ABSTRACT
The present work will attempt to elucidate aspects of the social, intellectual, and religious life of Egypt in the sixteenth century, as reflected in the writings of the mystic ˚Abd al-Wahha\b ibn Ah ≥mad alSha˚ra\nê (899/1493-973/1565). Scholars tend to regard Sha˚ra\nê as the last great (or, at any rate, original) thinker and writer before the final cultural decadence of the Arabic-speaking world in the later Middle Ages. Looked at from the viewpoint of the history of Egypt or the history of Arabic literature Sha˚ra\nê’s period ends the era of the Mamlu\k Sultanate (648/1250-923/1517) and ushers in the intellectually barren period of Ottoman rule, a period in which Egypt ceased to be the intellectual and religious center of Islam. Sha˚ra\nê himself witnessed and disliked the economic dependence on the Turks of Egyptian men of religion, though it must be remembered that he was thinking in Islamic, not national, terms. From the beginning of the Turkish domination many Egyptian ulama, including members of Sha˚ra\nê’s own family, were leaving the country to pursue more promising careers in Turkey or in Syria, which were closer to the center of the Ottoman Empire.
