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The Arabic word Ṭarīqah (طريقه, pl.: ṭuruq, طرق, also: tarika) means "way" or "path" and, in the Sufi tradition of Islam 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 tarika towards the Ḥaqīqah.
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 tarika 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.
Tarikas have a Silsilah (سلسلة) meaning chain or, more idiomatically, a lineage of various Shaykhs that eventually leads back to the Prophet Muhammad. Almost all order except the Naqshbandi order has a Silsilah that leads back to the Prophet Muhammad through `Alī. (The Naqshbandi Silsilah goes back to Abu Bakr the first Caliph of Sunni Islam and then the Prophet 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:
On the other hand there are in many of the silsilas of the Tariqas names of Shi'ite Imams; take for example the Qadiri silsila:
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 minoities 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 Murids awrad may consist of reciting a certain formular 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 requireing 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 Tariqas 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 paticually influential in the spread of Islam in the Sub-Sahara during the 9th to 14th centuries where taking advantage of trade routes between North Africa and the Sub-Saharan kingdoms of Ghana and Mali they spread south. On the West African coast they set up Zāwiyas on the shores of the river Niger and even established indepenent 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 leavel 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 in a modern, rationalist tradition. Although 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:
The last of these accomplishments suggests that the analogy with the modern Muslim Brotherhoods is probably accurate, but incomplete.