Baghdad, thus leaving the world of Islam bereft of its greatest centre of
learning. The scholars and mystics, who had to flee for their lives, spread
out across various regions to less prominent capitals in order to establish
new centres of patronage and learning.
The Establishment of the Main Sufi orders
By the 12
th
century, Sufism had become a popular movement with broad
grass roots support. The aspirants to the Sufi way became quite numerous
and developed the tendency to attach themselves to a particular master, staying
in his
khanqah
and interacting in the communal life there.The most popular
orders were based in the Persian provinces of Khurasan and Transoxiana.
Many important founders of the orders in Baghdad were Persians who had
been influenced by the Baghdadi schools of mysticism, while at the same
time developing new frameworks of their own.
The two great orders that were founded in Baghdad in the period spanning
the 12
th
and 13
th
centuries were the Qadriya and the Suhrawardiya. The
Naqshbandiya order was set up in Transoxiana, while the Chishti order,
which went on to become the most influential Sufi order in India, is associated
with the area around Herat in today’s Afghanistan. The Kubrawiya order
came into existence in Khwarizm and metamorphosed into the Indian
Firdausiya and Hamadaniya, with many more offshoots known under
different names all over the Islamic world.
The spiritual founder of the Qadriya order was Shaikh ‘Abdul Qadir
Jilani (1077-1166), who was born in the village of Jilan, south of the Caspian
Sea. Before coming to Baghdad, he spent 25 years of his life as a wandering
dervish. Once in the capital of the Abbasids, he became a very successful
theologian. He divided his life between that of a theologian and a
madrasa
