This dissertation analyses devotional practices around the veneration of the Ahl al-bayt (the family of the Prophet Muhammad) and other awliyāʾ (saints) in Cairo in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It demonstrates the importance of devotional and spiritual traditions among Cairenes during a period that is usually studied for its turn to the rational, "modern" and scientific approaches to knowledge, including religious knowledge. A central argument in this dissertation is that although Egypt was undergoing numerous changes in the nineteenth century as the modern Egyptian state was being formed, that did not significantly affect the ritual lives of Cairenes. Thus, through a close study of hagiographies, ritual manuals, praise poetry, encyclopedias, travelogues and historical descriptions of people and places in Cairo in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the dissertation shows that the religious and political elites and commoners alike continued to go on ziyāra (grave visitations) to the Ahl al-bayt, celebrate their mawālid (religious festivals commemorating their birth or death), and continued to tell stories about them which were recorded in hagiographies. Yet, as devotional sites developed, new histories, chronicles, and hagiographies were written, and new criticisms emerged, we see evidence of both contestation and preservation. The dissertation explores dimensions of this tension, such as contestations at a shrine location, the evolving urban topography, and new literary developments. It further demonstrates that the veneration of the Ahl al-bayt, especially the veneration of Sayyida Nafisa contributed to the development of a distinctive Cairene identity. Thus, through the analysis of ziyāra practices, mawlid celebrations, and the retelling of hagiographies, this dissertation explores the depth, diversity, and tensions that existed in preservation of the ritual practices of eighteenth and nineteenth century Cairenes. In this regard, this work makes a different kind of contribution to the scholarly literature about Egypt, and Cairo in particular, as the current scholarship overemphasizes moments of change as catalysts to progress and tends to overlook moments of continuity and convention.