Meaning
A tariqa is a school of Sufism (Tasawwuf). Just as a madh'hab is a school of the discipline of fiqh, a tariqa is a school of the discipline of Tasawwuf. A tariqa has a murshid (guide) who plays the role of leader or spiritual director of the organization. A tariqa is a group of murīdīn (singular murīd), Arabic for desirous, desiring the knowledge of knowing God and loving God (also called a faqīr Arabic: فقير, another Arabic word that means poor or needy, usually used as al-Faqīr ilá l-Lāh, "the needy to God's knowledge (الفقير إلى الله)).
The most popular tariqa in the West is the Mevlevi Order, named after Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī. The four main tariqas in South Asia are: the Naqshbandi Order, named after Baha-ud-Din Naqshband Bukhari; the Qadiri Order, named after `Abd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī; the Chishti Order, named after Khawaja Mawdood Chisti while Khawaja Moinuddin Chishti is the most famous sheikh; the Suhrawardi Order, named after Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi. Others can be offshoots of a tariqa. For example, the Qalandariyya and Wafa'i orders are offshoots of the Suhrawardi order.
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