THE tariqa is a means to raise the veil between the slave and Allah. Put simply, its precondition is the validity of one’s Islamic faith and practice; its method is knowledge (‘ilm), practice (‘amal), and resultant spiritual state (hal); its three pillars are tawba or ‘repentance,’ zuhd or ‘nonattachment to other than Allah,’ and tahqiq al-‘ubudiyya or ‘realizing one’s slavehood’ by continuous worship, inwardly and outwardly. One but takes a tariqa and a sheikh to make sure that these things happen. A tariqa’s spiritual authority is the unbroken series of teachers from the Prophet himself (Allah bless him and give him peace).