Zawiyat al-Shaziliyya

Ali Nur al-Din al Yashruti el-Magrabi, a young Sufi sheikh left Tunis, North Africa on his way to Mecca. In Lebanon the Prophet Jona appeared to him in a dream and sent him to Acre to found a new Sufi order (Islamic mystics). Among the new believers was the Ottoman sultan, Abdul Hamid, who gave Ali Nur al-Din’s followers a present of properties in Damascus, Acre, Beirut, in the western Galilee and southern Lebanon. The world center of the new order was established in Acre in 1862 in the Zawiyat al-Shaziliyya. Zawayat el-Shadlia is located south of the fortress, between the refectorium (dining room) of the Hospitallers and the Turkish bathhouse. A Zawiya is a place of retreat and communion for Dervishes, study, and prayer.

Ali Nur el-Din el-Yashruti died in 1898 and was buried on the grounds of the Zawiyat al-Shaziliyya, where his son, Ibrahim Yashruti, and grandson, Muhammad al Hadi, were also laid to rest. Al Hadi spoke out against violence during the years of Arab terrorism in 1929-1936. He opposed the Muslim mufti of Jerusalem and supported the partition plan of the British Mandate. Even so he closed the world center in Acre and moved it to Beirut and his son moved it to Jordan. After the Israeli-Jordanian Peace Treaty Ahmed Yashruti visited Acre from Jordan and was able to regain 20 dunam of the Yashruti property in Acre where he re-built the Zawiya.