The Suhrawardiyya is among the earliest of the formally organised Sufi orders, and its importance lies partly in the founding text that gave the orders in general their institutional shape.
A rule for the order
The order was founded by Abu al-Najib al-Suhrawardi of Baghdad in the twelfth century and given its enduring form by his nephew Abu Hafs Umar al-Suhrawardi, whose manual of the Sufi life, the Awarif al-maarif, became one of the most widely used guides to the discipline, method and etiquette of an order. That a written rule of this authority stood at the head of the tradition helped fix the very idea of the tariqa as an organised body with a settled method, so the Suhrawardiyya contributed to the institutionalisation of Sufism beyond its own membership.
Baghdad and the road to India
Centred at first on Baghdad, the order spread eastward and became especially important in the Indian subcontinent, where its masters were among the earliest to establish organised Sufism, alongside the Chishtis. In contrast to the Chishti avoidance of rulers, the Suhrawardi masters of India were often willing to accept the patronage and the gifts of the sultans, a difference of posture toward political power that distinguished the two great early orders of Indian Islam. The Suhrawardiyya thus stands both as a founding influence on the organised orders generally and as one of the principal channels by which Sufism took institutional root in South Asia.