Tariqah

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Tariqah (Template:ArB Template:ArTranslit; pl.: طرق; Ṭuruq) means "way", "path" or method. In the Sufi tradition of Islam it is conceptually related to Ḥaqīqah, or Truth, the ineffable ideal that is the pursuit of the tradition. Thus one starts at the Sharī`ah, the exoteric or mundane practice of Islam and adopts a ṭarīqah towards the Ḥaqīqah.

1 Orders of Sufism
- 1.1 Traditional orders
- 1.2 Non-Traditional Sufi Groups
2 See also
3 References
4 External links
- 4.1 Orders

A ṭarīqah is a Sufi (i.e. mystical), sometimes semi-secret, order of Muslims (followers of Islam). A ṭarīqah has a Murshid, or Guide, who plays the role of leader or spiritual director of the organization. ̣ A Sufi ṭarīqah is a group of Murīd (pl.: Murīdīn), Arabic for desireous, desiring the knowledge of knowing God and loving God (a Murīd is also called a 'Faqīr' or 'Fakir' (Arabic: فقير ) another Arabic word that means poor or needy, usually used as al-Faqīr 'ilá Allāh, English: The needy to God's knowledge (Arabic: الفقير إلى الله )).

Nearly every ṭarīqah is named after its founder, and when the order is referred to as a noun -yah is usually added to a part of the founder's name. For example the "Qādirī order," named after Shaykh `Abd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī, is also called the "Qādiriyyah". Often ṭarīqahs are offshoots of other ṭarīqahs for example the Jelveti order founded by Aziz Mahmud Hudayi who are an offshoot of the Bayrami order founded by Hajji Bayram in Ankara who are an offshoot of the zahidiyye founded by Pir Zahid al-Gaylani in Iran. The Khalwatī order are a particually splintered order with numerous offshoots such as the Jerrahī, Sunbulī, Nasuhī, Karabashiyyah and others, the Tijaniyyah order prevalent in West Africa also has its roots in this Tariqa.

In most cases, the Shaykh nominates his 'Khalīfah' or successor during his lifetime, who will take over the order. In rare cases, where the shaykh dies without naming a khalīfah, the Murīds of the ṭarīqah elect another spiritual leader through a vote. In some orders, it is recommended to take a khalīfah from the same order as their Murshid. In some groups it is customary for the khalīfah to be the son of the shaykh, although in other groups the khalīfah and the shaykh are not normally relatives.

Ṭarīqahs have a Silsilah (Arabic: ( سلسلة )) meaning chain or, more idiomatically, a lineage of various Shaykhs that eventually leads back to Muhammad. Almost all order except the Naqshbandi order has a Silsilah that leads back to Muhammad through `Alī. (The Naqshbandi Silsilah goes back to Abu Bakr the first Caliph of Sunni Islam and then Muhammad.) This has led some Western writers on Islam to wrongly assume that many of the Ṭarīqas have a Shi`ite influence within them, although this idea falls short when it is remembered that all of the founders of the main Sufi orders have been Sunni Muslims: `Abd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī adhered to the Ḥanbalī a school (madhhab) of Sunni Islamic law, and almost all of the famous Shaykhs of the Shādhilī order have been staunch Sunni Muslims.

Take the following example, here is the Silsila of the Shādhilī order:

Muhammad

The Caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib

Imam Husayn

Sheikh Muhammad Jarbadi

Sheikh Sa'id Qirwani

Sheikh Fatih Mas'udi

Sheikh Abu al-Qasim Mirwani

Sheikh Abu Ishaq Ibrahim Basri

Sheikh Qutubuddin Mahmud Qazwini

Sheikh Shamsuddin

Sheikh Tajuddin

Sheikh Abu al-Hasan Ali

Sheikh Taqiuddin Sufi

Sheikh Sharafuddin Madani

Sheikh Abdus Salam ibn Mashish

Sheikh Nuruddin Abu al-Hasan ash Shadhili

On the other hand there are in many of the silsilas of the ṭarīqahs names of Shi'ite Imams; take for example the Qadiri silsila:

Muhammad

The Caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib

Imam Husayn

Imam Ali Zayn al-Abidin

Imam Muhammad Baqir

Imam Ja'far as-Sadiq

Imam Musa al-Kazim

Imam Ali Musa Rida

Ma'ruf Karkhi

Sari Saqati

Junayd al-Baghdadi

Sheikh Abu Bakr Shibli

Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Tamīmī

Abu al-Fadl Abu al-Wahid al-Tamīmī

Abu al-Farah Tartusi

Abu al-Hasan Farshi

Abu Sa'id al-Mubarak Mukharrami

Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani

It should be pointed out however, that the differences between Sunni and Shi`ite Islam were not as acute in the first three centuries of Islam as they are today. Indeed, during Ottoman times the Sunni Turkish Sultans would use the reverence that they and other Sunni Muslims had for the Shi'ite Imams to appease the Shi'ite minorities that lived within their empire and many towards the end of the 19th century believed that a Sunni-Shi'ite unity was impending.

Every Murid on entering the ṭarīqah gets his 'awrād, or daily recitations, authorized by his Murshid (usually to be recited before or after the pre-dawn prayer, after the afternoon prayer and after the evening prayer). Usually, these recitations are excessive and time-consuming (for example the Murid's awrād may consist of reciting a certain formula 99, 500 or even 1000 times) One must also be in a state of ritual purity (as one is for the obligitory prayers to perform them and facing Mecca). The recitations change as a student (murid) moves from a mere initiate to other Sufi degrees (usually requiring additional initiations).

Being mostly followers of the spiritual traditions of Islam loosely referred to as Sufism, these groups were sometimes distinct from the ulema or officially mandated scholars, and often acted as informal missionaries of Islam. They provided accepted avenues for emotional expressions of faith, and the ṭarīqahs spread to all corners of the Muslim world, and often exercised a degree of political influence inordinate to their size (take for example the influence that the Sheikhs of the Safaviyye order had over the armies of Tamerlane, or the missionary work of Ali Shair Navai in Turkistan amongst the Mongol and Tatar people).

The ṭarīqahs were particularly influential in the spread of Islam in the Sub-Sahara during the 9th to 14th centuries, where they spread south along trade routes between North Africa and the Sub-Saharan kingdoms of Ghana and Mali. On the West African coast they set up Zāwiyas on the shores of the river Niger and even established independent kingdoms such as the Murābiṭūn, or Almoravids. The Sanusi order were also highly involved in missionary work in Africa during the 19th century, spreading both Islam and a high level of literacy into Africa as far South as Lake Chad and beyond by setting up a network of Zawiyas where Islam was taught. Much of Central Asia and Southern Russia was won over to Islam through the missionary work of the ṭarīqahs, and the majority of Indonesia's population, where a Muslim army never set foot, was converted to Islam by the perseverance of both Muslim traders and Sufi missionaries.

A case is sometimes made that groups as the Muslim Brotherhoods (in many countries) and specifically the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt (the first, or first known), are modern inheritors of the tradition of lay ṭarīqah in Islam. This is highly debatable since the Turuq were Sufi orders while the Muslim Brotherhood is a modern, rationalist tradition. However, the Muslim Brotherhood's founder Hasan al-Bana did have a traditional Islamic education (his family were Hanbali scholars) and it is likely that he was initiated into a ṭarīqah at an early age.

Certain scholars, e.g. G. H. Jansen, credit the original ṭarīqahs with several specific accomplishments:

Preventing Islam from becoming a cold and formal doctrine, by constantly infusing it with local and emotionally popular input, including stories and plays and rituals not part of Islam proper. (A parallel would be the role of Aesop relative to the Greek mythos.)
Spreading the faith in east Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where orthodox Islamic leaders and scholars had little or no direct influence on people.
Leading Islam's military and political battles against the enroaching power of the Christian West, as far back as the Qadiri order of the 12th century.

The last of these accomplishments suggests that the analogy with the modern Muslim Brotherhoods is probably accurate, but incomplete.

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Orders of Sufism

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Traditional orders

PHILTAR (Philosophy of Theology and Religion at the Division of Religion and Philosophy of St Martin's College) has a very useful Graphical illustration of the Sufi schools.

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