Sufi Orders

Gathers the tariqas, the initiatory brotherhoods of Islamic mysticism, each tracing a chain of transmission, or silsila, from a founding shaykh through successive generations of masters to living followers today. The heading spans the classical orders of the medieval Islamic world, such as the Qadiriyya, the Naqshbandi and the Chishti, their many regional branches and offshoots across North Africa, the Middle East, and Central and South Asia, and the folk and possession-cult brotherhoods that grew out of the same lodge, or zawiya, tradition. A member belongs here for practicing a tariqa's own initiatory transmission and remembrance, or dhikr, distinct from the wider Sunni and Shia movements grouped separately that organize around doctrine, education or politics rather than an initiatory lineage.