What Is the Silsila? The Chain of Shaykhs Reaching the Prophet

The silsila is the chain of teachers through which a shaykh of a Sufi order reaches the Prophet by way of the shaykhs who came before him. The word means “chain” in Arabic. In the science of hadith, the listing of a report’s transmitters back to the Prophet is called the isnad; the Sufi silsila is built on the same idea: one asks from whom a shaykh received the method he teaches, and the chain must reach the source without a break. This article covers what the silsila is, through which Companions it was established, how the ijaza is given, its parallel with the science of hadith, and the limits of the silsila.

What the Silsila Is

The silsila is not a family tree but a record of transmission. Every link corresponds to a real teacher-student relationship: a disciple spent years with a shaykh, learned the method from him, received permission to teach, and passed the teaching on. The chain does not rest on descent; a son does not inherit his father’s station as shaykh by birth. The disciple receives the ijaza through a long training, through service, and through a change of character that those around him can also see.

In most silsilas the first links are shared. Hasan al-Basri (d. 110/728), the ascetic preacher of Basra, stands at the head of many chains and joins the generation of the Companions to those who came after. Junayd of Baghdad (d. 297/909) appears in the silsila of almost every major order; for this reason the Sufi manuals call him sayyid al-ta’ifa, the master of the community. The names in a silsila are not listed for ornament; each shows from whom to whom the method passed.

Why the Chain Matters

The silsila makes the claim to be a shaykh verifiable. From whom a shaykh received his ijaza is known and asked; the method taught by a person without ijaza is his own opinion. For this reason the Sufi manuals reject shaykhhood without ijaza.

The verse cited as the basis is this: “O you who believe, fear God and be with the truthful” (Surah at-Tawba 9:119). The Sufi manuals count this verse as the proof for sohbet and for keeping company with a shaykh; the verse commands not belief in the truthful but being with them. The silsila is the record of that companionship extended across the centuries.

Two Lines: Ali and Abu Bakr

The silsilas of the orders reach the Prophet through two Companions. All the orders except the Khwajagan-Naqshbandiyya trace their silsila to the Prophet through Ali: the Qadiriyya through Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (d. 561/1166), the Shadhiliyya, the Mevleviyya, the Khalwatiyya, the Chishtiyya and the Suhrawardiyya all belong to this line. Ali is remembered through the report “I am the city of knowledge and Ali is its gate”; the hadith scholars have disputed the chain of this report.

In the Naqshbandiyya there are two silsilas, one reaching Abu Bakr and one reaching Ali, and in this order the silsila of Abu Bakr later came to be regarded as the principal one. Naqshbandi sources relate that Abu Bakr received the hidden dhikr from the Prophet in the cave during the journey of the Hijra, and they ground the method of silent dhikr on this. Imam Rabbani (d. 1034/1624) describes the features of this silsila at length in his Maktubat. Both silsilas reach the Prophet, and the orders recognize one another’s chains.

How the Ijaza Is Given

A murid (literally “one who wills, who desires”) attaches himself to a shaykh and follows the method the shaykh sets out: dhikr, sohbet, service, muhasaba and, according to the order, khalwa. During this time the shaykh observes the disciple’s state and shows him the faults he cannot see in himself. When the shaykh judges the disciple ready, he gives him the ijaza, that is, permission to train others. The disciple who receives the ijaza is now a shaykh; his name is added to the silsila and the chain grows by one link. The ijaza is not a ceremony but a testimony that the method can be passed on without corruption.

The orders have also preserved their silsilas in writing. The Naqshbandi silsila is set out link by link in works such as the Rashahat Ayn al-Hayat of Ali ibn Husayn Safi (909/1503). The Qadiri silsila is counted from the living shaykh to Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani and from him to Ali. The Chelebi at the head of the Mevlevi order has generally been chosen from the descendants of Rumi through Sultan Walad.

The Parallel with the Science of Hadith

The hadith scholars set standards for evaluating transmitters: reliability (thiqa), soundness of memory, character, and the continuity of the chain. A report with a broken chain (munqati’) is counted weak; a report with reliable transmitters and an unbroken chain (muttasil) is counted sound. The same questions are put to the Sufi silsila: is the chain unbroken, was each shaykh recognized in his own time, did each link truly study under the one before, and has the shaykh shown this through the disciples he trained?

The early Sufi manuals apply this method deliberately. al-Qushayri (d. 465/1072), at the beginning of his Risala, relates the lives and sayings of more than eighty Sufis and gives the sayings with their chains; his aim is to show that Sufism is a transmitted science. al-Hujwiri (d. c. 465/1072) follows the same path in the Kashf al-Mahjub and grounds every view in a named Sufi. Abd al-Rahman Jami’s Nafahat al-Uns (883/1478) is one of the principal sources gathering the lives of the Sufis who appear in the silsilas.

The Shaykh and the Book

The Sufi manuals say that this science cannot be learned from books alone, because what is transmitted is not information but a training. The shaykh sees the fault the disciple cannot see in himself and gives each disciple a practice suited to his state. The saying attributed to Bayazid Bistami, “Whoever has no shaykh, his shaykh is Satan”, is read in this sense: the nafs that sets out to train itself cannot see its own fault. At the same time, joining an order is not obligatory; what is obligatory is the purification of the nafs (What Is a Tariqa?).

al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111) is the example most often cited here. While head teacher of the Nizamiyya in Baghdad he left his post in 488 (1095), and in al-Munqidh min al-dalal he relates from his own experience that book knowledge is not sufficient for the training of the nafs. This testimony carries weight in the Sufi manuals because it comes from a scholar of authority in the outward sciences.

The Limits of the Silsila

Respect for the names in the silsila is like the respect given to the transmitters of hadith; the teaching leads not to them but to God. The silsila does not guarantee that everyone in the chain was a saint; fabricated silsilas have also existed. For this reason the tradition looks, together with the silsila, at the shaykh’s knowledge, at his life’s conformity to the Sunna, and at the state of the disciples he has trained.

Some orders accept Uwaysi transmission: as Uways al-Qarani received spiritual benefit from the Prophet without ever meeting him, so a person may receive training in spirit from a shaykh no longer living. Uwaysi transmission is the exception; the principal way is face-to-face transmission.

The Living Chain Today

Every active order still preserves its silsila today and recites it in its gatherings of dhikr. In a Mevlevi sema, a Naqshbandi khatm, a Qadiri or Shadhili gathering of dhikr, the shaykh who leads the gathering is joined link by link to the Prophet; this continuity is regarded as what makes the gathering a transmission and not an invention. The silsilas of the major orders are preserved in written sources; in the Ottoman period the silsilas of Mevlevi and Khalwati shaykhs also appear in archival records. The states that Sufism calls ma’rifa and ihsan pass, according to the tradition, not from the book but through this chain, from teacher to student.

Sources

• Quran: Surah at-Tawba 9:119
• al-Qushayri, al-Risala al-Qushayriyya (438/1046)
• al-Hujwiri, Kashf al-Mahjub (d. c. 465/1072)
• al-Ghazali, al-Munqidh min al-dalal
• Abd al-Rahman Jami, Nafahat al-Uns (883/1478)
• Ali ibn Husayn Safi, Rashahat Ayn al-Hayat (909/1503)
• Necdet Tosun, “Silsile”, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 37, Istanbul 2009, pp. 206-207