Sīdī Bū Sa'īd Shrine

This shrine preserves the tomb of Abu Said ibn Khalaf al-Tamimi al-Baji, known as Sidi Bou Said, an Arab Sufi saint of Tunisia born in 1156.

Trained in the school of the Andalusian mystic Abu Madyan, he left Beja to study in Syria and made the pilgrimage to Mecca in 1207, returning to Tunisia in 1210.

He gave up worldly life for prayer and meditation in Tunis, drawing disciples including Abu al-Hasan al-Shadhili, founder of the Shadhili order. Sidi Bou Said used to withdraw to a lighthouse on the hill above Carthage, and when he died in 1231 he was buried there; his sanctuary gave the surrounding settlement its name and became a venerated Sufi pilgrimage place in the Tunis region.