Eleven Sufi Orders From Baghdad to Touba, in Rough Order of Founding

The Qadiriyya Order opens the path because it is among the oldest and most widely spread orders. Its page traces its teaching to Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, a Hanbali preacher and jurist active in twelfth century Baghdad, and records its origin there between 1127 and 1166. His tomb in Baghdad remains a major pilgrimage site, and the order spread through largely independent regional branches in North and West Africa, Arabia, and South and Southeast Asia.

The Rifa'i Order was founded by Ahmad al-Rifa'i in the marshland of southern Iraq in the twelfth century. Its page notes that it was among the first tariqas to take organized institutional form during its founder's own lifetime. It also records the contested side of its history: loud communal dhikr earned its members the Western label Howling Dervishes, and later branches took up fire handling and self piercing, which many Islamic authorities treat as later accretions.

The Chishti Order is named for the town of Chisht near Herat, but it became a mass movement in India under Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti, who settled at Ajmer in the early thirteenth century. The page records its origin there between 1190 and 1236. Its successors built hospices across northern India, and its gatherings of devotional music, sama, grew into the qawwali tradition, open to visitors of any faith.

The Bektashi Order traces its teaching to Haji Bektash Veli, a wandering Anatolian holy man traditionally dated to the thirteenth century. It blends reverence for Ali and the Twelve Imams with Anatolian folk practice, and the page calls it heterodox. It became the informal order of the Ottoman Janissary corps, was suppressed with it in 1826, was banned again with every Turkish Sufi order in 1925, and now has its world headquarters in Tirana, Albania.

The Mevlevi Order grew from the teaching of the poet Jalal al-Din Rumi in Konya and was organized after his death by his son Sultan Walad, with the page dating its origin from 1244. Its sema, the ritual turning known in the West as whirling, is held to symbolize the soul's ascent toward God. Outlawed in 1925, it survived by presenting the sema as cultural performance, which UNESCO recognized in 2005.

The Badawiyya was founded in thirteenth century Egypt by Ahmad al-Badawi, who lived from 1199 to 1276. Its page says it holds no distinct doctrines of its own, yet it was extremely popular under the Mamluks and Ottomans, when sultans supported elaborate celebrations of his mawlid at Tanta in the Nile Delta. That mawlid is still held there every year, with tents, Qur'an recitation and sermons from al-Azhar scholars.

The Naqshbandi Order is named for Baha al-Din Naqshband of Bukhara, and the page dates its origin there from 1318 to 1389. Two features set it apart from most other orders: it practices silent rather than vocal dhikr, and it traces its chain of transmission through the first caliph Abu Bakr rather than through Ali. It spread through the Ottoman, Mughal and Central Asian worlds and is known for insisting on strict adherence to Islamic law.

The Mujaddidi Order, also called Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya, is a reformist branch of the Naqshbandi order, which is why it follows it on this path. Its page credits Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi, who lived from 1564 to 1624 and is called the Reviver of the Second Millennium, with founding it in the seventeenth century to revitalize Sunni orthodoxy in the Mughal Empire. It favors the doctrine of Wahdat al-Shuhud and became the dominant Naqshbandi branch by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The Jerrahi Order descends from the Halveti order and was founded by Pir Muhammad Nureddin al-Jerrahi, who lived from 1678 to 1720 and is buried at his tekke in Karagumruk, Istanbul. The page dates its origin to 1704. It spread through the Balkans in the late Ottoman period, and its head convention remains in Istanbul, with branches across Turkey, Europe, Australia, South Africa and the Americas.

The Tijaniyyah was established at Fez in Morocco in the 1780s by Ahmad al-Tijani after a waking vision of the Prophet Muhammad, with the page giving 1782 to 1799. Its distinctive rule is exclusive allegiance: an initiate must leave any other tariqa and may not hold parallel membership. Favoring simple prescribed formulas over elaborate ritual, it spread across West Africa from the nineteenth century and is now one of the region's largest orders.

The Muridiyya closes the path in Senegal, where Amadou Bamba founded it, with the page giving 1883 to 1887 for its beginning. He taught that disciplined work done in devotion to God is itself worship, which gave the order its economic as well as spiritual character. He founded the city of Touba as its home in 1887, and the annual Grand Magal pilgrimage there commemorates his 1895 exile by French colonial authorities.