Azawiya orzaouia[a] (Arabic:زاوية,romanized: zāwiyah,lit. 'corner';[3][4]Turkish:zaviye; also spelledzawiyah orzawiyya) is a building and institution associated withSufis in theIslamic world. It can serve a variety of functions such a place of worship, school,monastery and/ormausoleum.[4][5] In some regions the term is interchangeable with the termkhanqah, which serves a similar purpose.[6] In theMaghreb, the term is often used for a place where the founder of a Sufi order or a local saint or holy man (e.g. awali) lived and was buried.[4] In the Maghreb the word can also be used to refer to the widertariqa (Sufi order or brotherhood) and its membership.[4]
The Arabic termzāwiyah (Arabic:زاوية) translates literally as "corner" or "nook".[4] The term was first applied to the cells of Christian monks, before the meaning was applied to a small mosque or prayer room.[7][4] In the latermedieval period, it came to denote a structure housing aSufi brotherhood, especially inNorth Africa.[4] In modern times, the word has still retained the earlier meaning of small prayer room inWest Asia and the Muslim countries east of North Africa, where it can be used to contrast small prayer spaces with more important mosques.[7]
In the Maghreb (Morocco,Algeria,Tunisia andLibya) the zawiya is primarily a place for religious activities and religious instruction. It is typically associated with a particular religious leader (shaykh) or a local Muslim saint (wali), who is housed here along with his family. After his death, the zawiya usually houses his tomb, commonly inside aqubba (chamber covered by adome or pyramidalcupola), which is sometimes a shrine that serves as the focus of a minor pilgrimage (aziyarat). Typically, his descendants continue to lead or maintain the zawiya afterwards.[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 ahaḍra or adhikr. Some zawiyas, particularly in rural areas, serve as larger complexes which provide accommodation to pilgrims and contain a library, mosque, workshops, and granaries that serve the local community. Such zawiyas also historically mediated disputes between tribes or between local communities and the central government. In some cases zawiyas could provideasylum to individuals and could wield considerable political and commercial influence in the region. They were financed with the help ofwaqfs (also known ashabous), charitable endowments that were inalienable under Islamic law.[4]
In precolonial times, zawiyas were the primary sources for education in the area, and taught basicliteracy to a large proportion of children even in quite remote mountainous areas – literacy rates inAlgeria at the time of the French conquest in 1830 were higher than those of European France.[8] Their curriculum began with memorization of theArabic alphabet and the later, shorter suras of theQur'an; if a student was sufficiently interested or apt, it progressed to law (fiqh), theology, Arabic grammar (usually taught withibn 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 theSahel ofWest Africa, fromMauritania toNigeria.[citation needed]
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The zawiya as an institution pre-dates the arrival of formaltariqas in North Africa and traces its origins to thequbba tombs which sometimes acted as shrines and to the earlyribats on the frontier of the Islamic world to which holy men sometimes retired with their followers.[4] The first zawiya buildings inIfriqiya (present-dayTunisia) were built underHafsid rule in the 14th century. The zawiyas ofKairouan are believed to be the oldest and are centered around the tombs of local saints. These include theZawiya of Sidi Sahib (or Abu Zama'a al-Balawi), founded in the 14th century (though the current building dates from the 17th century), and the Zawiya of Sidi 'Abid al-Ghariani, which was also established in the 14th century.[4][9][10] The first formal zawiyas in Morocco were founded under theMarinid dynasty in the 14th century as well, most notably the zawiya built inChellah byAbu al-Hasan and theZawiyat an-Nussak built by his successorAbu Inan inSalé. Both examples, partly ruined today, were similar to madrasas in form and function.[4][11] In Algeria, another major example is thereligious complex of Sidi Abu Madyan (or Sidi Boumediene), also founded by Abu al-Hasan and built around the older tomb ofAbu Madyan (d. 1197).[5][12] InFez, the tomb ofIdris II, asharif (descendant ofMuhammad) and one of the city's founders, was rebuilt in the early 14th and early 15th centuries and maintained by hisIdrisid descendants.[13] InTunis, the Zawiya ofSidi Ben 'Arus and theZawiya of Sidi Qasim al-Jalizi, two of the most important zawiyas in the city, were both established near the end of the 15th century around the tombs of important saints.[4]
Under the sharifian dynasties of theSaadis and'Alawis in Morocco, zawiyas became more common, more socially and politically important, and architecturally more elaborate. InMarrakesh, both dynasties built funerary structures and religious complexes around the tombs of what became known as theSeven Saints of the city.[4] TheZawiya of Idris II in Fez was lavishly rebuilt byMoulay 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 particular, during the so-called Maraboutic Crisis in the 17th century theDila Zawiya (or Dala'iyya), a Sufi order among theBerbers of theMiddle Atlas, rose to power and controlled most of central Morocco, while anotherzawiya order based in the town of Iligh ruled theSous region. The Zawiya al-Nasiriyya inTamegroute, which still exists today, also ruled as an effectively independent principality to the southeast during this time.[15][4][16]: 221–226
By the 19th century, zawiyas, both as individual institutions and as popular Sufitariqas, had large and widespread memberships across the population of the Maghreb. TheSanusiyya tariqa, for example, was widespread and influential in Libya and the easternSahara regions.[4] In Tunisia, many zawiyas were patronized and supported by the government of theHusaynid beys.[4] A late 19th-century French source estimated that in 1880 there were 355 zawiyas in Algeria with a membership of 167,019 out of a population of slightly less than three million Muslims in the country.[4] In Morocco, an estimated 5-10% of the population in 1939 were members of one zawiya or another.[4] During the colonial occupations of these countries some zawiyas collaborated with the authorities while others resisted. During the late 19th century and early 20th century, colonial governments in North Africa confiscatedwaqf properties or marginalized thewaqf system that funded zawiyas as a way of diminishing their power and influence. Their influence and social importance was also undermined in the 20th century due to the opposition ofSalafist andWahhabist movements.[4][5]
Zawiyas and khanqahs were not established in Egypt until theAyyubids came to power in the late 12th century.[6] They proliferated during theMamluk period (1250–1517) and the laterOttoman period of Egypt (after 1517),[6] when Sufi brotherhoods were important religious organizations for much of the population. In Mamluk Egypt akhanqah was a formal institution typically founded by an elite patron (thesultan or anemir) and not necessarily associated with a specific Sufi order.[17]: 11–12 The termzawiya, on the other hand, was for smaller, less formal institutions of popular Sufism that were usually devoted to a specificshaykh and a specific Sufi brotherhood.[17]: 11–12 [4] The only surviving building in Cairo which is explicitly identified as azawiya by its foundation inscription is the Zawiya of Zayn al-Din Yusuf in theSouthern Cemetery, founded in 1297–98 and expanded in the early 14th century.[4]
Insub-Saharan Africa zawiyas proliferated somewhat later than in North Africa, appearing in conjunction with the development of Sufi brotherhoods and networks across the region in the 18th and 19th centuries. Zawiyas that were established in towns and staging posts along Saharan trading routes played a major role in the dissemination of Sufism and in establishing the influence of certaintariqas. Among thetariqas of major importance inWest Africa were theQadiriyya, a wide-ranging order originally begun byAbdul Qadir Gilani (d. 1166), and theTijaniyya, whose founderAhmad al-Tijani (d. 1815) is buried inhis zawiya in Fez. Another example, theMuridiyya, was of major importance in the history ofSenegal.[4]
In the rest of the Islamic world, similar Sufi institutions usually went by other names such as akhanqah,takya (ortakiyya in Arabic,tekke in Turkish), ordargah (shrine), though these terms sometimes had more specific meanings.[4][6][5][18] In the earlyOttoman Empire, the cognate termzaviye usually designated a multi-purpose religious complex that catered to Sufis and served as a place of worship.[19][4] Many important early Ottoman mosques such as theGreen Mosque inBursa, built in the early 15th century, are examples of this type.[19]
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