Salam I know this group very well. Akram Awan is there Peer, and the current head-leader of this group is his son Abdul Qadeer Awan. They use to have different leaders for different countries. And in the country i live in, my grandfather is the leader of this group. They usually do not talk about the sunni-deo conflicts, and they take fatwas from both sunni and deobandi Aulama. But actually, they are deobandi. The peer of Akram Awan is Allah Yaar Khan, who even wrote a book named "Aqaid o KAMAALAAT e aulama e deoband". But remember that not everybody in this group know about who they actually are. So we can not say that every member of this group is deobandi. May Allah protect our sunni brothers and sisters from this group, Amin
The four necessary conditions that must be present in order to consider someone a Shaykh of Tariqat are: He should not be a Fasiq-e-Mul’in, He should be an ‘Alim or at least have the ability to obtain rulings of Masa’il from the books of Fiqh and ‘Aqa’id, He should be a Sunni Sahih-ul-‘Aqidah, He should have an unbroken Silsila of Ijazat and Khilafat that reaches رسول اللّٰہ ﷺ.
1. I don't know about them, but Owaisiyyah, as in receiving tarbiyah from the souls of the mashayikh, is a known thing in tasawwuf, and especially in the Naqshbandi sanad. However, most books i have read of the Naqshbandiyyah also present a sanad that is not Owaisi, to show that each person in the sanad also received tarbiyah from a living shaykh. In this age of fitna, claims to Owaisiyyah are too easy and can be problematic, and one should be extremely cautious. 2. Any Sunni book of tasawwuf that deals with turuq will mention those. I don't know of any books in English, and i don't know Urdu. Maybe you can find something on the forum. If you have access to Arabic, the most complete books i know of are those of Imam al-Sha'rani. 3. The criterion is Shari'ah and if people of real Tariqa recognize them. If you do not know enough of the Shari'ah, as in you have not completed at least a complete book of fiqh, then the best thing is to consult with 'ulama who know about this tariqa and who have tariqa themselves.
1. Has anyone heard of these guys? They're quite prominent in Pakistan- followers of Akram Awan (and now his son). What is distinct about them is that their sanad has a huge gap in it- they are people who claim that they receive tarbiyyah from the souls of awliyah. https://www.awaisiah.com/silsila-e-awaisiah/history 2. From what I know (which isn't a lot), these guys don't get into the deo/barelwi dispute. Unfortunately, however, some of my sunni family members seem to be a part of this tariqa. As in, my family members would have no clue what a barelwi or deobandi is, they do khatms etc because that's what our family has always done, etc- but they've joined this tariqa (many years ago) because they liked the shaykh and whatnot. Does anyone have any references as to the conditions a shaykh of tasawwuf needs to fulfil, preferably something pre-sunni/deo so I can avoid tangential arguments? Especially with respect to the need for a complete sanad. 3. No doubt there are rational arguments against this tariqa as well. For example, anyone can claim kashf and therefore say they have become a khalifa of the tariqa etc. But something more concrete than this will be needed to counter the cult mentality I am potentially facing. 4. Apparently, even the deo's have passed some kind of a fatwa against this group due to the lack of sanad. Maybe we have something similar available?