Hodus equals Tariqa?

While reading the book The Prayer of Saint Francis, at the end of a section entitled "How the Prayer of Saint Francis Came About" there was this sentence:
This is a love that consumes mystics like ... or the Sufi Rumi. This sentence in a book by the Catholic and Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff. I had heard of Sufi Rumi recently but knew less than nothing about the person. So where does one look in the 21st century, especially if holding a computer, but Wikipedia? Suprisingly nothing listed under that name. Next destination Google. A string of several references popped up. One was an article in Belief Net, a site I had used before and trusted, so I clicked on one that seemed appropriate. The article was a series of questions and answers entitled "The Sufi-Rumi Connection".  One comment that I found interesting was this:
But we should understand that in every religious tradition, there are different levels. One level is the common practice of religion that they are typically born into. Within a religious tradition, there is also "the path or "the way." The word for this in Islam is "tariqa." Tariqa is a conscious choice that a person makes to go beyond belief to "experience." It is different than nominally belonging to a religion. In Islam, there are many tariqas. Someone who walks the path of tariqa is a Sufi."
(Read more at http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Islam/2001/05/The-Sufi-Rumi-Connection.aspx?p=2#EdbM0FqzSP6XQfP2.99) 

Given the title of this blog I felt that this information should be noted here. One can make of it as one pleases; but it seems that in many cases, especially the monotheistic religions, that there is often a distinction without much of a difference.