Muqaddem
The guide's representative with a group of disciples: he leads the local session and transmits the pact in the shaykh's name.
Muqaddam literally means ‘the one placed in front’. In a tariqa’s organisation, the muqaddem (feminine muqaddima) is the shaykh’s representative for a given group, town or region: since the guide cannot be everywhere, he delegates part of his function to mature disciples.
The delegation has precise limits. The muqaddem has received a personal authorisation from the guide: he leads the dhikr sessions, sees that gatherings run properly, follows the disciples of his group, and can transmit the pact in the shaykh’s name. He is not himself the guide: his function is a charge, not a state. That is the very principle of the idhn, the authorisation that distinguishes the mandated representative from the improvised one.
In France, the sessions of the Qadiriya Boutchichiya path are led in each town by a muqaddem or a muqaddima: the first person a newcomer to the path will speak to. See the town pages and the calendar.