Tariqa
Literally 'the way': a spiritual path of Islam, transmitted from master to disciple, which leads to the knowledge of God.
Tariqa means in Arabic the way, the road, then the method. In Sufi vocabulary the word denotes both the manner of journeying towards God and the community that transmits it: a brotherhood with its founder, its chain of masters, its own practices.
Tradition classically distinguishes three complementary levels of religion: the shari’a, the Law that orders the acts; the tariqa, the path that purifies the heart; and the haqiqa, the inner truth to which the path leads. Al-Jurjani devotes an entry of his Book of Definitions (early 15th century) to this triad. A tariqa without shari’a is an imposture: the masters have repeated it since al-Junayd.
Dozens of paths have existed; the most widespread today bear their founder’s name: Qadiriyya (’Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani), Naqshbandiyya, Mawlawiyya (Rumi’s whirling dervishes), Tijaniyya, Shadhiliyya. The Tariqa Qadiriya Boutchichiya is a Moroccan branch of the Qadiriyya, born in the 18th century in the Beni Snassen. To understand how one enters a path, see finding a Sufi master in France.