Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Mursī, Aḥmad b. ʿUmar al-Anṣārī al-Iskandarī, whose kunya was Shihāb al-Dīn (d. 686/1287), was a prominent master of the Shādhiliyya Sufi order.

He was born in Murcia, in the south-east of al-Andalus, where he began his studies in the traditional Islamic disciplines. When Christian pressures to re-conquer these regions intensified (Asín Palacios, 22–23), the young Abū al-ʿAbbās left his home town to go on pilgrimage to Mecca, along with his parents. However, en route, their ship was caught up in a stor…