The Bā ʿAlawī Sufis of the Hadhramawt Valley

While a considerable scholary literature exists on the Banū ʿAlawī sāda's Indian Ocean diaspora and their more recent history in Hadhramawt, their premodern origins remain poorly understood, with lingering concerns surrounding the reliablity of available sources on their formative history in the valley. This social and intellectual history addresses that lacuna by closely re-examining the available primary sources, charting the evolution of the sāda’s Sufi tradition from its early 10th century origins up to the late 16th century. In doing so, it reveals that far from reflecting a provincialist phenomenon, Hadhrami Sufism remained well-integrated within the intellectual and spiritual currents of western Yemen and the Hejaz, exhibiting a sophisticated intellectual engagement with the wider legacy of philosophical Sufism, while retaining its own distinctive features that were equally shaped by the unique and recurring challenges of its social and political mileu.

Omar Edaibat, Ph.D. (2021), McGill Institute of Islamic Studies, is a lecturer and translator in Islamic Studies with a specialization in the social and intellectual history of Sufism. He has taught at several Canadian universities, with several academic publications, the latest of which is the forthcoming translation of Book 25 of Fons Vitae's series on al-Ghazālī's Iḥyāʾ, entitled Al-Ghazālī: On the Censure of Anger, Malice, and Envy.