ʿĪsā al-Kurdī (1831-1912) was the shaykh of the Naqshbandiyya-Khālidiyya Ṣūfī brotherhood in late Ottoman Damascus. ʿĪsā al-Kurdī was born in the village of Talḥa in the province of Diyarbakır to a family that was related to the Buhtān (Bohtan) Kurdish amīr s, ruling family of the Kurdish principality of Buhtān, and claimed descent from the Prophet. At age twenty, he went on the ḥajj and visited, on his way back, al-Azhar mosque in Cairo and Shaykh Khālid's (d. 1827) mausoleum in Damascus. Upon his