Living branch · Egypt
The Rifāʿiyya in Egypt
Egypt has one of the oldest and largest public Rifāʿī communities. It is organised as a single sheikhdom in Cairo — Mashyakhat ʿUmūm al-Sāda al-Rifāʿiyya, “the General Sheikhdom of the Rifāʿī Sādāt” — whose sheikh speaks for the order.
I. The sheikhdom and its sheikh
Egyptian newspapers name Sheikh Tarek al-Rifāʿī (al-Shaykh Ṭāriq al-Rifāʿī) as sheikh of the Rifāʿī order in Egypt in 2021 and again in 2025. In September 2021 the sheikhdom publicly condemned a desecration of the Pîr's shrine in Iraq — a sign of how closely Egyptian Rifāʿīs follow their founder's tomb.
The Rifāʿī path calls to a Sufism founded on the sharīʿa, without excess and without practices that contradict it.
In November 2025 he received a delegation of seventy-five visitors from Türkiye at the order's new headquarters in Cairo, to strengthen ties between Egyptian Rifāʿīs and followers abroad.
II. Gatherings
In January 2026 al-Dostor reported a Rifāʿī gathering near the mosque of Sayyida Zaynab in Cairo, with collective dhikr, Qur'an recitation, devotional singing and teaching.
III. A note on 2026
In May 2026 Cairo24 reported that the sheikhdom's leadership had closed its headquarters on Qalʿa Street for a month for administrative restructuring, and said that only its approved platforms speak for it. This site therefore gives no visiting address. The statement about official platforms concerns the Egyptian sheikhdom, not Rifāʿī communities elsewhere.
The great al-Rifāʿī Mosque below the Citadel in Cairo, burial place of Egypt's last royal family, takes its name from a Rifāʿī shrine on its site. It is a state monument, not the order's headquarters.