Aḥmad al-Rifāʿī, Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. Aḥmad (512–22 Jumādā I 578/1118–23 September 1182), was a well-known Sufi of the 6th/12th century and the eponymous founder of the Rifāʿiyya, sometimes also known as the Baṭāʾiḥiyya or Aḥmadiyya, one of the major Sufi ṭarīqas in the Arab and Anatolian worlds.

The sources for Aḥmad’s life and teaching were mostly written by disciples closely involved in the ṭarīqa, the earliest of which were composed within a century of al-Rifāʿī’s death and…