The core and contours of a Sufi brotherhood -- Local beginnings in the oases of inner Asia (thirteenth to sixteenth centuries) -- Consolidation and expansion -- Shariʻa and renewal in the great empires (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries) -- Inner rivalries and cooperation -- Scholarship and organization into the modern world (nineteenth century to the present) -- The persistence of older traditions -- Modern transformations on the path (seventeenth to twentieth centuries) -- The contemporary situation
