The (In)Visibility of Female Saints in Tunisian Sufi Literature

Among the many religious practices in the Maghreb that have been transmitted through time is the belief in holy people. Such idolatry has also given rise to distinct literary genres such as hagiographies and litanies describing the exceptional roles that Sufi sheikhs play in the social fabric and collective memory, among them also female saints.

• Sufi hagiographies in Tunisia trace the lives and karāmāt (mystical occurrences or portents [“prodigies”]) of only the male Sufi leaders, largely disregarding any female waliyyāt (Sufi saints; sing. waliyya). This reflects the conservative social and gender paradigms that the Maliki school imposed in Tunisia.

• In the absence of formal hagiographic texts, disciples of the Sufi women saints developed various commemorative practices, including the writing and singing of litanies, devotional texts. These litanies construct saintly identity, paralleling hagiography’s power to render the unseen perceptible, challenge dominant narratives, and create new spaces for reflection.

• Written to celebrate an 18th-century woman saint, the litany “Umm al-Zayn al-Jammāliyya” engages with contemporary debates on female visibility and invisibility while navigating the woman saint’s identity. A close reading of the litany shows to what extent female presence and spiritual authority in litanies challenges and/or upholds prevailing gender norms.

• Zooming in on the litany’s storyline, setting, and language helps us to understand how Tunisian Sufi literature conceptualises women’s (in)visibility.

Context

Analysing a litany about a woman reveals the function of Sufi literature in documenting and transmitting Sufi values, historical events, and regional customs. It especially sheds light on how Tunisian Sufi literature conceptualises women’s spiritual roles in Maghrebi society, setting the spaces and boundaries within which they exist.

English version: The (In)Visibility of Female Saints in Tunisian Sufi Literature

French version: La présence(-absence) des saintes femmes dans la littérature soufie tunisienne

Arabic version: الـلا/مرئية في تمثيل الوليّات في الأدب الصوفي التونسي