Qadiriya
Qadiriya refers to a Sufi tariqa (mystic way or order) named after ʿAbd al-Qadir ibn Abi Salih Jangidost al-Jilani (1077–1166), born in the province of Jilan in Persia, a stronghold of Hanbalism (the Sunni school of law attributed to Ahmad ibn Hanbal [d. 855] and known for its conservative orientation) in the eleventh century. At first ʿAbd al-Qadir's education in Baghdad, where he arrived in 1095, was fairly conventional; he was trained to be a lawyer (faqih) in the Hanbali school and appears to have showed no inclination for mysticism. ʿAbd al-Qadir then received training from the Sufi master Abu 'lKhayr Hammad al-Dabbas (d. 1131), as a consequence of which he adopted an austere lifestyle, practiced night vigils, and is said to have wandered off in the deserts of Iraq without provisions.
Yet in his lifetime ʿAbd al-Qadir achieved renown not as a Sufi master but rather as a gifted Hanbali preacher. Although he became the principal of a Hanbali madrasah (religious school) and its attached ribat (Sufi hospice) in Baghdad around 1133, he seems not to have developed a Sufi following, as no Sufi appears to have claimed to be ʿAbd al-Qadir's follower.
After his death, however, in 1166, his khirqa (the mystic's patched cloak) was, according to one biographer, bestowed on someone, which signified the official transfer of his authority. The Qadiriya order then began to spread, due to the efforts of two of his sons, ʿAbd al-Razzaq (d. 1206) and Abd al-ʿAziz (d. 1205), who promoted their father's tariqa or way. Little evidence, however, suggests that ʿAbd al-Qadir himself had bequeathed a complete system of Sufi thought and practice or that the Qadiri tariqa had become widespread before the fifteenth century. In Baghdad, ʿAbd al-Qadir's mausoleum became the site of a local Qadiri order; there were other Qadiri centers in Iraq and Syria by the beginning of the fourteenth century.
Through time, a system of beliefs and practices identifiable as that of the Qadiriya emerged; the first Qadiri zawiya (conventicle) in Damascus was established in the early fifteenth century. ʿAbd al-Qadir's fame as a mystic grew in this period, although the tariqa itself never became as popular the Naqshbandiyya and the Suhrawardiyya Sufi orders in general. The spread of the Qadiriya was limited in India, Egypt, and the Hejaz (western Saudi Arabia). In the first half of the seventeenth century, the Qadiri order was introduced into Istanbul by Ismaʿil Rumi (d. 1631 or 1643), who founded a khanaqah (Sufi center) there and established over forty Sufi lodges (tekkes). In North Africa, the form of Qadiriya known as Jilaliyya is centered on cultic reverence for the tariqa's founder.
Further Reading
Knysh, Alexander D. (2000) Islamic Mysticism: A Short History. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.
Margoliouth, D. S. (1960–) "Kadiriyya." The Encyclopaedia of Islam, edited by H. A. R. Gibb et al. New ed. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 4:380–383.
Trimingham, J. Spencer. (1971) The Sufi Orders in Islam. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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