A number of these t:ar ̄ıqah brotherhoods date their de-
velopment into formal institutions to the twelfth and thir-
teenth centuries; in the succeeding centuries they became
geographically and culturally more pervasive and more struc-
turally defined. These t:ar ̄ıqahs—some regional, others wide-
ly distributed, but few of them highly centralized—
developed into a rich and diverse complex of religious associ-
ations throughout the Middle East, North and sub-Saharan
Africa, Arabia, Central Asia, South and Southeast Asia, and
China and in the twentieth century in Europe, North Ameri-
ca, and Australia. They were influential not only in the popu-
larization of Sufism but in the spread of Islam as a religion;
sometimes they have also fostered resistance movements or
developed into political forces in their own right.
Beyond this the influence of the t:ar ̄ıqahs has been mani-
fold: they add an emotional, psychological, and spiritual di-
mension to devotional practice, in many cases by integrating
poetry and music, the visual arts, and mystical contempla-
tion into religious life; they contribute to the intimacy of so-
cial life; they are associated with trade and craft guilds; they
have provided staging posts and hospices for travelers and
merchants; and they maintain shrines and other facilities by
means of charitable endowments. They have also served as
credit and finance institutions, thus contributing to com-
merce and a stable network of trade throughout the Muslim
world, especially along the great distances of the Silk Road
across Central Asia to China and in the maritime trade of
the Indian Ocean.
Though their influence as institutions waned somewhat
over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a wide and vi-
brant variety of t:ar ̄ıqah institutions still exist in various forms
in both urban and rural locales.
ORIGINS AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT. The use of the word
t:ar ̄ıqah in the writings of al-Junayd (d. 910), al-H:alla ̄j
(d. 922), al-Sarra ̄j (d. 988), al-Hujw ̄ır ̄ı (d. 1072), and
al-Qushayr ̄ı (d. 1074) denotes a method of moral psycholo-
gy for the guidance of individuals directing their lives toward
a knowledge of God. In early Sufism the term t:ar ̄ıqah was
thus understood as a method or path by which an individual
passing through various psychological stages in the obedience
to and practice of the law (shar ̄ıEah) proceeds from one level
of knowledge of God to a higher one with the ultimate reality
of God (h:aq ̄ıqah) as the goal. Although Sufism has been ac-
cused of advocating or permitting an antinomian path, the
t:ar ̄ıqah orders for the most part held to the belief in the pri-
macy of shar ̄ıEah (which is itself etymologically related to an-
other root for road or path). As Jala ̄l al-D ̄ın Ru ̄m ̄ı’s famous
Persian mystical poem, Mathnaw ̄ı, expresses it:
Shar ̄ıEah is like a candle lighting the way. You must
take this candle in hand before the way can be traveled.
Having set out on the way, your walking is t:ar ̄ıqah, and
when you arrive at your destination, that is truth
(h:aq ̄ıqah, the real, or God).The institutional elaboration of this path derived from a spir-
itual impulse that established itself early in Islam. It origi-
nates in part from a mystical hermeneutic applied to the lexi-
con of the QurDa ̄n, investing particular verses and scenes with
special significance, and from the intense, passionate spiritu-
ality evident in the s ̄ırah of the Prophet and some of his com-
panions. It was an impulse that grew stronger in the seventh
and eighth centuries with the emergence of what Marshall
Hodgson (1974) has described as “the piety-minded opposi-
tion” to the luxury, worldliness, and nepotism of the Umay-
yad caliphate and later dynasties. The mystical traditions of
Sufism emerged from this piety-minded alternative to both
the political and the religious establishments. Islamic spiritu-
ality has also reemerged at various historical junctures, espe-
cially the colonial period, in the form of counterculture, pro-
test, or even militant resistance movements.This religious quest for interior purity and control over
the self (nafs), the slaying of which was described by later
S:u ̄f ̄ıs as the greatest of human struggles (jiha ̄d-i akbar), fell
heir to the rich spiritual traditions of Hellenism and Chris-
tianity in the eastern Mediterranean. In the manner of the
desert monks and other ascetics in Syria and Egypt, some
Muslims began to wear a distinctive habit of coarse wool
(s:u ̄f). The term s:u ̄f ̄ı was used as early as the eighth century
CE to describe a man wearing such wool garments, and
s:u ̄f ̄ıyah is attested in the following century in reference to
groups or nascent communities of such S:u ̄f ̄ıs.
SPIRITUAL EXERCISES. Early Islamic spirituality emphasized
reliance upon God through the practice of poverty (faqr). In-
deed two words for a “poor person,” dervish (Persian
darw ̄ısh) and fakir (Arabic faq ̄ır), retain their association
with S:u ̄f ̄ı asceticism. Techniques of the S:u ̄f ̄ı via purgativa
included fasting, seclusion (khalwah), a daily calling oneself
to account for one’s behavior (muh:a ̄sibah), and scrupulous
introspection (mura ̄qabah) with a view to weeding out im-
pure intentions. S:u ̄f ̄ıs also spent much time in personal de-
votions, performing vigils, litanies (ah:za ̄b), and intimate
prayers (variously called wird, muna ̄ja ̄t, duEa ̄D) in addition to
the prescribed ritual prayers (s:ala ̄t).
Some contemplative or ecstatic exercises came to be per-
formed in groups, such as the ceremonial dhikr, or “remem-
brance” of God, involving the repeated and rhythmic recita-
tion of words and phrases—usually attributes of God derived
from the QurDa ̄n or forms of the Shaha ̄dah—often in combi-
nation with controlled breathing. Another group ceremony
was the majlis-i sama ̄E^ (listening session or concert). As early
as 850 CE there were sama ̄E houses in Baghdad in which the
S:u ̄f ̄ıs could listen to music and let themselves be drawn into
mystical states. Sama ̄E might also feature the chanting or
singing of poetry on spiritual themes, accompanied by
music, to which the listeners might respond with rhythmic
movement. Although similar to dancing, such responses
were conceived as either a deliberate form of motive medita-
tion or as an uncontrollable response to an ecstatic state.
Most of the Eulama ̄D rejected sama ̄E as an impious practice
(in part because of the associations of music and dance with
royal courts and dancing slave girls) and it was not universal-9004 T:AR ̄IQAH