TOPSufi convent life evolved over a long period of time in Islam, from the most informal, almost anarchical arrangements, to institutions that rivaled Christendom's orderly monasteries. The first example here is from Muqaddasi, a professional traveler roaming the "Abode of Islam" sometime before 980 C.E., when Sufi congregations were still grasping for a sense of themselves.
When I entered Sus [a town in southwestern Iran] I went to the main mosque to seek out a shaykh whom I might question concerning certain points of Prophetic tradition. It happened that I was wearing a cloak of Cypriot wool and a Basran waist-wrapper and so I was directed to a congregation of Sufis. As I approached they assumed that I too was a Sufi and welcomed me with open arms. They settled me among them and began questioning me. Then they sent a man with food. I felt uneasy about taking the food since I had had nothing to do with such (Sufi) congregations before this. They expressed surprise at my reluctance and my not joining in their rituals. But I felt drawn to associate myself with this congregation and find out about their method, and learn the true nature of Sufism. I said to myself, "This is your chance, here where nobody knows you."
I cast off all restraint in their regard. … At one time I joined in their antiphonal singing, on another occasion I shouted with them, and on another recited poems with them. I went with them to visit hospices and to engage in religious recitals, with the result that I won a remarkably high place in the affections of both the Sufis and the people there. I gained a great reputation; I was visited for my virtue and was sent presents of clothes and money, which I accepted but straightway handed over untouched to the Sufis, since I was well off. I spent every day in my considerable devotions, and they imagined that I did it out of piety. People began touching me and spreading reports of my fame, saying that they had never seen a more excellent ascetic. So it continued until, when the time came that I had penetrated into their secrets and learned all that I wished, I just ran away from them in the middle of the night and by the morning I was well away. (Muqaddasi 415)
Three and a half centuries later, when Ibn Battuta is describing the convents of Cairo ca. 1355 C.E., the institutional landscape looks very different.
Each convent in Cairo is affected to the use of a separate congregation of ascetics [here in Arabic, a fakir; the Persian equivalent is a dervish] most of whom are Persians, men of good education and adepts in the "way" of Sufism. Each has a shaykh and a warden, and the organization of their affairs is admirable. It is one of their customs in the matter of their food that the steward of the house comes in the morning to the dervishes, each of whom then specifies what food he desires. When they assemble for meals, each person is given his bread and soup in a separate dish, none sharing with another. They eat twice a day. They receive winter clothing and summer clothing and a monthly allowance varying from 20 to 30 dirhams each. Every Thursday evening they are given sugar cakes, soap to wash their clothes, the price of admission to the bath house and oil to feed their lamps. These men are celibate; the married men have separate convents. Among the stipulations required of them are attendance at the five daily prayers, spending the night in the khanaqa and assembly in mass in a chapel within the convent. [IBN BATTUTA 1959–1962: 44]
Or here, in even broader strokes, of Damascus of the same era:
The people of Damascus vie with one another in the building and endowment of mosques, religious houses, colleges and shrines. … Every man who comes to the end of his resources in any district of Damascus finds without exception some means of livelihood opened to him, either as a prayer-leader in a mosque, or as a reciter in a law school or by occupation [of a cell] in a mosque, where his daily requirements are supplied to him, or by recitation of the Quran, or employment as a keeper at one of the blessed sanctuaries, or else he may be included in the company of Sufis who live in the convent, in receipt of a regular allowance for upkeep money and clothing. Anyone who is a stranger there living on charity is always protected from [having to earn it at] the expense of his self-respect and dignity. Those who are manual workers or in domestic service find other means of livelihood, for example as guardian of an orchard or intendant of a mill or in charge of children, going with them in the morning to their lessons and coming back with them in the evening, and anyone who wishes to pursue a course of studies or devote himself to the religious life receives every aid to the execution of his purpose. [IBN BATTUTA 1959–1962: 149–150]