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.