The real murshid and guide of a Muslim is the Quran and the Messenger of Allah (pbuh). If a Muslim accepts those two holy beings as a guide for himself, he will find the true path and follow a right direction. The guide of a person who does not accept them as a guide is no one but Satan, because there are representatives of both the good and the evil in the universe. There is not a third way. The guide of a person is either our Prophet, who is the representative the good and good people, or Satan, who is the representative of the evil, and his volunteer assistants.   

However, primarily the companions of the Prophet, saints, and scholars of Islam are also guides that show people the true and right way. They obtain their knowledge and information from the Quran and the Prophet (pbuh). They became means for hundreds and thousands of people to find the guidance, served Islam and helped people reach happiness both in the world and in the hereafter.  

For instance, Imam Azam, Imam Shafii, Imam Ghazali, Abdulqadir Gaylani, Imam Rabbani, Shah Naqshiband, Mawlana and Badiuzzaman Said Nursi are some of those guides. If the lives of those holy personalities are studied, their greatness and their place in the history of Islam will be seen easily.   

Yes, a Muslim can read the words, books, prayers and glorification of those personalities, imitate their attitudes and thus enrich and illuminate their Islamic lives. Thus, those personalities become guides for people.

Only Satan and bad people are the guides of the people who regard those personalities as bad people, who do not imitate them although they are the inheritors of the Prophet and who do not recognize them. A Muslim loves them, reads their books and tries to benefit from them because they follow and obey the Quran and the Prophet.

A person does not necessarily have to enter a tariqah or a jama’ah or to pledge allegiance to a sheikh. It is not appropriate to say that a person who does not pledge allegiance to a sheikh or who does not become a member of a jama’ah cannot live Islam.

There are some people who introduce themselves as sheikhs but who are not really sheikhs. It is necessary to be careful against those people. Besides, those people who are not shown favor by the majority of Muslims turn out to show their real faces in time and are excluded by Muslims.

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Could you define ‘sheikh” and “murid” according to tasawwuf and can a Sheikh claim that on the day of judgement he will request Allah to forgive his murid?