Murid
The disciple: literally 'the one who wills', one who has committed to the path with a guide.
Murid is the active participle of arada, to will: the murid is ‘the one who wills’, the one who has decided to journey. The term underlines that the undertaking springs from the disciple’s desire, never from constraint: one is not born a Sufi, one becomes one through a will that is answered.
The murid is not a pupil buying a course. He has committed through the pact to a murshid, and that relation engages his whole conduct: sincerity of intention, fidelity to the prescribed practices, trust in the guide through trials. The manuals of the path, such as Suhrawardi’s ʿAwarif, detail the reciprocal rights of disciple and master.
In the vocabulary of the path, the disciples are also called fuqara’, ‘the poor’, or affectionately habba’iba, ‘the little beloved ones’. On what this commitment concretely changes, read the state of the disciple and the guide’s gift, the disciple’s receptivity.