Silsila
A Sufi path's chain of transmission: the unbroken list of masters linking the present guide to the Prophet.
Silsila means ‘chain’. In a Sufi path the word denotes the succession of masters who have handed down the teaching and the sirr, from the present guide back to the eponymous founder, then to the great figures of early Sufism, and finally to the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him).
The chain is not an honorific genealogy. It attests that the teaching was received from someone who himself held it from another, by explicit authorisation: it is the first criterion of a path’s authenticity, just as the chain of transmission (isnad) authenticates a hadith. A tariqa without a silsila going back to the sources is not a tariqa.
In the initiatic chain of the Qadiriya Boutchichiya, transmission runs through ’Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani in Baghdad, then through the masters of the Algerian-Moroccan line down to Sidi Ali, Sidi Hamza’s grandfather. The path’s chain cumulates three filiations: Qadiri, Tijani and Shadhili.