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# Sufism: Origins, Orders and Critiques
- URL: https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/sufism/
- Published: 2026-09-30T21:35:52.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T23:50:06.000Z
- Description: What Sufism is, where it came from and how the orders work, from al-Junayd and al-Ghazālī to Konya, Ajmer and Broken Hill, with the critiques from Ibn Taymiyya to the Salafis and the Sufi replies.
- Author: Mohammad Siddiqui
- Tags: Deen

New to the Qur'an? Start with [The Qur'an: What It Is, How It Came Down, and How It Was Kept](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/the-quran/), then read [Muhammad ﷺ: A Life](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/prophet-muhammad/). All articles: [Deen: Start Here](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/deen/).

Deen · Movements and schools

For some Muslims Sufism is simply the inner life of Islam, the part that deals with the heart, and the idea that anyone could object to it is baffling. For others it is the source of most of what went wrong: saint worship, shrine festivals, obedience to a living master instead of the text. Both groups are talking about something real. This page tries to describe what Sufism is, where it came from, how the orders work and what they do, and then sets out the critiques and the replies in the words of the people who made them.

It is written as a companion to the [Salafism](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/salafism/) post, which comes at many of the same questions from the other side. Every order mentioned below also has a node in the Sufi family of the [Schools of Thought tree](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/schools-of-thought/#sufism). Arabic terms are explained as they appear, and there is a glossary at the end.

### The short version

1. *Taṣawwuf*, Sufism, is the discipline of purifying the self and drawing near to God. Its defenders tie it to the Prophet's ﷺ definition of *iḥsān*, "to worship God as if you see Him", and to the Qur'an's praise of the one who "purifies" the soul.
2. It grew out of the ascetic piety of the eighth century (al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, Rābiʿa), took shape as a science in ninth- and tenth-century Baghdad (al-Junayd), and was written into the mainstream of Sunni learning by al-Qushayrī and al-Ghazālī in the eleventh.
3. From the twelfth century it was organised into orders (*ṭuruq*), each with a chain of masters going back to the Prophet ﷺ, its own litanies and its own way of training disciples. The Qādiriyya, Chishtiyya, Shādhiliyya, Naqshbandiyya, Mevleviyye and Tijāniyya are among the largest.
4. The main critique, from Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) to the Wahhabi and Salafi movements, is aimed less at Sufi ethics than at particular practices: seeking help from the dead, travelling to shrines, some forms of collective dhikr, and monist metaphysics. Sufis reply with hadith of their own and with the practice of most Sunni scholars for centuries.
5. Sufism spread Islam across South and Southeast Asia and Africa, and is present in Australia, from a Qādirī document of 1901 at the Broken Hill mosque to Naqshbandī, Niʿmatullāhī, Mevlevi and Burhānī groups today.

### Contents

1. [The word and what it means](#word)
2. [The early figures](#early)
3. [The path: shaykh, dhikr and stations](#path)
4. [The orders: an explorer](#orders)
5. [Saints and shrines](#shrines)
6. [The critiques and the replies](#critiques)
7. [Shia ʿirfān](#irfan)
8. [South and Southeast Asia](#asia)
9. [Sufism in Australia](#australia)
10. [Glossary](#glossary)
11. [Sources](#sources)

## The word and what it means

Nobody is quite sure where the word *ṣūfī* comes from. The most likely origin is *ṣūf*, wool, from the coarse woollen garment worn by early ascetics. Later writers liked to connect it with *ṣafāʾ*, purity, or with the *ahl al-ṣuffa*, the poor Companions who lived on the bench of the Prophet's ﷺ mosque in Medina; neither works as etymology, but both say something about how Sufis saw themselves.[1](#src-1)[2](#src-2) The discipline is called *taṣawwuf*, and it has been defined in hundreds of ways. Al-Qushayrī, in the eleventh century, collected dozens of them from the early masters; one of the shortest is attributed to al-Junayd: that God should make you die to yourself and live in Him.[3](#src-3)

Sufis usually locate their science in a hadith every Muslim knows. When Gabriel came in human form and asked the Prophet ﷺ about Islam, faith and *iḥsān*, the answer on the third was: "that you worship God as if you see Him, and though you do not see Him, He sees you."[4](#src-4) Islam, on this reading, is the domain of the jurists, faith of the theologians, and iḥsān of the Sufis. The Qur'an supplies the rest of the vocabulary: "Successful indeed is the one who purifies their soul, and doomed is the one who corrupts it";[5](#src-5) "Surely in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find comfort";[6](#src-6) "We are closer to them than ˹their˺ jugular vein".[7](#src-7)

Carl Ernst points out that "Sufism" as a single thing is partly a European invention. The Orientalists of the nineteenth century coined the word and were inclined to treat it as a mystical religion that happened to occur among Muslims, detachable from the law. Muslim Sufis, almost without exception, did not see it that way.[2](#src-2) Alexander Knysh's recent history goes further and argues that there has never been one Sufism, only a long argument among Muslims about what the inner life should look like and who has authority to guide it.[1](#src-1) That argument is still going on, and the critiques later in this post are part of it.

## The early figures

Britannica's history divides Sufism into three stages: early asceticism, a classical mysticism of love and knowledge, and the orders. It is a useful map.[8](#src-8)

### The ascetics

**Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī** (642–728), born in Medina and raised among the Companions, became the great preacher of Basra. He was known for his fear of God, his constant self-examination, and his outspoken criticism of the Umayyad rulers.[9](#src-9) He left no order and would not have recognised the word "Sufi", but almost every later Sufi chain includes him, usually as the link to ʿAlī.

**Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya** of Basra (d. 801) added something new. Britannica puts it well: she formulated "a love of God that was disinterested, without hope for paradise and without fear of hell".[10](#src-10) Many of the stories told about her, such as carrying a torch to burn paradise and water to put out hell, come from much later sources, but the idea they express is hers.

### Baghdad

In ninth-century Baghdad, al-Muḥāsibī (d. 857) developed a close psychology of the self and its hidden motives, and **al-Junayd** (d. 910) made it into a system. Al-Junayd taught a "sober" Sufism, suspicious of ecstatic outbursts. The soul, he said, came from God and must return to Him, passing away from itself (*fanāʾ*) and then continuing to live through God (*baqāʾ*), without ever becoming God. He read the primordial covenant of 7:172, where humanity answers "Yes" to "Am I not your Lord?", as the state to which the mystic returns.[11](#src-11)[12](#src-12) Britannica notes that "all later chains of the transmission of doctrine and legitimacy go back" to him.[8](#src-8)

Not everyone was sober. The Baghdad mystic al-Ḥallāj was executed in 922 after years of trial, remembered for the words "I am the Truth" (*anā al-ḥaqq*). Later Sufis argued over him for centuries: some called him a martyr of love, others agreed with al-Junayd that he had said aloud what should never be said.[8](#src-8)

### The synthesis

By the eleventh century Sufism had enemies among jurists and theologians, and its defenders set out to show it was part of Sunni orthodoxy. **Al-Qushayrī** (d. 1072) of Nishapur, himself an Ashʿarī theologian, wrote his *Risāla* around 1045\. It opens with the creed of the Sufis to show they were sound Sunnis, gives short lives of the early masters, and then explains the technical terms, the stations and the states.[3](#src-3) It became the standard handbook and is still taught.

**Al-Ghazālī** (1058–1111) completed the work. A celebrated professor in Baghdad, he left his post in a personal crisis, spent about ten years as a wandering Sufi, and wrote the *Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn*, "The Revival of the Religious Sciences", which runs from ritual purity to love of God. His autobiography, *al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl*, tells how he found in the Sufis what he had not found in theology or philosophy. Britannica's judgement is that his work made Sufism "an acceptable part of orthodox Islam".[13](#src-13)

The thirteenth century then produced the two figures most people now associate with Sufism: Ibn ʿArabī of Murcia (d. 1240), whose metaphysics was later summed up, by others, as the "unity of being" (*waḥdat al-wujūd*), and Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (d. 1273), whose Persian poetry is read around the world.[8](#src-8)[1](#src-1)

## The path: shaykh, dhikr and stations

### The shaykh and the chain

The organising idea of the orders is the relationship between a guide (*shaykh* or *murshid*) and a disciple (*murīd*). The disciple takes a pledge (*bayʿa*), usually by taking the shaykh's hand, receives the order's litanies, and is trained by him. The shaykh's authority rests on a chain (*silsila*) of masters, each initiated by the one before, back to the Prophet ﷺ, most often through ʿAlī and in the Naqshbandī case through Abū Bakr.[2](#src-2)[1](#src-1) A saying repeated in many orders is that whoever has no shaykh has Satan for a shaykh. It is a maxim of the Sufi masters, not a hadith of the Prophet ﷺ; its point is that the self cannot be trusted to diagnose itself.

The Qur'an's story of Moses and the servant whom God had "enlightened with knowledge of Our Own", in which Moses must be patient with actions he does not understand, is the text Sufis have most often read as a model of discipleship.[14](#src-14)

### Dhikr

Remembrance of God (*dhikr*) is the core practice: repeating the names of God, the testimony of faith and set formulae, alone or together, silently or aloud. The Qur'an commands it, "O believers! Always remember Allah often",[15](#src-15) and promises that God remembers those who remember Him.[16](#src-16) Sufis cite the hadith in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ in which God says, "if he remembers Me in an assembly, I remember him in a better assembly",[17](#src-17) and the report in Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ about angels who roam the earth seeking out gatherings of remembrance.[18](#src-18) "The best remembrance," according to a report in al-Tirmidhī graded ḥasan, "is lā ilāha illā Allāh".[19](#src-19)

The orders differ in how. The Naqshbandīs are known for silent dhikr of the heart; the Chishtīs use both loud and silent dhikr and, famously, devotional music (*samāʿ*, in South Asia *qawwālī*).[20](#src-20)[21](#src-21) The Rifāʿīs link arms in a circle and sway until they reach ecstasy.[22](#src-22) The Mevlevīs turn, to music, in the *sema* ceremony, which UNESCO lists as intangible cultural heritage.[23](#src-23) Whether any of this is lawful, and particularly music and collective rhythmic dhikr, is one of the oldest arguments in the field.

Music is the sharpest of these questions, and both sides argue from al-Bukhārī. In one report (no. 5590), which al-Bukhārī gives with the opening of its chain suspended (*muʿallaq*), the Prophet ﷺ warns of people in his community who will treat as lawful fornication, silk, wine and musical instruments (*al-maʿāzif*). Ibn Taymiyya called it sound, Ibn al-Qayyim took it as proof that instruments are forbidden, and Salafi scholars today follow them.[78](#src-78)[80](#src-80) In another (no. 952), ʿĀʾisha describes two girls singing in her house on the day of ʿĪd; Abū Bakr called it "the musical instruments of Satan", and the Prophet ﷺ told him to leave them, since every people has its festival and this was theirs.[79](#src-79) Al-Ghazālī gave a whole book of the *Iḥyāʾ* to listening (*samāʿ*): he held it lawful in itself and placed the dangers in what surrounds it.[81](#src-81) Egypt's Dār al-Iftāʾ, citing him and Ibn Ḥazm among others, inclines to permitting instruments that do not distract from the remembrance of God.[82](#src-82) Collective rhythmic dhikr without music is a separate argument, taken up in the critiques below.

### Stations and states

Sufi manuals describe the path as a series of stations (*maqāmāt*) that the seeker earns through effort, and states (*aḥwāl*) that come as gifts. Lists vary. A classic sequence runs from repentance (*tawba*) through scrupulousness, renunciation (*zuhd*), poverty, patience and trust in God (*tawakkul*) to contentment (*riḍā*); al-Qushayrī's *Risāla* treats these and many more, one chapter each, with sayings of the masters on every one.[3](#src-3)[1](#src-1) States, such as fear and hope, contraction and expansion, intimacy and awe, come and go. The goal, in al-Junayd's terms, is fanāʾ and baqāʾ: the extinction of the self's claims and a life lived through God.[11](#src-11)

Behind the vocabulary lies a very practical ethic: eat less, speak less, sleep less, keep company with the good, examine yourself every night, and serve others. Much of this is common ground with the Sufis' critics, as the salafism post notes of Ibn al-Qayyim, whose *Madārij al-sālikīn* is itself a commentary on a Sufi manual.

### The friends of God

The Qur'an speaks of the *awliyāʾ* of God, the friends or close servants: "There will certainly be no fear for the close servants of Allah, nor will they grieve".[24](#src-24) A hadith in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ, much loved by Sufis, has God declare war on whoever is hostile to a friend of His, and say that His servant keeps drawing near through voluntary devotions "until I love him, and when I love him I become his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees".[25](#src-25) From these texts grew the belief in saints (*walī*, plural *awliyāʾ*), their graces (*karāmāt*), and their continuing presence after death, which is where the hardest arguments begin.

## The orders: an explorer

The orders took shape from the twelfth century, and there are now hundreds of them, most of them branches of a few great families. The table below covers the main ones. Type in the box or use the region buttons to filter; the last column links to the order's node in the [Schools of Thought tree](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/schools-of-thought/#sufism), where branches and later history are shown. Orders documented in Australia are marked. Without JavaScript the full table is shown.

| Order                      | Founder                                                                          | Began                                             | Distinctive practice                                                                                                                                                        | Where today                                                       | Tree                                                                                     |
| -------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Qādiriyya Aus              | ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī (1078–1166)                                              | 12th century, Baghdad                             | Loosely organised; each region keeps its own dhikr; stresses charity, humility and the law. Probably the oldest order.[26](#src-26)                                         | Iraq, North and West Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Balkans    | [Qādiriyya](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/schools-of-thought/#qadiri)            |
| Rifāʿiyya                  | Aḥmad al-Rifāʿī (d. 1182; Britannica gives 1187)                                 | 12th century, marshes near Basra                  | Circle dhikr to the point of ecstasy; in some branches, demonstrations with swords and snakes that other Sufis rejected.[22](#src-22)                                       | Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Turkey, Balkans                               | [Rifāʿiyya](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/schools-of-thought/#rifai)             |
| Suhrawardiyya              | Abū al-Najīb al-Suhrawardī (d. 1168); his nephew ʿUmar (d. 1234)                 | 12th century, Baghdad                             | Severe discipline; dhikr of seven divine names; closer to rulers than the Chishtīs. Its lasting base became Multan.[27](#src-27)                                            | Pakistan, India, Afghanistan                                      | [Suhrawardiyya](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/schools-of-thought/#suhrawardi)    |
| Chishtiyya Aus             | Abū Isḥāq al-Shāmī at Chisht; brought to India by Muʿīn al-Dīn Chishtī (d. 1236) | 10th century (Chisht); 12th–13th century in India | Loud and silent dhikr, devotional music, poverty, no dealings with the state. Muʿīn al-Dīn's tomb at Ajmer is among India's most visited shrines.[21](#src-21)[28](#src-28) | India, Pakistan, Bangladesh; Western universalist groups          | [Chishtiyya](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/schools-of-thought/#chishti)          |
| Shādhiliyya Aus            | Abū al-Ḥasan al-Shādhilī (d. 1258)                                               | 13th century, Tunis and Alexandria                | No withdrawal from the world: members keep their trades. Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh's *Ḥikam* is its best-known book.[29](#src-29)                                                     | North Africa, Egypt, Levant, Sudan, Europe                        | [Shādhiliyya](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/schools-of-thought/#shadhili)        |
| Mevleviyye Aus             | Followers of Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (d. 1273)                                         | 13th century, Konya                               | The turning *sema* to music. Dissolved with all orders in Turkey in 1925; the ceremony was later allowed as a public performance.[30](#src-30)[23](#src-23)                 | Turkey, Syria, Europe, North America                              | [Mevleviyye](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/schools-of-thought/#mevlevi)          |
| Naqshbandiyya Aus          | Bahāʾ al-Dīn Naqshband (d. 1389)                                                 | 14th century, Bukhara                             | Silent dhikr of the heart; strict adherence to the law; chain through Abū Bakr; later the Mujaddidī reform of Aḥmad Sirhindī.[20](#src-20)                                  | Central Asia, Turkey, Kurdistan, South and Southeast Asia, Europe | [Naqshbandiyya](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/schools-of-thought/#naqshbandi)    |
| Khalwatiyya                | ʿUmar al-Khalwatī (d. 1397)                                                      | 14th century, Iran                                | Named after the spiritual retreat (*khalwa*); strict discipline; many Ottoman and Egyptian branches.[31](#src-31)                                                           | Turkey, Egypt, Balkans, Sudan                                     | [Khalwatiyya](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/schools-of-thought/#khalwati)        |
| Niʿmatullāhiyya Aus        | Shāh Niʿmat Allāh Walī (1330–1431)                                               | Late 14th–15th century, Mahan, Iran               | The main Shia Sufi order; its founder was Sunni, the order Twelver Shia from the Safavid period.[32](#src-32)                                                               | Iran, UK, USA, Australia                                          | [Niʿmatullāhiyya](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/schools-of-thought/#nimatullahi) |
| Tijāniyya                  | Aḥmad al-Tijānī (1737–1815)                                                      | c. 1781, North Africa; centred on Fez             | Exclusive: members may not hold another order. Emphasises intention and conduct over elaborate ritual.[33](#src-33)                                                         | West and North Africa, Sudan                                      | [Tijāniyya](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/schools-of-thought/#tijani)            |
| Qādiriyya wa Naqshbandiyya | Aḥmad Khaṭīb of Sambas (d. 1873–75)                                              | 19th century, Mecca                               | A combined order by an Indonesian scholar that became the most popular in Indonesia.[34](#src-34)                                                                           | Indonesia, Malaysia                                               | [Sufism](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/schools-of-thought/#sufism)               |
| Sanūsiyya                  | Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Sanūsī (d. 1859)                                             | 1837                                              | A reformist network of desert lodges; led resistance to Italy; its head became King Idris of Libya (1951–69).[35](#src-35)                                                  | Libya, Chad, Egypt                                                | [Sanūsiyya](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/schools-of-thought/#sanusi)            |
| Murīdiyya                  | Aḥmadu Bamba (d. 1927)                                                           | Late 19th century, Senegal                        | Work as devotion; loyalty to the shaykh; the holy city of Touba.[36](#src-36)                                                                                               | Senegal, Gambia, diaspora                                         | [Murīdiyya](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/schools-of-thought/#muridiyya)         |
| Burhāniyya Aus             | Muḥammad ʿUthmān ʿAbduh al-Burhānī (d. 1983)                                     | 20th century, Sudan                               | Combines Shādhilī and Dasūqī lines; in Australia since 1983.[37](#src-37)                                                                                                   | Sudan, Egypt, Europe, Australia                                   | [Burhāniyya](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/schools-of-thought/#burhani)          |

## Saints and shrines

For most of Islamic history, visiting the graves of the Prophet ﷺ, his family and the saints was a normal part of Sunni and Shia religious life, and in much of the Muslim world it still is. The tomb of Muʿīn al-Dīn Chishtī at Ajmer draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, most of all at the *ʿurs*, the anniversary of his death.[28](#src-28) The shrine of ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī in Baghdad is kept by his descendants.[26](#src-26)

Three questions are bundled together here, and it helps to pull them apart.

**Visiting graves.** This is not in dispute as such. The Prophet ﷺ, having at first forbidden it, said: "visit the graves, for they remind you of death"; the report is in Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.[38](#src-38)

**Travelling to visit a grave, and building over it.** Here the texts are contested. Al-Bukhārī records "do not set out on a journey except to three mosques": the Sacred Mosque, the Prophet's Mosque and al-Aqṣā.[39](#src-39) Ibn Taymiyya read this as forbidding a journey made solely to visit a grave, including the Prophet's, and was imprisoned for it in 1326; most scholars of his time, and most since, read it as being about mosques and held that travelling to visit the Prophet's grave was not only allowed but recommended.[40](#src-40)[41](#src-41) On building, ʿĀʾisha reports the Prophet ﷺ saying on his deathbed that God cursed those "who took the graves of their prophets as places of worship",[42](#src-42) and ʿAlī sent a man on the mission the Prophet ﷺ had once sent him on: not to leave a raised grave without levelling it.[43](#src-43) Another report, graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī, has "do not make my grave a place of festival".[44](#src-44)

**Asking the dead.** The deepest disagreement is over *tawassul* and *istighātha*: asking God by the rank of the Prophet ﷺ or a saint, and asking the saint directly for help. Both sides claim the same verse, "seek what brings you closer to Him" (*al-wasīla*).[45](#src-45) Sufis cite the blind man whom the Prophet ﷺ taught to pray, "O God, I ask You and turn to You through Your Prophet Muhammad", graded by al-Tirmidhī ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ gharīb.[46](#src-46) Egypt's official Dār al-Iftāʾ holds this kind of tawassul lawful after the Prophet's death as well as during his life, and rejects Ibn Taymiyya's contrary view.[68](#src-68) Salafi scholars read the same hadith differently: the blind man came to the Prophet ﷺ and asked him to pray, so the "means" was the Prophet's own prayer for him while he was alive, not his person or rank.[67](#src-67) Their critics point to ʿUmar, who during a drought asked for rain through the Prophet's living uncle al-ʿAbbās, saying "we used to ask through our Prophet, and now we ask through his uncle", and argue that he would not have done so if asking through the Prophet after his death had been allowed.[47](#src-47) Sufis reply that ʿUmar was showing honour to the Prophet's family, not setting a limit.

**What rests on what.** Sound hadith establish visiting graves to be reminded of death (Muslim 976b), the rule that journeys of devotion are made only to the three mosques (al-Bukhārī 1189), the curse on taking prophets' graves as places of worship (al-Bukhārī 1330), the levelling of raised graves (Muslim 969a), "do not make my grave a place of festival" (Abū Dāwūd 2042, ṣaḥīḥ per al-Albānī), the blind man's prayer "through Your Prophet" (al-Tirmidhī 3578, ṣaḥīḥ per Darussalam) and ʿUmar's request through al-ʿAbbās (al-Bukhārī 1010).[38](#src-38)[39](#src-39)[42](#src-42)[43](#src-43)[44](#src-44)[46](#src-46)[47](#src-47) They also establish remembering God alone and in company, and gathering for it (al-Bukhārī 7405; Muslim 2689).[17](#src-17)[18](#src-18) What they leave to interpretation is how far each reaches: whether the three-mosques rule covers a journey made to visit a grave, whether the blind man turned to God through the Prophet's ﷺ person or through his prayer, and whether that holds after his death, and whether texts on gatherings of remembrance cover particular forms such as swaying or set litanies with promised rewards, and whether music falls under the warning of al-Bukhārī 5590 or the leave given on the day of ʿĪd in al-Bukhārī 952.[78](#src-78)[79](#src-79) Those answers rest on the scholars' reasoning and on long practice, set out above and below for each side.[40](#src-40)[41](#src-41)[67](#src-67)[68](#src-68)[65](#src-65) The maxim about having no shaykh, and the set wording and counts of each order's litanies, come from the orders' own masters rather than from hadith, even where the formulae inside them do come from hadith.

## The critiques and the replies

These are set out as a series of folding panels, each with the objection and the reply in the words of those who made them. Open whichever you want.

Ibn Taymiyya: for the early masters, against later practice 

#### The critique

Ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328) is often imagined as an enemy of Sufism, but his position was more careful than that. He praised the early masters, including al-Junayd and ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī, and wrote a commentary on part of al-Jīlānī's *Futūḥ al-ghayb*. What he attacked was the metaphysics of Ibn ʿArabī, which he saw as dissolving the difference between Creator and creation, and popular practices at shrines: seeking help from the dead, vows to saints, and journeys to graves.[48](#src-48)[40](#src-40) George Makdisi argued in 1973 that Ibn Taymiyya was himself initiated into the Qādiriyya.[49](#src-49)

#### The reply

His contemporaries' reply was mainly legal and came through the courts: judges condemned his treatise on travelling to visit graves, he was imprisoned in 1326, and he died in prison in 1328.[40](#src-40)[41](#src-41) Later Sufi scholars have tended to accept his ethics and reject his conclusions on graves and intercession.

On Ibn ʿArabī, though, he was far from alone, and the argument cut across the Sunni schools. The theologian al-Taftāzānī (d. 1390) wrote a refutation of Ibn ʿArabī's metaphysics, and the Shāfiʿī al-Biqāʿī (d. 1480) went as far as calling him an unbeliever. Al-Suyūṭī answered al-Biqāʿī with a defence that held Ibn ʿArabī to be a friend of God while forbidding ordinary readers his books, and the Ḥanafī Ibrāhīm al-Ḥalabī (d. 1549) answered al-Suyūṭī in turn.[72](#src-72)[73](#src-73)

The Wahhabi critique: shirk at the shrines 

#### The critique

Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (d. 1792) in Najd took Ibn Taymiyya's position much further. For him, calling on a saint for help, making vows or sacrifices at a tomb, or believing a saint could intercede independently was *shirk*, associating others with God, and a Muslim who did so had left Islam. His movement demolished domed tombs in Arabia. Britannica summarises: Wahhabis reject "acts they view as polytheistic, such as visiting tombs and venerating saints".[50](#src-50)

#### The reply

Sufi and traditional Sunni scholars answered that the movement confused honouring the righteous with worshipping them, and above all objected to declaring other Muslims unbelievers. The Deobandi scholars of India, who are themselves critical of many shrine practices, put their answer on record in *al-Muhannad ʿalā al-mufannad* (1907): they belong to the Naqshbandī, Chishtī, Qādirī and Suhrawardī paths, hold tawassul through the Prophet ﷺ and the saints to be permissible so long as one knows the power is God's, and hold visiting the Prophet's grave to be commendable; and they condemned the Wahhabis for treating other Sunnis as polytheists.[51](#src-51)

Present-day Salafi writing keeps the charge but grades it: a widely read Salafi answer on the orders calls some of them unbelief (*kufr*) and others innovation, and singles out the worship of shaykhs and seeking help from them.[64](#src-64)

The Salafi critique: bidʿa in devotion 

#### The critique

Contemporary Salafis, following al-Shāṭibī's strict definition of *bidʿa* (religious innovation) as a devised practice that imitates the law and is meant to bring one closer to God without a sound proof,[63](#src-63) and on the Prophet's ﷺ words "every innovation is misguidance" (Muslim 867) and "whoever introduces into this affair of ours what is not of it, it is rejected" (al-Bukhārī 2697; Muslim 1718),[74](#src-74)[75](#src-75) object to devotional forms the Prophet ﷺ did not establish: collective rhythmic dhikr, set litanies with promised rewards, the Mawlid, and fixed days at shrines. Saudi Arabia's Standing Committee for fatwas, asked about swaying in collective dhikr, answered: "We do not know of any basis for this action in the religion of Allah", and called it an innovation.[65](#src-65) Salafis accept *tazkiya*, purification of the soul, and, like Ibn Taymiyya, agree with Sufis wherever they follow the Qur'an and Sunna,[66](#src-66)[48](#src-48) but reject the structures of later Sufism: orders, oaths of total obedience to a shaykh, saint veneration and speculative mysticism.[64](#src-64) The full argument is in the [Salafism post](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/salafism/#bidah).

#### The reply

Sufis reply that group dhikr is directly supported by the hadith of the angels who seek out gatherings of remembrance and "if he remembers Me in an assembly",[18](#src-18)[17](#src-17) that the orders are methods of teaching, no more a bidʿa than the madrasa, and that many respected jurists of the four schools belonged to them: al-Qushayrī and al-Ghazālī, above, were Shāfiʿīs, and the Shāfiʿī polymath al-Suyūṭī (d. 1505) was a Shādhilī who wrote in the Sufis' defence.[62](#src-62) They also dispute the definition itself: al-Shāfiʿī, as al-Bayhaqī reports him, distinguished good innovations from bad,[76](#src-76) citing ʿUmar's "what an excellent innovation this is" over the congregational tarāwīḥ (al-Bukhārī 2010),[77](#src-77) and ʿIzz al-Dīn b. ʿAbd al-Salām sorted new practices into the five legal categories, from obligatory to forbidden.[63](#src-63)

The sharpest recent statement of that view came from the conference held in Grozny on 25–27 August 2016, attended by the Shaykh of al-Azhar. Its final statement defined Ahl al-Sunna as the Ashʿarīs and Māturīdīs in creed, the four schools in law, and "the Sufism of Imam al-Junayd" in conduct and purification, and did not name the Salafis. Saudi scholars, including the Council of Senior Scholars, condemned it, and al-Azhar later distanced itself from the outcome.[60](#src-60)[61](#src-61) The Salafism post covers it from the other side.

Modernist and reformist critiques 

#### The critique

Muslim modernists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries often blamed the orders for fatalism, superstition and passivity under colonial rule. The Turkish Republic closed all Sufi lodges in 1925.[30](#src-30)

#### The reply

Historians have pointed out that the orders led much of the armed resistance to colonialism: the Sanūsiyya against Italy in Libya, Naqshbandīs in the Caucasus, and others.[35](#src-35)[1](#src-1) Knysh's history also shows the orders adapting quickly to cities, print and later the internet.[1](#src-1)

Violence against shrines 

#### What has happened

In the last two decades, armed groups have destroyed or attacked Sufi shrines across several countries. In Timbuktu in 2012, fighters destroyed mausoleums and part of a mosque; in 2016 the International Criminal Court convicted Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi of the war crime of attacking historic and religious buildings and sentenced him to nine years.[52](#src-52) On 16 February 2017 a suicide bomber attacked the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan, Pakistan, during the *dhamaal*, the evening devotional dance. First reports that night counted at least 70 dead; Dawn's later tally was 88 killed and about 250 injured, and the Islamic State group claimed the attack.[53](#src-53)[59](#src-59)

#### The response

Mainstream scholars across the trends have condemned attacks of this kind, including many who oppose the practices at the shrines. In Pakistan, more than 1,800 scholars of the country's different schools signed *Paigham-e-Pakistan* in January 2018, condemning terrorist and suicide attacks and ruling that only the state may declare jihad.[69](#src-69) The critique of a practice is a theological argument; it is not, on any mainstream view, permission to kill the people who hold it.

## Shia ʿirfān

Twelver Shia Islam has its own relationship with Sufism, and it is not simple. The imams themselves are, for Shia Muslims, the true spiritual guides, and the Sufi orders' claim to an independent chain of authority has long made Shia scholars uneasy. What developed instead, especially in Iran, is *ʿirfān*, "gnosis": a mystical philosophy taught in the seminaries rather than an order with shaykhs and lodges. Gerhard Böwering describes it as emphasising "the mystico-philosophical side of Sufism and Shiʿism" while standing apart from organised Sufism. Its line runs through Ḥaydar Āmulī in the fourteenth century, who "forged a synthesis between Sufi and Shiʿite thought", and Mullā Ṣadrā and Mīr Dāmād under the Safavids, and it reached formal teaching in Qom in the twentieth century.[54](#src-54)

Shia Sufi orders do exist. The largest is the Niʿmatullāhiyya, whose founder, Shāh Niʿmat Allāh Walī (1330–1431), spent his last years at Mahan in Kerman.[32](#src-32) It is present in Australia, as the next sections show.

Shia criticism of the orders has been as sharp as anything on the Sunni side. Muḥammad Bāqir al-Majlisī (d. 1699), the most powerful cleric of late Safavid Iran, fought Sufism openly, a delicate business because his own father was said to have had Sufi leanings.[70](#src-70) A century later the uṣūlī jurist Āqā Muḥammad ʿAlī Bihbahānī (1732–1801) wrote a treatise that, in Oliver Scharbrodt's summary, set out to "anathematize Sufis and Sufism" and justify their persecution under the early Qajars.[71](#src-71) The line many Shia scholars draw, then and now, is the one Böwering describes: ʿirfān, the mystical and philosophical side, is taught and honoured in the seminaries, while the organised orders are another matter.[54](#src-54)

## South and Southeast Asia

### South Asia

Much of South Asia's Muslim population traces its faith, at least in memory, to Sufis. The Chishtiyya came to India with Muʿīn al-Dīn Chishtī in the late twelfth century, settled at Ajmer and, under the great shaykhs of Delhi between about 1200 and 1356, built a network of lodges across the north. It refused dealings with the state and welcomed people of every community.[21](#src-21)[28](#src-28) The Suhrawardiyya settled at Multan and was more willing to work with rulers.[27](#src-27) The Naqshbandiyya became, in Britannica's words, "the most important of the Indian Sufi orders" after Aḥmad Sirhindī joined it in 1593–94 and turned it into a vehicle for his programme of law-centred renewal.[20](#src-20)

The main South Asian Sunni movements today are all, in some sense, Sufi. The Deobandis have their own Chishtī and Naqshbandī shaykhs but are critical of shrine festivals and music, while the Barelvīs defend them; *al-Muhannad* sets out the Deobandi side.[51](#src-51) The shrines remain places where Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs meet, and for that reason they have also become targets, as Sehwan showed in 2017.[53](#src-53)

### Southeast Asia

Martin van Bruinessen's survey of the region is the best short guide. The first Sumatran mystics he can document, Hamzah Fansuri in the late sixteenth century and Syamsuddin (d. 1630), taught a sophisticated metaphysics before any order is recorded; ʿAbd al-Raʾūf of Singkel, returning from Arabia in 1661, taught the Shaṭṭāriyya. But the orders only gained a mass following in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the combined Qādiriyya wa Naqshbandiyya, founded by Aḥmad Khaṭīb of Sambas, became the most popular order in Indonesia.[34](#src-34)

In Indonesia the orders are organised. Nahdlatul Ulama, the country's largest Muslim organisation, has a body called JATMAN, founded on 10 October 1957 at Tegalrejo in Central Java and recognised as part of NU in 1979, to recognise orders whose chains and teachings it considers sound (*muʿtabara*).[55](#src-55)

## Sufism in Australia

The history of Sufism in Australia has hardly been written. Abu Bakr Sirajuddin Cook, who has done more than anyone to start, calls it "a neglected area that deserves significant scholarly attention", and notes that much of the evidence is scattered or passed on orally.[56](#src-56) What can be documented looks like this.

The Makassan trepang fishermen who visited northern Australia for centuries were Muslims, and Sufism may have come with them, but this is not confirmed. The cameleers of the 1860s to the 1920s, many from what are now Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, came from regions steeped in Sufism, and a manuscript of 1901 held at the Broken Hill mosque records a Qādirī chain going back to ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī.[37](#src-37) The history of how those communities came to Australia is told in [How Islam Came to Australia](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/how-islam-came-to-australia/).

In the twentieth century the Universal Sufism of Inayat Khan, a teacher of Chishtī background, reached Australia; Cook records a representative appointed in 1933 and the poet Francis Brabazon (d. 1984) as a later figure. A Naqshbandī shaykh, ʿAbdullāh Sirr Dan al-Jamal, initiated in 1964, later settled in northern Tasmania. The Mevlevi Order of Australia was formed in Melbourne in 1986\. The Burhāniyya established the Almiraj Sufi and Islamic Study Centre in Perth in 1983, moved it to Tasmania in 1990 and to Broken Hill in 2012.[37](#src-37) Cook's judgement is that from the late 1970s "almost all major Sufi orders" have come to be represented somewhere in the country, though listing them all would be "a monumental, and ultimately incomplete, task".[37](#src-37)

The only sustained academic fieldwork I could find is by Milad Milani and Adam Possamai of Western Sydney University, who studied Niʿmatullāhī and Naqshbandī groups in Sydney and Melbourne. They found orders with global networks and websites that had nonetheless developed "strong local identities" and adapted to Australian life, including its consumer culture.[57](#src-57)[58](#src-58) If you know of a group, a manuscript or a history that should be here, the corrections address below is the place to send it; this section is the one on the page I would most like to improve.

## Glossary

aḥwāl (sing. ḥāl)

Spiritual states that come to the seeker as gifts, as distinct from stations earned by effort.

awliyāʾ (sing. walī)

Friends of God; saints.

baqāʾ

"Subsistence": life lived through God after the passing away of the self.

bayʿa

The pledge a disciple gives to a shaykh on entering an order.

bidʿa

Innovation in religion; how broadly to define it is the heart of the Salafi and Sufi dispute.

dhikr

Remembrance of God, especially by repeating His names or set formulae.

fanāʾ

"Passing away" of the self's claims in God.

iḥsān

"Excellence": to worship God as if you see Him. Sufis regard it as the subject of their science.

ʿirfān

"Gnosis": the mystical philosophy of Shia Iran, taught in seminaries.

istighātha

Calling on someone for help; applied to calling on the Prophet ﷺ or a saint.

karāmāt

Graces or wonders attributed to saints.

khalwa

A spiritual retreat in seclusion.

maqāmāt (sing. maqām)

Stations of the path, such as repentance, renunciation, patience and trust.

murīd

A disciple.

samāʿ

"Listening": devotional music and poetry; in South Asia, qawwālī.

shaykh / murshid

A spiritual guide.

silsila

The chain of initiation linking a shaykh to the Prophet ﷺ.

ṭarīqa (pl. ṭuruq)

"Path": a Sufi order.

tawassul

Asking God through an intermediary, such as a good deed, the Prophet ﷺ or a saint.

tazkiya

Purification of the soul (91:9).

ʿurs

The anniversary of a saint's death, celebrated at his shrine.

waḥdat al-wujūd

"Unity of being": a doctrine associated with Ibn ʿArabī's school.

This is a research article, not a fatwa. Where it reports rulings, gradings or disputed practices, it reports what scholars on each side have said and where they said it; it does not decide between them. If you are thinking of taking a shaykh or joining an order, or of leaving one, please talk to a qualified scholar you trust and take your time.

**Spotted a mistake, or know a better source?** I check and correct these pages when readers point things out. Please email [mohammad.siddiqui@icloud.com](mailto:mohammad.siddiqui@icloud.com?subject=Correction%3A%20Sufism%3A%20Origins%2C%20Orders%20and%20Critiques) with the passage, what you think is wrong, and your source (Qur'an reference, hadith with collection and number, or a book with page).

## Sources

Sources are listed in the order they are first cited, except 59–73, which were added when the page was checked again on 1 October 2026\. Qur'an references link to quran.com; translations quoted in the text are Mustafa Khattab's *The Clear Quran* as shown there, sometimes shortened, with his wording kept exactly, including "Allah"; the article's own prose says "God". Sources 74–77 were added in a further check on the same day, and 78–82 on 2 October 2026\. Hadith references link to sunnah.com. Reports in al-Bukhārī's and Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ are accepted as authentic by Sunni scholarship and sunnah.com shows no separate grade for them; for other collections I give the grade shown on sunnah.com and who made it.

1. Alexander Knysh, *Sufism: A New History of Islamic Mysticism* (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017): [press.princeton.edu](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691139098/sufism?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
2. Carl W. Ernst, *Sufism: An Introduction to the Mystical Tradition of Islam* (Boston: Shambhala, 2011; first published 1997 as *The Shambhala Guide to Sufism*): [shambhala.com](https://www.shambhala.com/sufism-1425.html?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
3. Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī, *al-Risāla al-qushayriyya fī ʿilm al-taṣawwuf*, tr. Alexander D. Knysh as *Al-Qushayri's Epistle on Sufism* (London: Garnet, 2007); review in *Abstracta Iranica*: [journals.openedition.org](https://journals.openedition.org/abstractairanica/39723?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
4. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 8a: ʿUmar, the hadith of Gabriel: iḥsān is "to worship God as if you see Him". [sunnah.com/muslim:8a](https://sunnah.com/muslim:8a?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
5. Qur'an 91:7–10 ("successful indeed is the one who purifies their soul"): [quran.com/91/7-10](https://quran.com/91/7-10?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
6. Qur'an 13:28 ("Surely in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find comfort"): [quran.com/13/28](https://quran.com/13/28?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
7. Qur'an 50:16 ("We are closer to them than ˹their˺ jugular vein"): [quran.com/50/16](https://quran.com/50/16?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
8. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Sufism: History" (the three stages; Rābiʿa d. 801; al-Muḥāsibī d. 857; al-Junayd d. 910, to whom "all later chains… go back"; al-Ḥallāj executed 922; al-Ghazālī's Iḥyāʾ): [britannica.com/topic/Sufism/History](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sufism/History?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
9. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī" (born Medina 642, died Basra 728; preacher, ascetic, critic of the Umayyads): [britannica.com/biography/al-Hasan-al-Basri](https://www.britannica.com/biography/al-Hasan-al-Basri?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
10. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Rābiʿah al-ʿAdawiyyah" (d. 801; a love of God "without hope for paradise and without fear of hell"): [britannica.com/biography/Rabiah-al-Adawiyah](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rabiah-al-Adawiyah?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
11. Alexander Knysh, "Junayd, al-", *Encyclopedia of Religion*, 2nd ed. (2005), via Encyclopedia.com (sobriety, fanāʾ and baqāʾ, the covenant of 7:172): [encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/junayd-al?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
12. Qur'an 7:172 (the primordial covenant, "Am I not your Lord?"): [quran.com/7/172](https://quran.com/7/172?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
13. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "al-Ghazālī" (1058–1111; the Iḥyāʾ made Sufism "an acceptable part of orthodox Islam"): [britannica.com/biography/al-Ghazali](https://www.britannica.com/biography/al-Ghazali?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
14. Qur'an 18:65–82 (Moses and the servant "enlightened with knowledge of Our Own"): [quran.com/18/65-82](https://quran.com/18/65-82?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
15. Qur'an 33:41 ("Always remember Allah often"): [quran.com/33/41](https://quran.com/33/41?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
16. Qur'an 2:152 ("remember Me; I will remember you"): [quran.com/2/152](https://quran.com/2/152?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
17. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 7405: Abū Hurayra, "if he remembers Me in an assembly, I remember him in a better assembly". [sunnah.com/bukhari:7405](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:7405?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
18. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2689: Abū Hurayra, angels who seek out gatherings of dhikr. [sunnah.com/muslim:2689](https://sunnah.com/muslim:2689?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
19. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 3383: Jābir, "the best remembrance is lā ilāha illā Allāh". [sunnah.com/tirmidhi:3383](https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:3383?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Al-Tirmidhī: ḥasan gharīb; Darussalam: ḥasan.
20. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Naqshbandīyyah" (14th-century Central Asian foundation; Sirhindī joined in 1593–94): [britannica.com/topic/Naqshbandiyyah](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Naqshbandiyyah?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
21. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Chishtīyah": [britannica.com/topic/Chishtiyah](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chishtiyah?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
22. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Rifāʿīyah": [britannica.com/topic/Rifaiyah](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Rifaiyah?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
23. UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, "Mevlevi Sema Ceremony" (proclaimed 2005, inscribed 2008): [ich.unesco.org](https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/mevlevi-sema-ceremony-00100?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
24. Qur'an 10:62–63 (the friends of God (awliyāʾ)): [quran.com/10/62-63](https://quran.com/10/62-63?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
25. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6502: Abū Hurayra, "My servant keeps drawing near to Me with voluntary deeds until I love him… I become his hearing with which he hears". [sunnah.com/bukhari:6502](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:6502?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
26. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Qādiriyyah" (ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī, 1078–1166; "probably the oldest" order): [britannica.com/topic/Qadiriyah](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Qadiriyah?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
27. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Suhrawardīyah": [britannica.com/topic/Suhrawardiyah](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Suhrawardiyah?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
28. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Khwājah Muʿīn al-Dīn Chishtī" (his tomb at Ajmer "one of the most-sacred Muslim shrines in India"): [britannica.com/biography/Khwajah-Muin-al-Din-Chishti](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Khwajah-Muin-al-Din-Chishti?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
29. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Shādhilīyah" (al-Shādhilī d. 1258; followers keep their ordinary lives): [britannica.com/topic/Shadhiliyah](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Shadhiliyah?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
30. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Mawlawīyah" (Rūmī; Konya; orders dissolved in Turkey in September 1925): [britannica.com/topic/Mawlawiyah](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mawlawiyah?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
31. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Khalwatīyah": [britannica.com/topic/Khalwatiyah](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Khalwatiyah?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
32. Nimatullahi Sufi Order, "Masters of the Path" (Shāh Niʿmat Allāh Walī, 1330–1431, at Mahan; Javad Nurbakhsh 1953–2008): [nimatullahi.org](https://www.nimatullahi.org/masters-of-the-path?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
33. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Tijāniyyah" (Aḥmad al-Tijānī, 1737–1815): [britannica.com/topic/Tijaniyah](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tijaniyah?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
34. Martin van Bruinessen, "The Origins and Development of Sufi Orders (Tarekat) in Southeast Asia", *Studia Islamika* 1.1 (1994): 1–23: [academia.edu](https://www.academia.edu/2579576/The%5Forigins%5Fand%5Fdevelopment%5Fof%5FSufi%5Forders%5Ftarekat%5Fin%5FSoutheast%5FAsia?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
35. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Sanūsiyyah" (founded 1837; resistance to Italy; King Idris 1951–69): [britannica.com/topic/Sanusiyyah](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sanusiyyah?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
36. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Murīdiyyah" (Aḥmadu Bamba, d. 1927; Touba): [britannica.com/topic/Muridiyyah](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Muridiyyah?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
37. Abu Bakr Sirajuddin Cook, "Sufism in Australia: A Brief History", *Sacred Footsteps*, 14 July 2022: [sacredfootsteps.com](https://sacredfootsteps.com/2022/07/14/sufism-in-australia-a-brief-history/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
38. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 976b: Abū Hurayra, "visit the graves, for they remind you of death". [sunnah.com/muslim:976b](https://sunnah.com/muslim:976b?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
39. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1189: Abū Hurayra, "do not set out on a journey except to three mosques". [sunnah.com/bukhari:1189](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1189?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
40. "Ibn Taymiyya", Wikipedia, sections on Sufism and on his last imprisonment (18 July 1326) over his treatise on visiting graves (accessed 29 September 2026): [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn%5FTaymiyya?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
41. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Ibn Taymiyyah" (1263–1328; views on saints and tomb visitation; died in prison): [britannica.com/biography/Ibn-Taymiyyah](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ibn-Taymiyyah?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
42. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1330: ʿĀʾisha, "God cursed the Jews and Christians, who took the graves of their prophets as places of worship". [sunnah.com/bukhari:1330](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1330?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
43. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 969a: ʿAlī to Abū al-Hayyāj, "do not leave a raised grave without levelling it". [sunnah.com/muslim:969a](https://sunnah.com/muslim:969a?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
44. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 2042: Abū Hurayra, "do not make my grave a place of festival; send blessings on me, for they reach me wherever you are". [sunnah.com/abudawud:2042](https://sunnah.com/abudawud:2042?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī.
45. Qur'an 5:35 ("seek what brings you closer to Him" (al-wasīla)): [quran.com/5/35](https://quran.com/5/35?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
46. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 3578: ʿUthmān b. Ḥunayf, the blind man taught to pray "O God, I turn to You through Your Prophet Muhammad". [sunnah.com/tirmidhi:3578](https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:3578?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Al-Tirmidhī: ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ gharīb; Darussalam: ṣaḥīḥ.
47. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1010: Anas, ʿUmar asks for rain through the Prophet's uncle al-ʿAbbās. [sunnah.com/bukhari:1010](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1010?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
48. Jon Hoover, *Ibn Taymiyya*, Makers of the Muslim World (London: Oneworld, 2019): [oneworld-publications.com](https://oneworld-publications.com/work/ibn-taymiyya/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
49. George Makdisi, "Ibn Taimīya: A Ṣūfī of the Qādiriya Order", *American Journal of Arabic Studies* 1 (1973): 118–129; reprinted in *Religion, Law and Learning in Classical Islam* (Routledge): [taylorfrancis.com](https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9781003278832-8/ibn-taim%C4%ABya-%E1%B9%A3%C5%ABfi-q%C4%81diriya-order-george-makdisi?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
50. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Wahhabi" (rejects "acts they view as polytheistic, such as visiting tombs and venerating saints"): [britannica.com/topic/Wahhabi](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Wahhabi?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
51. "Al-Muhannad ʿala al-Mufannad", Wikipedia (Khalīl Aḥmad Sahāranpūrī, 1907: the Deobandi answers to 26 questions, affirming the Naqshbandī, Chishtī, Qādirī and Suhrawardī paths, tawassul and visiting the Prophet's grave; accessed 29 September 2026): [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Muhannad%5Fala%5Fal-Mufannad?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
52. International Criminal Court, "ICC Trial Chamber VIII declares Mr Al Mahdi guilty of the war crime of attacking historic and religious buildings in Timbuktu and sentences him to nine years' imprisonment", 27 September 2016: [icc-cpi.int](https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/icc-trial-chamber-viii-declares-mr-al-mahdi-guilty-war-crime-attacking-historic-and-religious?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
53. "At least 70 dead as bomb rips through Lal Shahbaz shrine in Sehwan, Sindh", *Dawn*, 16 February 2017: [dawn.com](https://www.dawn.com/news/1315136?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
54. Gerhard Böwering, "ʿErfān (1)", *Encyclopaedia Iranica* (1998, updated 2013): [iranicaonline.org](https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/erfan-1/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
55. "Harlah ke-66 JATMAN, berikut sejarah dan alasan penamaannya", NU Online Jatim, 10 October 2023 (JATMAN founded 10 October 1957 at Tegalrejo, Magelang; recognised as an autonomous NU body in 1979): [jatim.nu.or.id](https://jatim.nu.or.id/metropolis/harlah-ke-66-jatman-berikut-sejarah-dan-alasan-penamaannya-AJx6s?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
56. Abu Bakr Sirajuddin Cook, "Tasawwuf ʿUsturaliya: Prolegomena to a History of Sufism in Australia", *Australian Journal of Islamic Studies* 3.3 (2018, published 2019): [ajis.com.au](https://ajis.com.au/index.php/ajis/article/view/119?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
57. Milad Milani and Adam Possamai, "Sufism, spirituality and consumerism: the case study of the Nimatullahiya and Naqshbandiya Sufi orders in Australia", *Contemporary Islam* 10.1 (2016): 67–85: [link.springer.com](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11562-015-0335-1?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
58. Milad Milani and Adam Possamai, "The Nimatullahiya and Naqshbandiya Sufi Orders on the Internet: The Cyber-construction of Tradition and the McDonaldisation of Spirituality", *Journal for the Academic Study of Religion*: [journal.equinoxpub.com](https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JASR/article/view/2264?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
59. "Timeline of the deadliest terrorist attacks in Pakistan since APS", Dawn, 24 June 2017 (Sehwan, 16 February 2017: 88 killed, 250 injured; claimed by the Islamic State group): [dawn.com](https://www.dawn.com/news/1341528?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com); see also "Lal Shahbaz Qalandar bombing: Death toll rises to 88", Dawn, 18 February 2017: [dawn.com](https://www.dawn.com/news/1315547?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
60. "2016 international conference on Sunni Islam in Grozny", Wikipedia (text of the final statement's definition of Ahl al-Sunna; Saudi and al-Azhar reactions; accessed 1 October 2026): [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016%5Finternational%5Fconference%5Fon%5FSunni%5FIslam%5Fin%5FGrozny?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
61. Mairbek Vatchagaev, "Chechnya Hosts International Islamic Conference", Jamestown Foundation, 22 September 2016 (conference of 25–27 August 2016; attendance of Aḥmad al-Ṭayyib; the final statement): [jamestown.org](https://jamestown.org/program/chechnya-hosts-international-islamic-conference/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
62. "Al-Suyuti", Wikipedia (1445–1505; Shāfiʿī; "a Sufi of the Shadhili order"; his defence of the Sufis; accessed 1 October 2026): [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Suyuti?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
63. "Bidʿah", Wikipedia (al-Shāṭibī's definition in *al-Iʿtiṣām*; al-Shāfiʿī's good and bad innovation; ʿIzz al-Dīn b. ʿAbd al-Salām's five categories; accessed 1 October 2026): [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bid%27ah?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
64. IslamQA, "Ruling on Sufi tariqahs in Islam", answer 132603 (a Salafi statement of the case against the orders): [islamqa.info](https://islamqa.info/en/answers/132603?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
65. IslamQA, "Moving and swaying whilst remembering Allah (performing dhikr) is an innovation (bid‘ah)", answer 197384, quoting the Saudi Standing Committee for Academic Research and Ifta: [islamqa.info](https://islamqa.info/en/answers/197384?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
66. IslamQA, "What Is Sufism?", answer 47431 (quoting Ibn Taymiyya on agreeing with Sufis where they follow the Qur'an and Sunna): [islamqa.info](https://islamqa.info/en/answers/47431?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
67. IslamQA, "The hadith about the blind man that is quoted as evidence by those who seek to draw closer to Allah (tawassul) by virtue of the dead", answer 97600 (the Salafi reading: tawassul through the Prophet's duʿāʾ in his lifetime): [islamqa.info](https://islamqa.info/en/answers/97600?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
68. Dar al-Ifta al-Missriyyah (Egypt), "Supplication through the Prophet Muhammad (al-tawassul)" (tawassul lawful in his life and after his death; rejects Ibn Taymiyya's view): [dar-alifta.org](https://www.dar-alifta.org/en/article/details/163/supplication-through-the-prophet-muhammad-al-tawassul?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
69. "‘Paigham-e-Pakistan’: book by 1,800 Ulema denounces terror", Arab News, 16 January 2018: [arabnews.com](https://www.arabnews.com/node/1287281/lifestyle?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
70. Rainer Brunner, "Majlesi, Moḥammad-Bāqer", Encyclopaedia Iranica (online, 2011) ("Majlesi fought against both Sunnite Islam and Sufism"; his father's reputed Sufi leanings): [iranicaonline.org](https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/majlesi-mohammad-baqer/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
71. Oliver Scharbrodt, "Anti-Sufism in Early Qajar Iran: Āqā Muḥammad ʿAlī Bihbahānī (1732–1801) and His *Risāla-yi khayrātiyya*", in *Sufis and Their Opponents in the Persianate World* (Irvine: Jordan Center for Persian Studies, 2020): 327–363: [research.birmingham.ac.uk](https://research.birmingham.ac.uk/en/publications/anti-sufism-in-early-qajar-iran-%C4%81q%C4%81-mu%E1%B8%A5ammad-al%C4%AB-bihbah%C4%81n%C4%AB-173218/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
72. Alexander D. Knysh, *Ibn ʿArabi in the Later Islamic Tradition: The Making of a Polemical Image in Medieval Islam* (Albany: SUNY Press, 1999), ch. 6 on al-Taftāzānī's refutation: [sunypress.edu](https://sunypress.edu/Books/I/Ibn-al-Arabi-in-the-Later-Islamic-Tradition?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
73. "Tanbih al-Ghabi bi-Tabriʾat Ibn ʿArabi", Wikipedia (al-Suyūṭī's reply to al-Biqāʿī; Ibrāhīm al-Ḥalabī's counter-reply; accessed 1 October 2026): [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanbih%5Fal-Ghabi%5Fbi-Tabri%27at%5FIbn%5F%27Arabi?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
74. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 867a: Jābir, the Friday sermon, "every innovation is misguidance". [sunnah.com/muslim:867a](https://sunnah.com/muslim:867a?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
75. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2697 and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1718a: ʿĀʾisha, "whoever introduces into this affair of ours what is not of it, it is rejected". [sunnah.com/bukhari:2697](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:2697?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com); [sunnah.com/muslim:1718a](https://sunnah.com/muslim:1718a?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In both Ṣaḥīḥs.
76. IslamQA (Arabic), answer 300961, on al-Shāfiʿī's division of new matters into praised and blameworthy, quoting al-Bayhaqī, *Manāqib al-Shāfiʿī* 1/469, with the Salafi reading of it as linguistic: [islamqa.info](https://islamqa.info/ar/answers/300961?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)
77. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2010: ʿUmar on the congregational tarāwīḥ, "what an excellent innovation this is". [sunnah.com/bukhari:2010](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:2010?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
78. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5590: Abū ʿĀmir or Abū Mālik al-Ashʿarī, people of his community "who will consider illegal sexual intercourse, the wearing of silk, the drinking of alcoholic drinks and the use of musical instruments, as lawful"; given by al-Bukhārī from Hishām b. ʿAmmār without his own connected chain (*muʿallaq*). [sunnah.com/bukhari:5590](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:5590?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com).
79. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 952: ʿĀʾisha, the two girls singing on the day of ʿĪd, Abū Bakr's objection and the Prophet's reply. [sunnah.com/bukhari:952](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:952?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
80. IslamQA, answer 5000, on music and singing, quoting Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim on al-Bukhārī 5590 (a Salafi statement of the case): [islamqa.info](https://islamqa.info/en/answers/5000/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com).
81. al-Ghazālī, *Al-Ghazali on Proper Conduct when Listening to Music and the Experience of Ecstasy*, Book 18 of the *Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn*, tr. Anthony H. Johns (Islamic Texts Society): [fonsvitae.com](https://fonsvitae.com/product/al-ghazali-music-and-ecstasy-book18/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com).
82. Dar al-Ifta al-Missriyyah, "Musical instruments in Islam", 22 December 2013 (inclines to permissibility; cites al-Ghazālī, Ibn Ḥazm and al-ʿIzz b. ʿAbd al-Salām): [dar-alifta.org](https://dar-alifta.org/en/fatwa/details/6870/musical-instruments-in-islam?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com).

Related reading

- [The Qur'an: What It Is, How It Came Down, and How It Was Kept](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/the-quran/): revelation, compilation and preservation of the text
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- [The People Around Muhammad ﷺ: Companions, Wives and Family](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/companions/): short sourced profiles of those closest to him
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