Marsa Alam
He was born in a royal family of a business man in Bani Yafrah among the Berber Ghomara tribe, near Ceuta in the north of Morocco, also known as the Rif region, in 1196. He was a Maliki who wandered far afield in search of knowledge. Immensely learned, even as a young man, he was famous for his ability to engage in legal argumentation with the religions scholars of his day. As a young man, Abul Hasan was hesitating between living the life of an ascetic in the wilderness in order to give himself up totally to worship and invocation, or to return to the towns and settlements to be in the company of the scholars and the righteous. He studied in Fes and moved to Alexandria in 1244. In Iraq he met the Sufi master al-Wasiti, who advised him that he could find his Spiritual Master (Sheikh) in the country Abul Hasan had travelled from: Abd as-Salam ibn Mashish, the great Moroccan spiritual master. Under his guidance, Abul Hasan attained enlightenment and proceeded to spread his knowledge across North Africa, especially in Tunisia and Egypt, where he is buried. He founded his first zawiya in Tunis in 1227. He died in 1258 in Humaithra, Egypt, while he was on his way to the pilgrimage in Mecca. Humaithara is between Marsa Alam and Aswan in Egypt and his shrine there is highly venerated.