A tariqa is a path and an order: a shaykh, a chain of transmission called a silsila claimed back to the Prophet, an oath of allegiance from the disciple, and a set of prescribed litanies. They are not a marginal phenomenon. The Naqshbandi order runs from Turkey through Central Asia to China and India; the Qadiri is the most widespread globally; the Tijaniyya dominates much of West Africa; the Chishti shaped South Asian devotion and its music; the Mouride order in Senegal organised the peanut economy, founded a city, and functions as a political bloc. Turkey abolished all orders by law in 1925 and closed the lodges; they continued underground and are now a major factor in Turkish political life. Salafi and modernist movements have criticised the orders sharply — for the veneration of shaykhs, for hereditary succession, for practices at tombs — and in some countries this has become violent. Against that, the orders are how Islam spread through much of Africa, South and Southeast Asia in the first place: traders and shaykhs, not armies.