spirit of defense growing among Muslim faithfuls to rally victoriously against the Mongols in 1260 and consolidating the remnants of the Ayyubid Syria in 1299. In this period of aggressive posturing the ulema were quick to denounce foreign influences to safeguard the purity of Islam. This led to unfortunate situations for Mamluk Jews. In 1300 Sultan Al-Nasir Qalawan ordered all Jews under his rule to wear yellow headgear to isolate the Egyptian Jewish community. This law would be enforced for centuries and later amended in 1354 to force all Jews to wear a sign in addition to yellow headwear. On multiple occasions the ulema persuaded the government to close or convert synagogues. Even major places of pilgrimage for Egyptian Jews such as the Dammah Synagogue were forced to close in 1301. Jews subsequently were excluded from bath houses and were prohibited to work in the national treasury. This repression of the Jewish community would continue for centuries. In all the religious fervor of the period the Mamluks began to adopt Sufi Islam in an attempt to assuage dissatisfaction with traditional Sunni Islam facilitated solely by the Sultan. At the same time the Mamluk government was unwilling to relinquish control of religion to a clerical class. They endeavored on a massive project of inviting and subsidizing Sufi clerics in an attempt to promote a new state religion. All throughout the country new government-backed Sufi brotherhoods and saint cults grew almost overnight and was able to quell the disapproval of the population. The Mamluk Sultanate would become a safe haven for Sufi mystics all throughout the Islamic world. Across the empire state-sponsored Sufi ceremonies were a clear sign of the full-fledged shift that took hold. Jews who for the most part were kept segregated from Arab communities first came into contact with Sufism in these state sponsored ceremonies, as they were obliged to attend out of a show of loyalty to the sultan. It is in these ceremonies where many Egyptian Jews first came into contact with Sufism and it would eventually spark a massive movement amongst the Mamluk Jews. Now most Egyptian Jews of the time were members of the Karaite sect. This was a 1st-century anti-Pharisee movement who rejected the teachings of the Talmud. It is believed by historians such as Paul Fenton that the Karaites settled in Egypt as early as the 7th century, and Egypt would remain a