Can you learn Tasawwuf from the internet or YouTube?

The discipline of Tasawwuf is realised by being committed to someone who has been through the process and holds the criteria of a true guide. Acquiring the true state, the hal, requires a connection, tálluq, with a living teacher over a prolonged period of time; a sitting cannot achieve it.

These are challenging times, as there are many who have not done the traditional studies of the religion but, merely by gathering information, claim to be scholars and misguide others. Our computers have all sorts of information, but does that imply that we should take the computer as our guide?

For example, someone would not perform heart surgery upon himself or anyone else just by gathering information from a YouTube video. One would obviously seek specialist advice from a medical specialist and get treated.

It is, however, quite frightening that people trust their own judgement or gather information over the internet for the matters relating to Iman. It is the matter of one's Iman, therefore one should be very careful, as the information gathered from such sources can be incorrect and unreliable, and thus misguiding.

As the Prophet ﷺ said, "Truly, Allah does not remove Sacred Knowledge by taking it away from people, but rather by taking back the souls of Islamic scholars (death), until, when He has not left a single scholar, the people take the ignorant as leaders, who are asked for and give Islamic legal opinion without knowledge, misguided and misguiding" [Sahih al-Bukhari 100].