holow frams

In 1258, the Mongol armies destroyed Baghdad, killed the Calif and his family, and burned the great educational institutions and mosques. The “old order” in Islam was dead, and new movements and forms of Islam took its place. Prominent among these were the Sufi Orders. Noted Sufis wrote a Rule by which their disciples should live. Each Sufi Order (tariqa) was distinguished by particular dress, and each had its own system of initiation and novitiate, its own lodges or convents, and was characterized by distinctive forms of prayer and patterns of spiritual exercises. Between the 14th and 18th centuries, most Muslims were inscribed in one or more Sufi Orders. Some were made up of mainly intellectuals and scholars, others drew from one or another craft guild, from soldiers, the urban poor, or peasant farmers. Many of the Sufis were missionary-minded and accompanied traders on their business trips to Asia. As the merchants conducted business, the Sufis preached Islam to the masses, and it was primarily through their activity that, in the 14-15th centuries, the mass conversions to Islam came about in South and Southeast Asia.