aware of the degree to which Sufism is still alive in the land which has been witness to some of the greatest Sufis over centuries. Nor is Sufism confined to the masses, as can be seen by witnessing the number of the followers of Shaykh Sidi Ahmed Tijani that exceeds 300 million followers around the world. Morocco, moreover, remains closely tied to the West and the Muslim world to such countries as Algeria, Mauritania, Tunisia, Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Mali, Senegal, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Java, many of whose orders are directly linked to those of Morocco.