oa From Father to Son, from Master to Disciple: Terms and Stakes of Knowledge Transmission in Islam

The article explores the parallel between the process of transmission in the context of Sufism and in the context of guilds. The concern of the artisan to inscribe his gestures in a hereditary chain or in a “guild family” has its parallel in the spiritual fraternity of the takya, and the initiation of the novice on the Path towards God. For within the takya are formed the bonds of a celestial brotherhood. Even though most guilds have more or less disappeared since the 12th century, this mode of organizing a society which was perpetuated during ten centuries has profoundly marked the city and explains even to this day the modes of transmission of a profession.