Anwar-e Ma`rifat

The formation and advent of Sufi orders and chains within the realm of Islamic Sufism poses the question how the spirit of Islamic Sufism, which is personal asceticism and inner mystical journey, is compatible with the reality of Sufi orders and chains which are social phenomena. This apparent incompatibility has made some researchers to attribute the social formation and advent of Sufi orders to such factors as Sufis' relationships with spiritualist groups of other religions, schools and sects, which are external and strange to the capacities of Islamic mysticism and Sufism. However, the review of historical evidence indicate that the most important reason for the formation and advent of Sufi orders and chains is the features which lie in the educational dimension of Sufism, especially its most important teaching, i.e. devotional relationship between devotee and the desired. In fact, the requirements and features lied in the nature of this dimension, in its evolutionary path, turned the Sufism, which was a personal affair centered on asceticism, into a social and collective phenomenon which had many manners and disciplines. Over the time, these early groups and sects, under the influence of some other important factors such as popular inclination towards Sufism and devising the manners and disciplines of Sufi monastery, turn into the present Sufi orders and chains.