Sidi Bou Said is located on the outskirts of Tunis, Tunisia's capital. The town's name comes from its patron saint, the 13th century great mystic, Abu Said al-Beji. In the center of the city is a mausoleum/mosque which enshrines this holy personage. In addition to this main mosque, there are many smaller mausoleums for the lesser religious sages Today, activities of the sufi botherhood, the tariqa of the Isawiyya are also vigorous in this town. The aim of this paper is to explore and analyze the various facets of the religious life, namely the saint cults, the activities of the Isawiyya, as well as the daily prayers in the mosque, using the conceptual framework of "religious complex". In past studies on the maraboutism and the sufi brotherhoods, such as that of Isawiyya which is well known for its eccentric practices, there has been a tendency to contrast these religious practices with "orthodox Islam", represented mainly by the ulama(Islamic scholars). This inclination can also be clearly observed in anthropological literature. For instance, employing R. Redfield's terms, "great tradition" and "little tradition", orthodox Islam is assigned to the former, whereas maraboutism is relegated to the latter; the contrasting feature is also seen in the description of the former as "the characteristics of urban religion" whereas the latter incorporates "the characteristics of religion in a tribal society". In the large number of research done by French administrators and scholars on "lc culte des saints" and "les confreries religieuses", one also notices that these various religious elements are treated independently or in isolation, and there have been few comprehensive studies that investigate and analyze the interaction of these religious factors. In this paper, the case study of Sidi Bou Said is presented and analyzed with a particular focus on the religious complex and its interrelated elements. However the term "religious complex" is not intended to be used merely as a conclusion, since such an approach does not shed enough light on the actual state of the phenomenon. My intention here is rather to use this concept as a starting point to explore and clarify this formation process and its actual situation; namely how this religious complex has been historically formed, and how these religious elements combine and interact in the present circumstances. In Section I, the subject of my study and the analytical framework will be introduced. In Section II, to provide background information, the general history of Sidi Bou Said is overviewed. The history of this locality can be divided and characterized by some specific roles which it has played through the vicissitudes of time. First of all, it was a military base in Phoenician and Roman times; later in the beginning of the Arab-Islamic period, it became a locale for a ribat; and in the 12th century, it became an ascetic religious hermitage for the sufis and saints; with the development of the graveyards for these holy personages, it became a sacred area. After the 18th century, during the Husainid era, it was transformed into a summer resort for the bourgeoisie from Tunis, including the Beyrical family. Since the 1960's, it has been a popular tourist area with those traditional resort residences. In Section III, the formation process of the religious complex of Sidi Bou Said is described and analyzed. The existing religious facilities, namely the mosque, saints' mausoleums, zawiya (religious lodge), and the religious organization (the Isawiyya brotherhood) are examined as the analytical indices. The location of the mausolem/mosque of Sidi Bou Said today was originally the grave of the sufi who died in 1231. A little latter, under Hafsid, a small praying spot was built over it. In the beginning of the 18th century,

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