A Hybrid Sufi Order at The Crossroads of Modernity The Sufi Order and Sufi Movement of Pir - o - Murshid Inayat Khan

A HYBRID SUFI ORDER
A T THE CROSSROADS OF M ODERNITY:
THE SUFI O RDER AND SUFI M OV EM EN T
OF PIR-O-M URSHID INAYAT KHAN
by
Zia Inayat-Khan
D epartm ent o f Religion

Duke University
. If J U [ vj ]e>
Approved:
Bruce B. Lawrence, Supervisor
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D issertation submitted in partial fulfillm ent o f

the requirem ents for the degree o f Doctor
o f Philosophy in the Departm ent o f
Religion in the Graduate School
o f Duke University
2006
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2006
ABSTRACT
A HYBRID SUFI O RDER
A T THE CROSSROADS OF M ODERNITY:
THE SUFI O RDER AND SUFI M OV EM EN T
OF PIR-O-M URSHID INAYAT KHAN
by
Zia Inayat-Khan
Departm ent o f Religion

Duke University
Bruce B. Lawrence, Supervisor
A n abstract o f a dissertation subm itted in partial

fulfillm ent o f the requirements for the degree
o f D octor o f Philosophy in the Departm ent o f
Religion in the Graduate School o f
Duke University
2006
ABSTRACT
Since the appearance of Edward W. Saids Orientalism, the cultural politics
o f colonialism has been a subject of intense debate among scholars. It has frequently
been argued that Saids critique of colonial representations of the Orient fails to
acknowledge the diversity of W estern interpretations, and specifically ignores the
possibility of an affirmative Orientalism. To test the merits of this response to
Said in the context of popular (rather than scholarly) culture, the present dissertation
exam ines two successive Occidental Sufi organizations founded by the Indian
philosopher-m usician Pir-o-M urshid Inayat Khan at the height of the colonial period:
the Sufi Order (London, 1918) and Sufi M ovement (Geneva, 1923).
In analyzing these organizations as products of the confluence of fin-de-
siecle occultism and Islamic modernism, this dissertation draws on the theory of
hybridity introduced by M ikhail Bakhtin. It identifies Occidental Sufism as a
conscious hybrid m ovement that sought to assimilate religious and national
differences within an innovative universalizing project that was indicative of larger
cultural trends in the interwar period.
The dissertation concludes that, though ostensibly motivated by an attem pt to
transcend the particularism of the W estern historical experience, the developm ent of
Occidental Sufism was largely dictated by the concerns of European and American
iv
late modernity. Nonetheless, the lens of Indo-Islamic Sufism lent a particular
perspective to the pursuance o f these concerns. Sufism provided a program of
m editative disciplines that addressed the neo-Rom antic imperative for interiorization
and a capacious prophetological vision that addressed the religious and political
goals of postw ar humanism.
These findings support the validity of affirmative O rientalism as a category
of historical analysis. At the same time, they underscore the determining effect of
the conscious and unconscious cultural precom mitments of affirm ative O rientalism s
exemplars.
CONTENTS
ACKNOW LEDGM ENTS
Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION.
Hybridity
Self-positioning
The Sufi Order and the Sufi M ovement
2. ORIENTALISM, M ODERN OCCULTISM, AND ISLAMIC

M O D ER N ISM ........................................................................................... 13
Orientalism
Spiritualism
Hermetic Theosophy
Oriental Theosophy
Occidentalism
M usical M odernism
3. THE GENESIS OF THE SUFI ORDER, 1910-1920...................... 63
India
America
England
4. FROM ORDER TO M OVEM ENT, 1920-1927............................... 118
Geneva
The Church of All
The M essage and the M essenger
The Sufi M ovement
The Esoteric Papers
Return to India
5. AFTER C H A R ISM A .................................................................................. 191
W e had to go on
Headquarters versus Heartquarters
vi
The New Age
6. INAYATIAN SUFISM IN C O N TEX T...................................................... 273
Theology
Prophetology
Psychology
7. CO NCLUSIO N ............................................................................................... 338
APPENDIX I ..........................................................................................................346
APPENDIX H .........................................................................................................351
BIBLIO G RAPH Y ..................................................................................................352
B IO G RA PH Y .........................................................................................................377
vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the writing of this dissertation, Dr. Bruce B. Law rences glowing guidance has
continually lit my path. I also wish to express my gratitude to the other inspirational
members of my committee: Dr. Katherine P. Ewing, Dr. Carl W. Ernst, and Dr. Omid
Safi. M any well-wishers offered crucial assistance along the way. Prof. D onald A.
Sharif Graham, Shaikh ul-M ashaikh M ahmood Khan, M urshid W ali Ali Meyer,
M urshida Carol W eyland Conner, Khwaja Rukn al-Din Farrukh Chishti, and M urshid
Saadi Shakur Chishti kindly supplied me with vital source material. Sh. M ahm ood Khan,
D onald A. Sharif Graham, Md. W ali Ali Meyer, Pir Shabda Kahn, and Hassan and
Karim a Gebel reviewed the m anuscript and provided numerous corrections and
suggestions. Special thanks are also due to Hafizullah Chishti, AbuT-Khayr, Zahir
Roehrs and Sarmad Tide. I owe a unique debt of gratitude to Richard M. Glantz for his
im mensely generous support. Finally, I would like to wholeheartedly thank my parents,
Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan (qaddasallah sirrahu) and Taj Inayat, and my wife, Sartaj
Begum. Alhamdulillahl
viii
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Hybridity
The Heart of the Em pire a popular epithet for London at the turn of the
twentieth century conjures up an image of the British capital as a geopolitical
vascular pump, impelling and regulating the circulation of knowledge and power
through the arteries, veins, and capillaries of a global empire. This m etaphor is one
that manifestly informs and delimits Edward W. Saids influential critique of
Orientalism. Said cites Lord Cromer, the first British Viceroy of Egypt, who
envisions a seat of power in the West, and radiating out from it
toward the East a great embracing machine, sustaining the central
authority yet com manded by it. W hat the m achines branches feed
into it in the East human material, material wealth, knowledge, what
have you is processed by the machine, then transformed into more
pow er.1
The imagery used here is explicitly mechanistic. In contemporary cardiology,
however, the model of the mechanical pump is increasingly seen as an inadequate
description of the hearts actual function. The cause of blood flow, research now
shows, is not the action of the heart but the production of fluid in the tissues of the
2
body; the heart regulates the flow of blood by m odulating its resistance to the
pressure of inflowing blood.2 This new scientific description, by dint of sheer
contrast, serves to highlight the historical subjectivity of the late industrial m etaphor
of the Heart of the Em pire and the contingency of critiques, like that of Said, that in
effect perpetuate its assumptions. It suggests the need, in theorizing the colonial
experience, to move away from mechanistic and m onological models and toward
organic and dialogical ones.
A move toward dialogism is present in the work of Homi K. Bhabha, whose
psychoanalytic rereading of Said introduces the concept of ambivalence, which
designates the state o f oscillation between attraction and repulsion. Bhabha
characterizes Orientalist discourse as inwardly conflicted, fluctuating irresolutely
between its conscious canon of knowledge and its unconscious phantasm agoria of
desire. This provides a basis for Bhabha to draw on M ikhail B akhtins theory of
hybridity. Bakhtin defines a hybrid construction as an utterance that contains a

j
mixture of two semantic and axiological belief systems. In the colonial setting,
Bhabha locates hybridity in the unmasking of the ambivalence of im perialist
discourse in situations of ironic slippage of meaning: Hybridity is a problem atic of
colonial representation and individuation that reverses the effects of the colonialist
1 Edward W . Said, O rien ta lism (N ew York: V intage B ook s, 1979), 44.

2 Hermann L auboeck, The P h ysiology o f Circulation: A R eappraisal, in The D yn a m ic H ea rt a n d
C ircu lation , ed. Craig H oldrege (Fair Oaks, CA: A W S N A , 2 0 0 2 ), 53-76.
3 M ikhail Bakhtin, The D ia lo g ic Im agin ation , trans. Caryl Em erson and M ichael H olquist (Austin:
U niversity o f T exas Press, 1981), 304.
disavowal, so that other denied knowledges enter upon the dom inant discourse and
estrange the basis of its authority.4
In recent years the concept of hybridity, in a variety of readings, has become
a much-favored analytical device in the toolbox of anthropology and cultural studies.
M eanwhile, at another level of conversation, hybridity has becom e a popular
synonym for multiculturalism in public debates about the politics of cultural
difference. These debates have brought into focus a significant problem: the concept
of hybridity seems to take for granted the prior existence of mutually exclusive and
homogeneous collective identities.5 But as Pnina W erbner suggests, this problem
can be addressed by revisiting Bakhtin.6 The salient distinction for Bakhtin is not
between hybridity and a contrasting norm of purity, but rather between the
unconscious, organic hybridization that is intrinsic to the historical evolution of
language, and the conscious, intentional hybridization that constitutes a distinct
aesthetic strategy.7 W hen applied more generally to culture, this formulation
emphasizes the heterogeneity that underlies all forms of cultural production. In the
4 Hom i K. Bhabha, Signs Taken for W onders: Q uestions o f A m bivalence and Authority under a Tree
Outside D elhi, M ay 1 8 1 7 , C ritica l Inquiry 12 (Autumn 1985): 144-65.
5 See Katherine P. E w ing, B etw een Cinem a and Social Work: D iasporic Turkish W om en and the
(D is)pleasures o f Hybridity, forthcom ing.
6 See Pnina W erbner, T he D ialectics o f Cultural Hybridity, in D eb a tin g C u ltu ral H yb rid ity:
M u lticu ltu ral Id en tities a n d the P o litics o f A n ti-R acism , ed. Pnina W erbner and Tariq M od ood , i-viii
(London: Zed B o o k s, 1997).
7 Bakhtin, D ia lo g ic Im agin ation , 358.
4
context of religion, one m ight likewise speak of the unconscious syncretism of

o
self-defined pure traditions.
The im plications of B akhtins philosophy of dialogism in general, and his
theory of hybridization in particular, call for a thorough reappraisal of the political,
cultural, and religious dynamics of the colonial encounter. This reappraisal must
acknowledge the foundational im portance of Saids critique of Orientalism, but must
move decisively beyond the confines of its monological frame of reference. O f
particular interest within this larger project would be study of conscious-hybrid
traditions and institutions, i.q., groups for whom the dense imbrication of identities
that characterizes the modern period is negotiated via acts of intentional creative
fusion.
Self-positioning
It is toward this end that the present dissertation is aimed. Its subject is the
history of a diasporic and conscious-hybrid/syncretic South Asian Sufi lineage that
organized its activities in early twentieth-century Europe and the United States in the
form of two successive organizations known respectively as the Sufi Order in the
W est and the Sufi M ovement. The evolution of this traditions self-articulation as it
slides from a transplanted Indo-Islamic esotericism (Sufi Order) to a globalized
8 This w ould address problem s outlined in Charles Stewart and R osalind Shaw , ed., S yn cretism /A n ti-
S yncretism : The P o litic s o f R elig io u s S yn th esis (London and N e w York: R outledge, 1994), 1-26.
universalist messianism (Sufi M ovement) is rife with traces of the desires, fluid
boundaries, border-crossings, appropriations, and inventions that cumulatively
describe a crucial but often neglected dimension of the profound and elusive cultural
shift that constitutes modernity. At the height of the colonial period, the rise of
W estern Sufism epitomizes the consolidation of a new mentalite that defies the
explanatory power of linear models of secularization.
M ost historians of religion stand as outsiders in relation to the traditions,
communities, and institutions it is their business to analyze. This positioning has the
benefit of providing a context of ostensible detachment. In cases where research
interests do coincide with private commitments of faith, historians of religion
generally refrain from identifying their personal convictions. Nonbelievers and
private believers agree in acknowledging atheistic hum anism as the lingua franca
of scholarship. The history of religions is not exceptional in this regard; even in
anthropology where critical self-reflection has received much greater attention to
profess belief remains a m ajor taboo.9
U nder ordinary circumstances there would seem to be little harm done in
concealing ones personal convictions in deference to the scholarly ideal of
objectivity. Consider, however, the more problematic case of a scholar who is not
only a private believer and practitioner in the religious tradition [s]he analyzes, but is
9 See Katherine P. E w ing, Dream s from a Saint: A nthropological A theism and the Tem ptation to
B e lie v e , A m erican A n th ro p o lo g ist 96: 5 7 1-83.
also a practicing authority figure within it. In such a situation, to fail to disclose
ones dual allegiances would arguably am ount to intellectual dishonesty. Disclosure,
however, is not a simple matter. A confession of epistemological am bivalence
might well be taken as an admission of non-objectivity or worse, advocacy or even
propaganda.
I do not present this problem merely as an exercise in abstract speculation:
the problem is a precise description of my own situation. The religious tradition
which I exam ine in this dissertation is one in which I currently function as an
authorized and active spiritual leader. The historical figure at the center of my
research and analysis, Pir-o-M urshid Inayat Khan, is my paternal grandfather.
In 1981, at the age of ten, I was nominated by my father Pir Vilayat Inayat-
Khan as his successor as Pir-o-M urshid of the Sufi Order in the W est. This
succession was ceremonially reconfirmed in New Delhi in 2000, and when my father
died in Paris in 2004, as anticipated I acceded to his office. Since then I have
attended to the customary responsibilities of the office, which include a variety of
ritual, pedagogical, and organizational activities.
How, then, can I plausibly attempt to write objectively about the Sufi Order
and Sufi M ovem ent? To begin to answer this question, it might be helpful to apply
the theoretical perspectives already outlined. M y double consciousness as spiritual
leader and academic researcher can be described as a hybrid condition, in the
Bakhtinian sense of a mixture of two belief systems. Each half of this equation, in
turn, displays a largely unconscious heterogeneous composition. By unpacking
each, it may be possible to discern correspondences that bridge the gap of absolute
difference.
Let us first consider the cultural and intellectual heritage of the Sufi Order. It
has already been noted that the Sufi Order arose in a cosmopolitan W estern milieu in
the early twentieth century and reflects a synthesis of traditional Islam icate and
modern W estern motifs. This fusion found space within a broader occult movement
fascinated by the prospect of deepened self-awareness but driven by concerns
stemming from the triumph of rationalism. Hence the mysticism of the Sufi Order is
to a significant degree framed by the concerns of post-Enlightenm ent secularism.
This is evident in a num ber o f the features of Inayat K hans teaching, including: its
approach to theology in terms of the psychology of idealization (i.e., b e lie f as an
incremental movem ent through a series of God-ideals); its identification of
spiritual attainm ent with unlearning, a process involving the progressive
suspension of judgm ent (also termed viparlt karna: going against the grain); and
its move to relativize the truth claims of all religious traditions (including Islam).
If b e lie f functions as a fungible heuristic device in the didactic tradition of
the Sufi Order, objectivity is by no means a stable and uncontested concept in the
discipline of history. In its formative phase in the nineteenth century, the American
historical profession strove to emulate the rational em piricism of the positive
sciences. The truth could be assumed to exist concretely out there and the role
of historiography was simply to find it. But in the latter half of the twentieth
century, this post-Enlightenment view of objectivity was subjected to a barrage of
assaults. The attacks came from many sides: in the history of science, Thom as Kuhn
introduced the concept of hegemonic paradigms ; in literary theory, Stanley Fish
shifted the focus from authorial intention to the readers act of interpretation; in
philosophy, Richard Rorty advocated situation epistemology ; and in anthropology,
Clifford Geertz maintained a position of A nti-Anti-Relativism . 10 The current
situation in historiography m ight be described as a somewhat ambiguous one in
which objectivity has in theory been stripped of its epistemological promise, but in
practice remains indispensable as a basic elem ent of professionalism .11
Both Sufism and contemporary historiography contain warnings against
presum ptuous declarations of objectivity as well as irresponsible flights into
subjectivity. This is not to im ply that the two are more broadly isomorphic. It is
clear to me that Sufism makes a set of specific demands that can never be equated
with scholarship, and vice versa. Yet neither are Sufism and scholarship mutually
exclusive. As Thomas L. Haskell argues in his book of the same title, objectivity is
not neutrality. It is fully possible to be passionately com mitted to a distinct moral
vision, and yet to sustain that m inim um respect for self-overcoming, for
10 Peter N o v ick deftly surveys these developm ents in That N o b le D ream : The 'O b jectivity Q u e stio n
a n d the A m erica n H isto ric a l P ro fessio n (Cambridge: Cambridge U niversity Press, 1996).
11 See Thom as L. H ask ells sym pathetic critique o f Peter N o v ick in O b jectivity is n o t N eu trality:
E xp la n a to ry S ch em es in H isto ry (Baltim ore: Johns H opkins U niversity Press, 2 0 0 0 ), 145-173.
detachment, honesty, and fairness, that makes intellectual com m unity. 12 The notion
of intellectual community seems to me particularly crucial. Objectivity is perhaps
best defined operatively as a responsible, open-ended engagement with the
cooperative enterprise of an intellectual community. As a historian of religions, I
ought to be and intend to be committed to this standard whether my object of
study is Sufism or UFOlogy. In any case, my work is sure to be scrutinized as
critically as any.
The Sufi Order and the Sufi M ovement
On or about Decem ber 1910, human character changed. That is how
Virgina W oolf laconically summed up the complex transformation of W estern
culture in the early twentieth century. 1910 was also the year in which Inayat Khan
traveled from his native India to the United States. The question that this dissertation
aims to answer may be simply stated as follows: how do the traditions and
organizations that subsequently sprung up around him contribute to a deepened
understanding of the modern transformation of culture within the frame of the
colonial encounter?
To answer this question requires, first of all, an account of the conditions in
Europe and North Am erica that constituted the context within which Inayat K hans
Sufi mission was received. Chapter Two will accordingly provide a broad survey of
12 Ibid., 154.
the contemporary spiritual m ovement of the age as embodied by prom inent occult
organizations. The analysis will show that: 1) occultism was not a marginal
phenom enon, but a m ajor com ponent of early twentieth century culture; 2) the new
occultism was not an atavistic move, but rather one that was deeply m otivated by the
concerns of high modernity; and 3) this new occultism engendered an attempt to
transcend the particularism of the W estern tradition. The focus will then shift to the
colonial South Asian background from which Inayat Khan emerged. It m ust be
shown that Inayat Khan did not import a pure tradition in fact, the very concept
of purity must be jettisoned. Even before reaching the shores of Ellis Island, Inayat
K hans Sufism was stratified by multiple layers of hybridization, both prem odern
and modern.
Having established this background, Chapter Three will proceed to exam ine
the originatory phase of Occidental Sufism 13 culminating in the Sufi Order in the
W est, founded in London in 1917. The focus here is on the tensions inherent in
negotiating the Islamic ramifications of Sufism in a secular Christian milieu as well
as the contemporary relevance of specific Sufi ideas and practices.
In the years immediately following the First W orld W ar the Sufi Order
expanded rapidly, and with this expansion came a flurry of institution building. A
standardized curriculum was developed, lessons were cyclostyled and distributed
13 The term O ccidental Sufism is suggested by the title o f a French work by Sharifa G oodenough:
Soufism e d O ccid e n t (Paris: E ditions La C olom be, 1962).
internationally, and initiates rose through the ranks to occupy a variety of positions
of authority. The Order grew rapidly, though the absence of m em bership rolls makes
it impossible to comprehensively track the organizations changing size and
geographical scope. As Inayat K hans presence became increasingly mediated, the
messianic aura surrounding him intensified. Simultaneously, the concept of Sufism
was gradually eclipsed as a primary reference by the concept of the M essage.
Chapter Four traces these developments in the context of larger cultural trends in the
wake of W orld W ar One.
The death of Inayat Khan in 1927 marks a watershed in the history of
Occidental Sufism. Chapter Five utilizes W ebers theory of charism a and its
routinization in assessing the multiple succession claims that subsequently ensued.
The polemical confrontation of variously positioned protagonists had the effect of
bringing into relief the multiplicity of hermeneutic options em bedded in the
experiment of Occidental Sufism. The schismatic character of this post-charism atic
period illustrates the tendency of the components of hybrid formations to separate
and recom bine in new equations.
Finally, Chapter Six presents a detailed analysis of the doctrinal substance of
Inayat K hans Occidental Sufi teachings. W ithin the frames of theology,
prophetology, and psychology, it is shown that Inayat Khan creatively adapted
traditional Indo-Islamic categories to the concerns of late modern W estern inquirers
and disciples. In doing so he generated an original contribution to the continuing
12
intellectual developm ent of the Sufi tradition. The hallmark of this contribution is a
sensitive engagement with the evolutionist and expressivist currents in modern
W estern thought.
CHAPTER TW O
ORIENTALISM, M ODERN OCCULTISM, AND ISLAMIC M ODERNISM
Orientalism
M ore than a quarter century after its publication, Edward W. Saids
Orientalism remains at the center of an active and often rancorous debate about the
cultural politics of the encounter between the W est and the rest. Put simply,
Saids thesis is that Orientalism is a hegem onic discourse that has as its raison d etre
the legitim ization of W estern imperialism. By Orientalism, Said means three
phenom ena that are, according to his argument, mutually interdependent. First,
Orientalism is the practice of anyone who teaches, writes about, or researches the
Orient. 1 Second, Orientalism is a style of thought based on an ontological and
epistemological distinction made between the O rient and (most of the time) the
O ccident.2 Third and m ost relevant to Saids thesis O rientalism is the
corporate institution for dealing with the O rie n t... a W estern style for dominating,
restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.' W hat enables Said to treat
these three phenom ena as a single unit is his appeal to M ichel Foucaults notion of a
discourse. As a discourse, Said asserts that Orientalism effectively limited what
1 Said, O rien talism , 2.

2 Ibid.
3 Ibid., 3.
13
14
could be said or thought in the W est about the Orient: because of Orientalism the
Orient was not (and is not) a free subject of thought or action.4
Saids thesis has received wide acclaim, but also wide criticism. Aside from
numerous factual errors, Said has been criticized for several m ajor analytical
problems. These may be summarized as follows.
Said portrays Orientalism as an arm of colonial power. In his haste to link
Orientalism to the British and French im perialist projects of the late eighteenth to
early twentieth century, Said conveniently ignores the extensive Latin scholarship of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as well as the monumental contributions of
nineteenth-century German philologists like Hammer-Purgstall, W ellhausen,
Golziher, and Noldeke. As Germany possessed no colonies, it is im possible to
explain German Orientalism as an instrum ent of external political control.5
A nother problem concerns Saids am bivalent use of Foucault. Said derives
his critique of representation from Foucault. Yet beyond the selective application
that supports his argument, Said is unwilling to accede to the full im plications of
Foucaultian relativism. As he remarked in an interview: Orientalism is
theoretically inconsistent, and I designed it that way: I didnt want Foucaults
4 Ibid.
5 T o this criticism Said could only respond, N o one has given m e any reason to have in clu d ed
[German O rientalism ]. Edward W . Said, R eflection s on E xile (C am bridge, M A: Harvard U niversity
Press, 2 0 0 0 ), 198-9.
method, or anybodys method, to override what I was trying to put forw ard.6 Said
employs Foucaults critique of representation to challenge the discourses of
colonialism, but simultaneously maintains the humanistic position that a real
Orient objectively exists. As a result of his ambiguous use of Foucault, it is not
clear whether Said regards Orientalists as victims or perpetrators of the discourse
they perpetuate. As Robert Irwin writes: Said ... was unable to decide whether the
discourse of O rientalism constrains Orientalists and makes them the victim o f an
archive from which they are powerless to escape, or whether, on the other hand, the
O rientalists are the willing and conscious collaborators in the fabrication of a
hegem onic discourse which they employ to subjugate others.7
Central to Saids thesis is the assertion that O rientalism s relation to the East
consisted of a soliloquy rather than a dialogue. He states: The Orient was not
Europes interlocutor, but its silent Other.8 The problem is that, in attributing to
Orientalism the pow er to silence the subjects of its discourse, Said effectively denies
agency to the same subjects. Said has been challenged on this point by Homi K.
Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, and other exponents of post-colonial theory. The discipline
of post-colonial studies has emerged specifically to reclaim the suppressed voice of
6 Said cited in Richard King, O rien talism a n d R eligion : P o stc o lo n ia l Theory, India, a n d the M y stic
E a st' (London and N ew York: R outledge, 1999), 84.
7 Robert Irwin, F or L ust o f K n ow in g: O rien ta lists a n d T heir E n em ies (London: A lan Lane, 2 0 0 6 ),
290.
8 Said, R eflection s on E x ile, 202.
16
the subaltern by docum enting the strategies by which colonized people resisted the
hegemony of Orientalist discourse and asserted their own self-representations.
Said argues that Orientalism s claim of scholarly objectivity is belied by its
predisposition to reduce the Oriental Other to a monolithic and ahistorical essence.
W hat this totalizing gaze systematically obscures, Said contends, is the irreducible
plurality of the A rabs and Islam . Rather than frozen objects, they should be
seen as com m unities of interpretation. But Saids reading of European literature
displays a totalizing tendency that is ironically similar to the one he ascribes to
Orientalism. In making his case against the production of knowledge as an
appendage of imperial power, Said glosses over the com plexity and am bivalence of
the com m unity of interpretation that is modern Europe. The result is an analysis
that succeeds in deconstructing hegem onic W estern representations of the Orient,
but at the same time fails to acknowledge the genuinely dialogical dim ensions o f the
encounter between the intellectual and cultural traditions of Europe and India or the
Islamic world. As several scholars have pointed out, Saids analysis appears to be
unable to accommodate the affirmative Orientalism of sympathetic and anti
colonialist European writers who collectively represent a subversive counter
m ovem ent against W estern im perialism.9
9 J. J. Clarke, O rien ta l E nlightenm ent: The E n cou n ter B etw een E astern a n d W estern Though (London
and N ew York: R outledge, 1997), 9; James C lifford, The P re d ica m e n t o f C ulture: T w en tieth -C en tu ry
E thn ograph y, L iteratu re, a n d A rt (Cam bridge, M A: Harvard U niversity Press, 2 0 0 2 ), 261; Richard
17
It should be said however that Saids last book, Freud and the Non-
European, makes precisely this accommodation. In it Said revisits Freuds own last
book, M oses and M onotheism, an anomalous w ork written under the shadow of
N azism and, in the end, in the throes of terminal illness. Freuds thesis is that M oses
was not a Jew but an Egyptian, and that his own followers ultimately m urdered him,
a metaphorical patricide that resulted in a guilt com plex that in turn dem anded, for
its expiation, the sacrifice of G ods son envisioned in Christianity. Said has little to
say about the theory of M oses murder, but expresses keen admiration for F reuds
determination to find the origins of Judaism in Egypt, which he says places Freud in
a major dissenting tradition within Judaism marked by a humanistic
cosmopolitanism. This subversive tradition exists in stark contrast to the Zionist
project: Quite different from the spirit of Freuds deliberately provocative
reminders that Judaism s founder was a non-Jew, and that Judaism begins in the
realm of Egyptian, non-Jewish monotheism, Israeli legislation countervenes,
represses, and even cancels Freuds carefully maintained opening out o f Jewish
identity toward its non-Jewish background. 10 Freud is the belatedly recognized
affirmative Orientalist of Saids critical swan song.
F ox, E ast o f Said in E d w a rd S aid: A C ritica l R eader, ed. Martin Sprinker (London: B lack w ell
Publishers, 1993), 152.
10 Edward W . Said, F reu d a n d the N on -E u ropean (London and N e w York: V erso, 2 0 0 3 ), 44.
18
Spiritualism
Joanne W aghorne writes: There have been several decades of discussion
about the W esternization of India, but near silence on the Easternization of
Britain. 11 Indeed, much remains to be said about the ways in which the encounter
with the colonized Other implicitly and explicitly m odified European culture, and
the present dissertation is intended as an effort in this direction. It will be argued
that the Sufi M ovem ent founded by Inayat Khan in early twentieth-century Europe
exem plifies both the W esternization of Indian Islam and the Easternization of
European occultism. Both processes, however, were underway on a large scale
before the formation of the Sufi M ovement. This background is the subject now to
be examined.
Although the category alternative religions is of only very recent coinage
in the study of religion, the existence of new and heterodox religious movements in
the modern era considerably antedates the conspicuous appearance of New A ge
religiosity in the latter half of the twentieth century. Spiritualism was a major
international movem ent in the 19th century; its social ramifications are only now
beginning to be gauged. In the wake of spiritualism, in the fin-de-siecle years, a
number of loosely related occult organizations emerged into prominence, effectively
capturing the imagination of educated, middle-class Europeans and Americans. The
11 Joanne Punzo W aghorne, The R a ja s M a g ic C lothes: R evisio n in g K in gsh ip a n d D ivin ity in

E n g la n d s India (U niversity Park, PA: Pennsylvania State U niversity Press, 1994), 11.
19
term mysticism attained a new respectability and currency, and the spiritual
m ovem ent of the age became a subject of widespread public discussion.
A recent study by Alex Owen helps locate this new occultism within the
larger trends of m odernity.12 Owen argues that the subjectivity conceptualized in the
theories and practices of fin-de-siecle occult movements was paradigmatic of the
self-consciously modern identity inherent in advanced capitalist culture. The
m om ent of the triumph of autonomous rational subjectivity at the end of the
nineteenth century was also a moment when the irrational dimension of
consciousness emerged as a profound problematique. A cluster of distinct but
related responses arose, including: Freuds identification of the irrational with the
unconscious and its desires; the M arxian critique of the irrationality of capitalism;
and the N eo-Rom antic efforts of thinkers like Nietzsche and Bergson to erect a
Dionysian Philosophy of Life against the m onoculture of positivism. Owen
explains the recuperation of magic as a related strategy. Rather than a retrogressive
retreat from the onslaught of disenchantment, the project of these groups can be seen
as an avant-garde extension of the modern drive for rationalization, colonization and
control, directed toward the newly expanded horizon of interiority and self-
realization.
12 A lex O w en, The P la ce o f E nchantm ent: British O ccu ltism a n d the Culture o f the M odern (C hicago:
U niversity o f C hicago Press, 2004).
20
As a larger, diachronic historical phenom enon, occultism or its cognate
esotericism constitutes a ubiquitous constituent of W estern civilization, an
ensem ble of loosely interrelated systems of thought and practice lacking a single
identifiable origin or unified doctrinal canon. The early sources of esotericism
include such diverse currents as Hermeticism , Neopythagoreanism, Stoicism,
Neoplatonism, Kabbalah, and Gnosticism. Its ensuing post-classical genealogy links
together medieval alchemy and astrology, the Renaissance H erm eticism of M arsilio
Ficino (d. 1499), Jewish and Christian Kabbalah, the proto-chemistry of Paracelsus
(d. 1541), the Protestant theosophy of Jakob Boehme (d. 1624) and Emmanuel
Swedenborg (d. 1772), Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, Romanticism and
Naturphilosophie, and the fin-de-siecle Occult Revival.
Running through all of these figures and schools is a thread of com m only
held, if variously interpreted, philosophical principles. Antoine Faivre has reduced
this com plex of shared ideas to four fundamental components: correspondences,
living Nature, imagination and mediations, and experience of transmutation.
Correspondences refers to the doctrine of sympathy, which posits the existence of a
network of mysterious affinities between seemingly unrelated phenom ena, as
suggested in the Hermetic maxim as above, so below. Living nature designates a
cosmological vision that views Nature as intrinsically animate and theophanic.
Imagination and mediations concerns the esotericists preoccupation with the faculty
21
of imagination as an epistemological m edium between sensation and intellection.
The experience of transm utation refers to a progressive process whereby the
practitioners subjectivity undergoes a radical modification. In addition to these four
essential components, Faivre also notes two relative components that are
frequently, but not invariably, present. These are the praxis of the concordance
and transm ission. The form er refers to the tendency of esotericists to seek to
correlate or synthesize two or more different traditions. The latter is a reference to
the theory and practice of initiation as an established channel for the transfer of
esoteric knowledge from master to disciple.13
Faivres categories delineate a deliberately restrictive definition of
esotericism. Em phasizing the esotericists predilection for im agination and
mediation rather than ecstatic contemplation and unio mystica enables Faivre to
markedly differentiate esotericism from the main currents of Christian mysticism.
Faivres definition also excludes 19th-century spiritualism, which m irrored the
assumptions of scientific materialism and lacked a theophanic cosm ological vision
or program of personal transformation. In historical perspective however, the
dividing line between spiritualism and esotericism as defined by Faivre is not clear-
cut. Ideas derived from esoteric thinkers such as Em manuel Swedenborg and Franz
Anton M esm er (d. 1815) permeated the spiritualist movement, and the im print of
13 A ntoine Faivre, A c c e ss to W estern E so tericism (Albany: State U niversity o f N ew York Press,

1994), 10-15.
22
spiritualism in turn informed the esoteric Occult Revival of the fin de siecle. For
this reason, before exam ining the Occult Revival, which fundamentally colored the
reception accorded to Inayat K hans Sufi mission, it is necessary to note the
historical significance of spiritualism.
The phenom enon of M odern Spiritualism unfolds from a single germinal
event. In 1848 two young girls named Katherine and M argaret Fox reported that
they had learned to communicate with an unseen entity that haunted their fam ilys
cottage in the village of Hydesville in upstate New York. According to the Fox
sisters, by means of coded raps the entity revealed itself to be the spirit of a peddler
who had been murdered and buried in the cellar of the house. Socially activist
Quaker friends eagerly took the girls under their aegis and the story quickly became
a national cause celebre. Further seances followed, producing messages heralding
the dawning of a new era. In an atmosphere rife with millenarian Christian
revivalism and heterodox speculation, spirit com munication proved capable o f wide
appeal. W ithin just two years of the Hydesville incident, thousands of Americans
swelled the ranks of the nascent spiritualist m ovem ent.14
The appeal of spiritualism was multifaceted. Some investigators, as they
were called, were attracted to seances by the prospect of reestablishing a relationship
severed by death. Others sought the confirm ation of im mortality that spirit
14 A lex O w en, The D a rk en ed R oom : Women, P o w e r a n d S piritu a lism in L a te V ictorian E n g la n d

(Philadelphia: U niversity o f Pennsylvania Press, 1990), 18.
23
com m unication was considered to represent. Spirit-rappings seemed to offer
em pirical validation of the metaphysical claims of religion. Though seemingly far
rem oved from the proper province of science, spiritualism was in fact deeply rooted
in the concerns of scientific rationalism. Even as they critiqued the materialist
assumptions of science, spiritualists conceptualized spirit as a subtle form of matter.
As Alex Owen observes, W hilst the spiritualist project signaled the inadequacy of
the empiricist/scientific method, it was itself entirely enm eshed in its term s. 15
W om en featured prominently in the spiritualist movement. The qualities of
passivity and renunciation that defined Victorian womanhood meant that women
were seen as uniquely predisposed to the role of medium, a vocation characterized
by the capacity to serve as a com pliant vehicle for the materialization of a
disem bodied spirit. As mediums, spiritualist women made a virtue o f a necessity,
translating ideologically mandated passivity into freely exercised power. W ithin the
arena o f the seance, under the possession of spirits, women took liberties
otherwise unimaginable, assuming male personas and transgressing conventional
standards of acceptable behavior. The liberatory potential of m edium ship was,
however, problematic. The authoritative voice and behavioral license enjoyed by
the medium obtained only in the context of the seance, and the price paid in that
context was the abnegation of the m edium s selfhood. Hence spiritualism ultim ately
15 Ibid., vii.
24
reinforced the gender ideology it sporadically subverted: the very quality which
supposedly made women such excellent mediums was equally construed as
underm ining their ability to function in the outside world. 16
A m ong the most prominent mediums of the nineteenth century was the
British singer and actress Em ma Hardinge Britten (1823-1899). Em igrating to
America, Britten developed a style of m ediumistic inspirational speaking that
attracted audiences of 1,500 to 3,000. B rittens sermons increasingly incorporated
specifically esoteric themes. In a series of lectures on the Origin of All Religious
Faiths delivered in 1858, Britten denounced the exploitation of religion by
ecclesiastical establishments, affirmed the essential com mensurability of all
religions, and directed her listeners to study the Book of Nature. Britten had
succeeded in providing the nascent spiritualist movem ent with systematic doctrinal
footing. As Joscelyn Godwin writes, In Em m as synthesis, spiritualism becom es a
complete religion, with a cosmology and an eschatology, a version of world history
to explain all myths and religions, a devotional practice in the form of a sort of
Unitarian prayer, and a social or socialist program for this world. 17
16 Ibid., 10.
17 Joscelyn G odw in, The T h eosoph ical E n ligh ten m en t (Albany: State U niversity o f N ew Y ork Press,
1994), 20 3 -4 .
25
H erm etic Theosophy
On 7 September, 1875, Em m a Hardinge Britten was present am ong a small
clique who had gathered at the M anhattan apartment of the mysterious and
charism atic Russian raconteuse Helena Petrovna Blavatsky to hear a lecture on
Egyptian Kabbalah. At the close of the lecture, Henry S. Olcott (1832-1907), a
reformist lawyer and zealous spiritualist who had recently come under Blavatskys
wing, proposed the formation of a new society for the scientific investigation of
spirit phenomena, mesmerism, Od Force, psychometry, the magnet, occultism and
practical m agic. 18 The proposal was greeted with assent, and at a subsequent
meeting convened at B rittens apartment the Theosophical Society was organized
and Olcott and Blavatsky were designated president and corresponding secretary
respectively.
At its inception the Theosophical Society lacked an identifiable canon of
beliefs. The societys self-definition hinged on its humanistic non-dogmatism. The
pream ble to the societys first leaflet read: W hatever may be the private opinions of
its members, the Society has not dogmas to enforce, no creed to disseminate ... Its
only axiom is the omnipotence of truth, its only creed a profession of unqualified
devotion to its discovery and propagation. 19 Despite this avowal of neutrality,
18 Stephen Prothero, The W hite B uddhist: The A sian O d y sse y o f H enry S te el O lc o tt (B loom in gton and
Indianapolis: Indiana U niversity Press, 1996), 48.
19 Ibid., 49.
26
however, the Theosophical Societys founders proved perfectly capable of
polemicism.
Blavatskys early agenda cohered around two im plicit objectives: the
abolition of Christianity and the reform of spiritualism. Blavatsky extolled the
historical Jesus as the great Socialist and Adept, the divine man who was changed
into an anthropom orphic god, but ridiculed the theological and clerical institutions
of Christianity.20 Spurred on by Blavatsky, Olcott a self-declared heathen
passionately incited fellow spiritualists to rise up against Christianity: If you do not
organize to crush your irreconcilable enemy the Church, she has organized and will
crush you."21
On the question of the authenticity of spiritual phenomena, the Theosophical
Society officially claimed a non-com m ittal position.22 Blavatsky and Olcott
were, however, deeply invested in the project of reforming spiritualism, both
philosophically and culturally. Blavatsky outspokenly challenged the prem ise that
mediumistic phenom ena derived directly from the spirits of the dead. Instead, she
argued, the interlocutors who produced the rappings, automatic writing, and
materializations that riveted spiritualists were elementals and shells. Elementals
were daimonic entities associated with earth, water, fire, and air the Gnomes,
Undines, Salamanders, and Sylphs of Paracelsus. Shells were psychic husks left
20 G odw in, T h eo so p h ica l E n ligh tm en t, 292.

21 Prothero, W hite B u ddh ist, 50.
27
behind by ascending human spirits, which temporarily retained some of the
characteristics of their erstwhile inhabitant. In promulgating this argument,
Blavatsky effectively drew a line in the sand between spiritualism and occultism.
Despite her own occult leanings, Em m a Hardinge Britten ultimately rejected
Blavatskys call, declaring: I affirm that as long as the victims or hypnotized
subjects of Blavatskism insist upon trying to build up their sect by abuse of ours (the
spiritualists) calling our loved and loving spirit friends spooks and shells, and
those who have tested and proved them lost, deceived, and degraded men and
w om enjust so long shall I continue to show the utter worthlessness of the
authority from which they speak and write.23
Blavatskys ideal was mastery rather than mediumship. W hereas
spiritualism was concerned with com m unicating with the spirits of the dead, with the
goal of learning to navigate the afterlife, Blavatskys occultism was concerned with
decoding the writings of past masters and following the directions of contem porary
but hidden adepts, with the object of attaining mastery in this life. Blavatsky
declared that she was personally capable of producing all of the phenom ena
associated with seances without recourse to spirit possession. Spurning the psychic
passivity of spiritualism, Blavatsky held up the motto, TRY. She wrote:
M edium ship is the opposite of adeptship; the medium is the passive instrum ent of
22 Ibid., 49.
23 G odw in, T h eo so p h ica l E nlightenm ent, 304.
28
foreign influences, the adept actively controls him self and all low er potencies.24
Godwin elaborates: Occultism taught one not ju st to sit back and exchange
sentimentalities with the spirits, but to try: that is, to cultivate ones will, increase
ones knowledge, and eventually to master the higher powers and faculties that lie
latent in everyone.25
But Theosophys valorization of will was not unequivocal. If Blavatsky
epitom ized the Theosophical turn, she also personified its ambiguity. Smoking,
wearing m ens clothing, and going by the nickname Jack, she exuded an
androgynous mystique that contrasted sharply with the Victorian norm of passive
femininity. Unlike the male personas assumed by female mediums, B lavatskys
m asculinity was an attribute of herself. Yet while she implicitly critiqued the
effeminacy of spiritualism, her own occult authority derived entirely from the
reputed hidden M asters whom she claim ed to represent and serve all of whom
were male.
M ore significant than her androgyny was B lavatskys remarkable
eclecticism. As Stephen Prothero writes, The cosmopolitan Blavatsky was
awakening Olcott and American spiritualism to the w orld.26 The daughter of an
army colonel and a novelist, Helen Petrovna was born and raised in the Ukraine. In
the library of her maternal great-grandfather, the Rosicrucian Prince Pavel
24 H. P. B lavatsky, Isis U n veiled (Pasadena, CA: T heosophical U niversity Press), 2:588.

29
Dolgorukii, the young Helena avidly perused hundreds of books on alchemy,
magic, and other occult sciences.27 In 1849 she married an older man, N ikifor
Blavatsy, the Vice-Governor of an Armenian province, but soon left him to em bark
on travels that would occupy her for the next nine years. She is known to have
resided in Cairo in the entourage of a Russian Countess, but her subsequent itinerary
is a subject of dispute among biographers. According to her own testimony: At
Athens, in Egypt, on the Euphrates, everywhere I went I sought my astral stone ... I
have lived with the whirling Dervishes, with the Druses of Mt. Lebanon, with the
? o
Bedouin Arabs and the M arabouts of Dam ascus. Additionally Blavatsky claim ed
to have spent several years studying at a Tibetan ashram under the tutelage of the
Unknown Superiors of Russian Rosicrucian legend, whom she term ed the
M ahatm as. On her return to Russia in 1858, she was recognized as a proficient
medium. Further travels in the latter half of the 1860s took her to various
destinations in Eastern and Southern Europe, and in 1871, again to Cairo. This
phase of veiled years came to a close in 1873, when Blavatsky arrived in New
York.
The heterogeneity of Theosophys sources is reflected in the spectrum of
Blavatskys associations. In 1850, in Constantinople, Blavatsky formed a close

27 H. P. B lavatsky cited in K. Paul Johnson, The M a sters R evea led : M a d a m e B la va tsk y a n d th e M yth
o f the G re a t W hite L o d g e (Albany: State U niversity o f N ew York Press, 1994), 19.
30
friendship with a Hungarian opera singer named Agardi Metrovitch. M etrovitch
belonged to the Carbonari, an Italian secret society militantly opposed to the
Catholic Church. According to Rene Guenon, Blavatsky allied herself with the
Carbonari revolutionary Guiseppe M azzini (1805-1872) in London the following
year.29 K. Paul Johnson notes the relevance of M azzinis thought to B lavatskys:
M azzini proclaimed that Christianity was in ruins and a new religious force was
30
needed to fill the void of skepticism.'
A nother early associate was Albert Rawson (1828-1902), an American
Freemason, Rosicrucian and Free-Thinker whom Blavatsky met in Cairo in 1851.
Together Rawson and Blavatsky attended the circle of the Coptic magician Paolos
M etamon. Returning to Cairo following a shipwreck in 1871, Blavatsky established
a spiritualist society, the Societe Spirite, but soon disbanded it in favor of the
occultism of M etam on and other Egyptian collaborators known collectively as the
Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor. In 1875 Blavatsky received directions from a
certain Tuitit Bey. The mysterious Tuitit Bey was probably Louis M axim ilien
Bim stein (alias M ax Theon), a Jewish disciple of M etamon who later m arried a
Scottish medium and settled in Algeria, where he died in 1927. Blavatsky inducted
28 H. P. B lavatksy cited in S ylvia Cranston, HPB: The E x tra o rd in a ry Life a n d Influence o f H elen a
B lavatsky, F o u n d er o f the M odern T h eo so p h ica l M o vem en t (N ew York: Tarcher/Putnam, 1993), 4 3 .
29 Guenon cited in Johnson, M a ste rs, 40.
30 Johnson, M a sters, 43.
31
Olcott into the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, of which she and Bim stein were
members.
In her book The Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky attested to the survival of occult
Chaldean works in Arabic translations preserved by Sufi initiates.31 W ho were the
unnam ed Sufis who opened their libraries to her? Sir Richard Burton, a Qadiri
initiate, became a Fellow of the Theosophical Society in 1878, and may have met
Blavatsky in the 1850s, or in 1870, when both were in the M iddle East. A close
friend of Burton in Damascus was the Sufi A m ir Abd al-Qadir, a form er Algerian
revolutionary who was initiated into the Freemasonic Grand Orient and Lodge o f the
32
Pyramids in A lexandria in 1864.'
A nother m ajor interlocutor between Sufism and M asonry was Sayyid Jamal
al-DIn al-Afghanl (1838-1897), who ranks among the most influential figures in the
annals of Islamic modernism. Born in northwestern Iran, al-Afghanl received a
classical Islamic education in Iran and Iraq and went on to study modern sciences in
India. In the latter decades of the nineteenth century al-Afghanl em erged as a
prom inent reformist intellectual, providing counsel at various times to the courts of
Afghanistan, the Ottoman Empire, and Iran. His penchant for political subterfuge,
however, resulted in expulsion on three different occasions. Steeped in Sufism and
31 Blavatsky, The S e c re t D o ctrin e (London: T he T heosophical Publishing C om pany, 1988), 1:288,

2:431.
32 On the Sufism o f A m ir Abd al-Qadir, see The S p iritu a l W ritin gs o f A m ir A b d a l-K a d e r , trans.
M ichel C hod k iew icz (Albany: State U niversity o f N ew York Press, 1995).
32
S hiite esotericism, the cosmopolitan al-Afghanl m aintained several M asonic
affiliations, and became leader of the Cairo-based Eastern Star Lodge in 1878.
Although Blavatsy nowhere mentions al-Afghanl by name, K. Paul Johnson has
shown that the two moved in overlapping circles, and that their respective itineraries
converged repeatedly. Blavatsky and al-A fghanl were both in India in 1857 and
1858, in Tiblisi in the mid-1860s, in Cairo in 1871, in India again between 1879 and
1882, and in Paris in 1884. A further link exists in the person of James Sanua (a.k.a.
Abou Naddara), a Jewish-Egyptian playwright associated both with the Carbonari
and al-A fghanls M asonic circle. The interconnecting pathways of Rawson,
Blavatsky, al-Afghanl, and Sanua lead Johnson to conclude: There is something
crucial to Theosophical origins in the intersection o f Islam and Freem asonry.33
Blavatskys substantial background in occultism enabled her to produce Isis
Unveiled, a sprawling work of eclectic mythography reputedly com posed in a state
of semi-trance. Its themes are concisely summarized by Godwin as follows: the
solar and phallic origins o f religions; the superiority of Eastern and Egyptian
wisdom to modern science; the existence of an esoteric tradition handed dow n by
adepts; the validity of all the w orlds religions; the errors of Christianity and the
crimes o f the Church; the preexistence and future evolution of the hum an soul; the
rejection o f the doctrine of reincarnation; the elements as causes of phenom ena; the
33 Johnson, M a ste rs, 53.
33
existence of adepts; and the significance of M odern Spiritualism to the destiny of
hum anity.34 The first edition, published to mixed reviews in 1877, sold out within
ten days.
Despite the publicity generated by Isis Unveiled, the Theosophical Societys
future was far from certain. The agenda of reform promulgated by Blavatsky and her
disciple Olcott had failed to resonate widely in the spiritualist movement, and the
Society suffered substantial attrition as curiosity seekers quickly dropped away. But
even as the first phase of Blavatskys career was drawing to a close the phase that
G odwin designates as Egyptian or Herm etic 35 another phase was about to open.
W hile researching Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky and Olcott had discovered the religious
literature of India, prompting Olcott to develop a correspondence with a num ber of
Indian and Ceylonese informants. Em boldened by this correspondence, on 18
Decem ber 1878 the Theosophical Tw ins set out on a mission to India, ostensibly
to study Sanskrit and yoga.
O riental Theosophy
One of O lcotts correspondents was Swami Dayananda Saraswati (1824-
1883), an iconoclastic Hindu reformer heralded as the Luther of India. Saraswati
founded the Arya Samaj movem ent in 1875 following contacts in Calcutta with the

35 Ibid., 277.
34
leaders of the Brahmo Samaj, Debendranath Tagore (1817-1905) and Keshab
Chandra Sen (1838-1884).36 Like the Brahmo Samaj on which it was in part
modeled, the Arya Samaj repudiated idolatry and the caste system, and propagated
an unequivocally monotheistic interpretation of Hindu theology. Determ ined to
reinvent the Theosophical Society as a Universal Brotherhood of races, in the
heady enthusiasm of their initial contact with Saraswati the Theosophical leadership
resolved to merge with the Arya Samaj. On receiving an updated summary of
Sarasw atis teachings, however, Olcott vacillated and created instead a bridge
organization, The Theosophical Society of the Arya Samaj. In India O lcotts
concerns were increasingly confirmed: apart from their mutual animus toward
Christianity, Sarasw atis Vedic absolutism and Theosophys eclectic liberalism had
little in common. The alliance slackened as Blavatsky and Olcott studied V edanta
and Buddhism respectively, both of which were anathema to Saraswati, who
recognized no scripture but the Vedas. In 1882 the relationship was formally
term inated in a flurry of mutual denunciations.
A nother erstwhile correspondent was Hikkaduve Sumangala, a prom inent
Sinhalese Buddhist monk. In 1880 Olcott and Blavatsky traveled to Ceylon, where
they formally em braced Buddhism in a ceremony conducted at the W ijanda
M onastery in Galle. This act marked the beginning of a com mitment that would
36 Founded in Calcutta in 1828 by Raja Rammohun R oy (1 7 7 2 -1 8 3 3 ), the Brahmo Samaj positioned

itself as a counterpart to the Unitarian m ovem ents in England and Am erica.
35
dominate the rem ainder of O lcotts life. W ith the zeal of a convert, Olcott toured
Ceylon, preaching Buddhism and founding eight branches of the Buddhist
Theosophical Society and several affiliated secondary schools. Against the
objections of Blavatsky, from whose shadow he was now confidently emerging,
Olcott returned to Ceylon for a second tour the following year. Assigning to him self
the task of dispelling the dense popular ignorance of the Buddhist populace by
reviving the pristine doctrine of Gautam a Buddha, Olcott produced a Buddhist
catechism that was destined to exercise a wide and deep influence in Ceylon.
Although Olcott positioned him self as archrival to the Christian m issionaries,
O lcotts Buddhism was innately colored by his own Protestant assumptions. As
Stephen Prothero writes, If the lexicon of this creole catechism was Buddhist, its
gram m ar or deep structure was Christian, and its accent, clearly theosophical.37
In 1882 Blavatsky and Olcott were reconciled and the headquarters of the
Theosophical Society was transferred from Bombay to Adyar, near Madras.
M eanwhile Olcott had found a new vocation in M esmeric healing, which enhanced
his renown in Ceylon and even fuelled M essianic speculations. On a mission to
London in 1884, Olcott represented the Buddhists of Ceylon in negotiations that
ultim ately produced several significant concessions from the imperial
administration. Having secured a reputation as a leading light in the Sinhalese
36
Buddhist Revival, Olcott set his sights on the international stage, envisioning a pan-
Buddhist revivalist m ovement that would unite the M ahayana and Theravada
Churches. But O lcotts plans were soon interrupted by the onset of a m ajor crisis
at Adyar.
In the fall of 1884, a disgruntled employee and one-time friend nam ed Em m a
Coulomb alleged that she had repeatedly conspired with Blavatsky to simulate
supernatural phenomena, even crafting a dummy M ahatm a. These allegations,
detailed in a series of articles printed in a M adras newspaper, prom pted an
investigation by Dr. Richard Hodgson of the London-based Society for Psychical
Research. As pressure mounted, Olcott insisted that the emotionally distraught and
ailing Blavatsky resign from her position as secretary of the Society. Blavatsky
resentfully submitted, and left for Europe on 2 April 1885. In Decem ber Hodgson
concluded that Blavatsky was one of the most accomplished, ingenious, and
interesting imposters in history.38 A wave of defections followed.
The Theosophical Society henceforth proceeded on two largely separate
tracks. In Adyar, Olcott actively sought to distance Theosophy from the
sensationalism and infallible esoteric authority that Blavatsky had prom oted with
38 Ibid., 120. In The M a ste rs R evea led , K. Paul Johnson con vin cin gly argues that the M ahatm as were
not, as H od gson concluded, fictions arbitrarily invented by Blavatsky. Rather they were
m ythological screens con cealin g her key patrons, associates, and acquaintances. W ith varying
degrees o f certainty Johnson identifies M aster M orya as Maharaja Ranbir Singh o f Kashmir, K oot
H oom i as the Sikh reformer Thakar Singh Sandhanwalia, and Djual K ul as the Sikh journalist
D ayal Singh M ajithia.
37
such disastrous consequences. In London, Blavatsky pursued these same interests
with renewed vigor. In 1887 she brought out a new magazine, provocatively entitled
Lucifer. A t the end of the following year her second and final m ajor w ork appeared
under the title The Secret Doctrine. Framed as an exegesis of The Book of D zyan,
39
which G ershom Scholem identifies as the Kabbalistic work Sifra D i-Tseniutha ,
The Secret Doctrine comprises a series of elaborate disquisitions on the subjects of
cosmology, pre-Adamic history, and com parative mythology, all undergirded by an
evolutionary paradigm couched in metaphysical terminology. W ith the objective of
redeeming the esoteric lore discarded by the Enlightenment, Blavatsky attempts to
rationalize symbolic images and mythological narratives, but in doing so reveals
herself to be a true child of the Enlightenment, albeit a scientific dilettante.
Theodore Roszak aptly comments, In what is essentially a mythical armature for
supporting a godlike image of human nature, [Blavatsky] too often weakens toward
an unfortunate literalism, interpreting her sources not as rhapsodic declamations but
as veritable historical documents and that with no little pugnacity toward every
anthropologist, astronomer, geologist, and biologist in sight.40
A m ong the reviewers of The Secret Doctrine was Annie Besant (1847-1933),
a figure who was to loom large in the future of Theosophy. Besant was then a
prom inent freethinker and social activist associated with the reform-oriented Fabian
39 G ershom Scholem , M a jo r T rends in Jew ish M ysticism (N ew York: Schocken B ook s, 1974), 398.
38
Society. Deeply affected by The Secret Doctrine, Besant sought an interview with
Blavatsky and subsequently enrolled as a Theosophist. A major victory for
Blavatsky, B esants conversion was acutely mourned by her socialist colleagues.
George Bernard Shaw portrayed Besant as an actress performing multiple
incongruent roles: She was successively a Puseyite Evangelical, an Atheist Bible -
smasher, a Darwinian secularist, a Fabian socialist, a Strike Leader, and finally a
Theosophist, exactly as Mrs. Siddons was a Lady Macbeth, Lady Randolph,
Beatrice, Rosalind, and Volumnia.41 Biographers of Besant have followed Shaw in
em phasizing her mercurialness and susceptibility to male influences. But, as Gauri
Viswanathan has shown, B esants intellectual development was not arbitrary.
Theosophys racial evolutionism provided a meaningful answer to a conundrum that
belied B esants atheism; namely, the unresolved imperative to com bine her
enduring quest for salvation and her worldly com m itm ent to the am elioration of
disparate social condition.42 The racial evolutionary theory of The Secret D octrine
suggested to Besant a religious template for the reinvention of the British Em pire as
a global Republic of M an that would constitute a non-ecclesiastical Church
com m itted to social justice.
40 Theodore R oszak, U nfinished A nim al: The A qu arian F ro n tier a n d the E volu tion o f C o n scio u sn ess
(N ew York: Harper and R ow Publishers, 1975), 122.
41 G eorge Bernard Shaw cited in Gauri V isw anathan, O u tsid e the F old: C on version , M odern ity, a n d
B e lie f (Princeton: Princeton U niversity Press, 1998), 179.
42 Ibid., 188.
39
In 1890 Blavatsky took up residence in B esants house, where she
constructed a sanctuary for the meetings of her new organization, the Esoteric
Section of the Theosophical Society. A subgroup embedded within the larger
Society, the Esoteric Section enabled Blavatsky to consolidate her authority and to
reinforce the occult basis of Theosophy, which the Adyar headquarters under Olcott
increasingly treated as something of an em barrassm ent.43 Burgeoning skepticism
about the existence of the M asters, misgivings about the Easternization of
Theosophy, and impatience for practical instruction underscored the urgency of
B lavatskys renewed efforts. Three orders of W estern esotericism had successively
arisen to challenge Theosophys occult monopoly. The first, the Hermetic Society
founded by A nna Kingsford (1846-1888) and Edward M aitland (1824-1897), existed
in an uneasy alliance with the Theosophical Society. The second, an obscure group
calling itself the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, disputed the authority of the
Theosophical M asters, but quickly dissolved in the wake of a scandal.44 The
collapse of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor and untimely death of Anna
Kingsford created a void that was immediately filled by the third and m ost
43 B lavatsky and O lcott had join tly form ulated the three objects o f the T h eosop h ical S ociety as: 1) to
form the nucleus o f the U niversal Brotherhood o f Hum anity, w ithout distinction o f race, creed, sex,
caste or colour; 2) to encourage the study o f com parative religion, philosophy and science; 3) to
investigate the unexplained laws o f Nature and the pow ers latent in man. F ollow in g the founders
rift, in a speech delivered in 1886, O lcott referred only to the first two objects. Prothero, White
B uddhist, 123.
44 M ax T heon issued an advertisem ent for the H erm etic Brotherhood o f Luxor that stated: Students
o f the O ccult S cien ce, searchers after truth and T heosophists w ho may be disappointed in their
40
successful challenger, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Founded in 1888 by
W illiam W ynn W estcott (1848-1925) and S. L. M acgregor M athers (1854-1918), the
Golden Dawn specialized in ritual magic derived from cipher manuscripts of
mysterious origin. Later notable members included Arthur M achen, W illiam B utler
Yeats, and the notorious libertine Aleister Crowley (1875-1947). The founding of
the Golden Dawn and the Esoteric Section in the same year is unlikely to have been
a coincidence. According to R. A. Gilbert, the Esoteric Section was created
specifically to avert the loss of would-be practical occultists to the ranks of the
Golden Dawn and to prevent a complete split between the followers o f the Eastern
and those of the W estern Path.45
H. P. Blavatsky died of influenza on 8 M ay 1891. The Theosophical Society
now encom passed 258 branches on six continents, and the Esoteric Section alone
was said to hold over a thousand m embers.46 Together with W illiam Quan Judge
(1851-1896), a founding member of the Theosophical Society and President of its
American Section, Besant assumed the leadership of the Esoteric Section. Tensions
between Judge and Olcott ultimately led Judge to reject the authority of the Adyar-
expectations o f Sublim e W isd om being freely dispensed by H IN D O O M A H A T M A S , are cordially

in v ite d ... G odw in, T h eo so p h ica l E nlightenm ent, 347.
45 R. A . Gilbert, cited in G odw in, T h eo so p h ica l E nlightenm ent, 362.
46 Prothero, W hite B uddhist, 131, Cranston, H PB, 365.
41
based Theosophical Society and reconstitute the American Section as an
autonomous organization.47
The Theosophical dream of Universal Brotherhood was conspicuously
mirrored in the Parliament of W orld Religions convened at the W orld Colum bian
Exhibition in Chicago in 1893, in which some 200 delegates representing forty-five
distinct religious denom inations shared the platform. The Parliament represented an
unprecedentedly ecumenical colloquy, but more ominously, it also displayed the
symptoms of American triumphalism. As Brian A. Hatcher writes, W hatever goals
of m odernist universalism may have inspired the parliament, these were offset by an
48
equally modern urge to catalog and exhibit the treasures of human culture.
Besant spoke at the Parliament, but received less attention than Anagarika
Dharm apala (1864-1933) and Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902). Dharmapala, a
protege o f Olcott and prominent figure in the Sinhalese Buddhist Revival, was later
to fall out with Olcott over B esants promotion of Hinduism, which he increasingly
regarded as antithetical to the pristine Buddhism that he militantly extolled. Though
he arrived uninvited, the dapper and eloquent Vivekananda delivered a celebrated
performance at the Parliament establishing him in America as an iconic
personification of oriental wisdom, and in India as the preem inent heir of the
47 The history o f the T heosophical S ociety in A m erica is chronicled and analyzed in W . M ichael
Ashcraft, The D aw n o f the N ew C ycle: P o in t L om a T h eosoph ists a n d A m erican C ulture (K noxville:
T he U niversity o f T en n essee Press, 20 0 2 ).
42
Bengali Renaissance. Vivekananda had requested funds from Olcott for his
mission to Chicago, but had been rebuffed, prompting him to criticize Theosophy as
an Indian grafting o f American Spiritualism in a series of articles printed in the
Hindu and other Indian papers.49 In 1897 Vivekananda founded the V edanta Society
in the United States for the promulgation of his neo-Hindu message. V ivekanandas
message functioned as a reversal of the colonial gaze; an attempt, as Richard King
writes, to colonize a materialistic and depraved Europe with Hindu spirituality.50
If the colonial trope of W estern rationalism versus Eastern mysticism was
im possible to negate, it could nonetheless be revalorized to the advantage of a newly
consolidated Hindu self-definition. Like the Theosophical Society, the Vedanta
Society professed an inclusive vision of religious truth that downplayed the diversity
of the w orlds religious traditions and stressed the pervasive presence of a single
Universal Religion. For Vivekananda, that Universal Religion was properly named
A dvaita Vedanta.
Following the Parliament Besant shifted her residence to India, where she
was to wield an increasingly profound influence. In Benares she studied Sanskrit,
prom oted modern education, and formed alliances with Hindu reformers and
political activists. As Olcott lay dying in 1907, Besant and another witness
48 Brian A . Hatcher, E clecticism a n d M odern H indu D isco u rse (Oxford: O xford U niversity Press,
1999), 49.
49 Prothero, W hite B uddhist, 164.
50 King, O rien ta lism a n d R eligion , 141.
43
purportedly saw the M asters appear at his bedside and instruct him to nominate
Besant as his successor.51 Duly elected president, Besant charted a new course for
the Theosophical Society. Hinduism replaced Buddhism as the religious lexicon of
choice, and the policy of noninterference in affairs of state maintained by Olcott in
principle if not always in practice was now abrogated as Besant utilized the
leverage of her position to actively press for the goal of Indian self-governance
within the context of an undivided British empire. In 1916 she founded the Home
Rule League, and the following year, after a brief and widely protested internm ent at
Ootacamund, was elected President of the Calcutta Session of the Indian National
Congress. Besant infused the Home Rule movement with the tactics she had learned
as a strike leader in London, laying the groundwork for M ohandas K. G andhis (d.
1948) later campaign of civil disobedience. The occult universalism Besant
personified as a high priestess resonated as well. Jawaharlal N ehrus childhood
tutor had been a Theosophist, and Gandhi credited Theosophy with introducing him
to the Bhagavad Gita.53 Theosophy melded invisibly into the spiritualized secular
pluralism of Indias modern national discourse.
Rather than endangering the organization, as Olcott had feared, Annie
B esants zealous political engagement had the effect of enhancing the Theosophical
51 A nne Taylor, A nnie B esan t: A B io g ra p h y (Oxford: Oxford U niversity Press, 1992), 285. Taylor
incorrectly g iv es the year as 1909; O lco tts death occurred on 17 February 1907.
52 B esant ju stified her political activism with the assertion that she acted under the direction o f a
M aster, the R ishi A gastya. Taylor, B esant, 294.
44
Societys international profile. In 1920 the Society claimed four hundred branches
and 45,000 members worldwide: never before or after was Theosophy so popular.
The appeal of B esants agenda was in its investment in the larger process of
decolonization and cultural synthesis that it heralded and legitimated with spiritual
authority. A t the climax of the colonial encounter, Theosophy was the preem inent
arbiter and sanctifier of hybridity on the world stage.
Occidentalism
The foregoing background is essential to the context of Inayat K hans
propagation of Sufism in America and Europe. But equally relevant are the forces
that originally im pelled his peregrinations. To understand these forces requires an
exam ination of the historical circumstances of Inayat K hans ancestral and initiatic
genealogies and the early experiences that molded his biography.
From the consolidation of Turkic rule in the thirteenth century to term ination
o f the M ughal empire in the nineteenth, M uslim pow er consistently held sway over
the greater part of the Indian subcontinent. Though a minority of the total
population numerically, as a social unit M uslims enjoyed the religious, cultural, and
sometimes material, privileges of political dominance. India was unquestionably
53 Cranston, H PB, 195.
45
dar al-islam, the hallowed terrain of Islamic supremacy, and power am plified
ideological confidence. All of this began to change with the rising fortunes of the
European colonial project in India in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
century. W hen the British crown officially annexed India in 1857 following a failed
pro-M ughal revolt (the Great M utiny), M uslims were suddenly com pelled to
question their own assumptions of civilizational primacy and divine favor, and seek
a new collective self-definition.
Responses to the new predicament took diverse shapes. The puritanical
W ahhabi movem ent channeled the frustrations of the lower classes into a popular
uprising motivated by the atavistic goal of dem olishing religious and cultural
accretions in order to lay bare the original simplicity of pure Islam. Vehement
and w ell-organized but without a constructive programm e,54 the W ahhabi
movem ent spent its last force in the Revolt of 1857. But if 1857 tolled the death
knell of W ahhabism, it also sounded a clarion call to a new and more fully ram ified
ideological movement. Its preem inent spokesman was Sir Sayyid Ahm ad Khan
(1817-1898).
The epigone of a noble family of Delhi, Sayyid Ahmad Khan received a
com prehensive traditional education and went on to take employment in the British
colonial judiciary. His early writings reflected a combination of contem porary Indo-
54 W ilfred C antw ell Smith, M odern Islam in India: A S o c ia l A n a lysis (London: V ictor G ollancz, Ltd.,
1946), 10.
46
M uslim doctrinal motifs: the restrained Sufism of the N aqshbandl-M ujaddidi
tradition with which his family was closely associated, the flexible approach to
sharVa interpretation which typified Shah W aliullah and his descendants, and the
driving desire to purify Indian Islam of all non-M uslim practices that characterized
the M ujahidin movem ent of Sayyid Ahm ad Shahld.55 But the failed Revolt of 1857
provoked in Sayyid Ahmad a driving need to find new answers. His biographer H all
writes, That terrible event of India history which was to decide the fate of the
peoples of India ... was to bring about a momentous revolution in [Sayyid A hm ad
K hans] way of thinking.56 Sayyid Ahmad became convinced that a constructive
engagement with British rule and modern European culture was now indispensable
to the reconstruction of Islamic society in India.
A visit to England in 1869 acutely confirm ed Sayyid A hm ads burgeoning
respect for the fruits of the Enlightenment, prompting him to excitedly write hom e
from London: The natives of India ... when contrasted with the English in
education, manners, and uprightness, are as like them as a dirty animal is to an able
and handsom e m an.57 Following his return, Sayyid Ahmad founded an Urdu
journal entitled Tahdhib al-akhlaq (Refinem ent o f M orals). Initially highly
55 Francis R obinson, Islam a n d M uslim H isto ry in South A sia (Oxford: Oxford U niversity Press), 244.
56 A ltaf Husain H ali, H a ya t-i-J a ved , trans. K. H. Qadiri and D avid J. M atthews (N ew D elhi: Idarah-i
A dabiyat-i D elli, 1979), 46.
57 M ujeeb Ashraf, M u slim A ttitu d es T ow ards B ritish R ule a n d W estern C ulture in India (N ew D elhi:
Idarah-i A dabiyat-i D elli, 1982), 239.
47
controversial, the journal increasingly secured a devoted readership and became an
effective vehicle for the dissemination of his modernist ideas.
The challenge of reconciling faith and reason in the wake of the
Enlightenm ent impelled Sayyid A hm ad to bracket the prolific and problem atic data
of the hadith (narratives of the Prophet) and underscore the Q uran as the essential
basis o f authority in Islam. In interpreting the Q uran, he worked on the assum ption
that revelation cannot be opposed to scientific actuality.' Thus his exegetical
strategy suppressed mystical and mythological readings, and stressed the Q urans
essential com patibility with the dictates of Cartesian logic, Newtonian physics and
Darwinian biology. But his appreciation of W estern modernity was not lim ited to
the physical sciences; rather, it embraced the full breadth of V ictorian liberal
humanism. In opposition to the old religious principle that man was created for
religion, Sayyid Ahm ad proposed the new religious principle that religion was
created for man. Against pious renunciation, he preached the active exercise of will
and the responsible gratification of personal desires.59
The success of Tahdhlb al-akhlaq conferred m om entum to Sayyid A hm ads
educational agenda. As the Indo-M uslim middle class rallied around him, with
funds from the British government as well as private sources, he founded the
M ohamm edan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh in 1875. M odeled after Oxford
58 H afeez M alik, S ir S a y y id A h m a d K han a n d M u slim M o d ern iza tio n in In dia a n d P a k ista n (N ew

York: C olum bia U niversity Press, 1980), 268.
48
and Cambridge, the College im plem ented an English-medium curriculum that
com bined the study of secular humanities and sciences with religious instruction in
Islam. The New Light of W estern knowledge now had a radiant beacon in
M uslim India. The colonial regime expressed its approbation in 1888, awarding
Sayyid Ahmad (henceforth Sir Sayyid Ahmad) the honor of Knight C om m ander of
the Star of India.
Though arguably unmatched in his accomplishments, Sayyid A hm ad was not
the only leading light of Islamic modernism in India, nor did his ideas exclusively
define the incipient movement. Other major intellectual innovators in this period
included Chiragh All (1844-1895)60, N azir Ahmad (1836-1912)61, A ltaf Husayn
Hall (1837-1914)62, M uhamm ad Shibli N u 'm an i (1857-1914), and A m ir A ll (1849-
1928)63. All of these figures struggled in different ways to produce a synthesis of
Islamic religion and W estern knowledge capable of restoring the pride of Indian
59 Ibid., 278.
50 Chiragh A ll w as a c lo se ally o f Sayyid Ahmad Khan and a regulator contributor to his
T ah dh ib a l-a k h la q . S ee Peter Hardy, M u slim s o f B ritish India (Cambridge: C am bridge U niversity
Press, 1972), 111-114, and Charles Kurzman, ed., M o d e rn ist Islam 1 8 4 0 -1 9 4 0 : A S o u rceb o o k
(Oxford: Oxford U niversity Press, 2 0 0 2 ), 2 7 7 -2 9 0 .
61 N azir A hm ad w as the author o f the first major n ovel in Urdu, T aubat al-N asu h . S ee The
R epen tan ce o f N ussooh, trans. M . K lem son (N ew D elhi: Permanent Black, 20 0 4 ); also The B r id e s
M irro r, trans. G. E. Ward (N ew D elhi: Permanent B lack, 20 0 1 ).
62 A ltaf Husayn H ah was a protege and biographer o f both M irza Ghalib (d. 1869) and Sayyid
Ahm ad Khan. An accom plished poet, he is ch iefly known for his mournful social com m entary
entitled M u sa d d a s. S ee H a lis M u sa d d a s: The F lo w a n d E b b o f Islam , trans. C histopher Shackle and
Javed M ajeed (N ew D elhi: Oxford U niversity Press, 1997).
63 A m ir A ll was a distinguished B engali ju d ge ch iefly known for his m asterpiece o f Islam ic apology,
The S p irit o f Islam . S ee Sm ith, M odern Islam., 4 5 -5 9 .
49
M uslims. This was an enterprise that resonated acutely in the household in which
Inayat Khan was raised.
M usical M odernism
Inayat Khan was born in Baroda, W est India, in 1882. According to a family
tradition, his mother K hadlja BI witnessed a vision prior to his birth in which Jesus
appeared and congratulated her. In a com memorative address delivered a half
century later his brother M aheboob Khan interpreted this mystical event as
confirm ation of the divine sanction of Inayats mission to the Christian W est.64
Inayat K hans father was Rahmat Khan (1843-1910), the scion of a
masha ikh family of Siyalkot in the Panjab, reputedly descended from the saint
JunTa Shah. Rahm at K hans paternal grandfather N imat Allah Khan, in the
thirteenth generation of masha ikh, reputedly was the first to professionalize the
musical tastes evolved as from his ancestrys ancient bakhshe tradition.65 As a
young man, Rahm at Khan attained proficiency in the dhrupad style o f northern
classical music under the tutelage of the mystical ascetic Sayn Ilyas.66 Leaving
64 The Sufi R e c o rd 4 (July-Septem ber 1932).

65 Sh. M ahm ood Khan, G enealogical N o te s, A san M anzil A rchive, 1.
66 The name Sayn Ilyas appears in European biographies in the corrupted form Saint A lia s. E lise
Guillaum e-Scham hart and M unira van V oorst van B eest, ed., The B io g ra p h y o f P ir-o -M u rsh id In a ya t
K han (London and The Hague: E ast-W est Publications, 1979), 30; M usharaff M oulam ia Khan, P a g es
in the L ife o f a Sufi (London and The Hague: E ast-W est Publications, Ltd., 1982), 3.
50
behind the security of his family estate, Rahmat Khan was led to Baroda by the hand
signal of a Sufi saint.67 There he met the senior court musician, Sangltratna
M awlabakhsh (1833-1896), and was assimilated into his household by marriage,
first to his eldest daughter Fatim a Bi, and following her death, to his second
daughter K hadlja BI.
The charism atic and magisterial personality of M awlabakhsh was the nucleus
of the household in which Inayat and his brothers were raised. Born S hula Khan,
son of GIsu [-Daraz?] Khan, at Chither, near Revari (Bhivani, North India), he
belonged to a zam lndar (landed gentry) family traced in the paternal line to a
Brahman convert to Islam. As a boy he received the name M awlabakhsh (God-
given) from a Chishti dervish who encouraged him to pursue music. After a period
of initial study with his uncle A nwar Khan, an amateur singer, in search of further
training he traveled to Gujarat, w'here he became the pupil of the em inent vocalist
G haslt Khan. After G haslt K hans death, M awlabakhsh embarked on a tour o f the
courts of India. Rem embered as a triumphal procession,68 his tour set the pattern
for Inayat K hans later tours, successively, of India and the W est. In M alabar,
despite his M uslim caste, he succeeded in studying the Karnatak music system with
67 One account identifies the saint as a person who had stood tirelessly for many years in the sam e
place (G uillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y, 31). A nother account
identifies him as M u In al-D in C hishti and explains the encounter as a vision that occurred at his
d a rg a h in Ajm er (M usharaff Khan, P a g es, 7-8).
68 Guillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y, 21.
51
the orthodox Brahman Subrahmani Ayar, who im parted to him the sacred traditions
of Tyagaraja and DIksitar.
A t the court of Mysore, M aw labakhshs musical preeminence won him
princely honors (rajkufu), enabling him to marry Qasim Bi, a descendant of the
royal lineage of Tipu Sultan (1749-1799).69 Describing her, the Biography states
that she f e l t ... deeply the tragedy of life as she knew it in the history and fate of
70
her house. The lifelong resistance of the Tiger of M ysore against the
encroachments of the British East India Company, culminating in his death on the
battlefield, cast Tipu Sultan as a glorious and tragic figure in M uslim eyes. The
popular eulogization of Tipu Sultan as a champion of the Islamic tradition against
the alien law s of Europe achieved poetic summation in the twentieth century in
71
Sir M uham m ad Iqbals Javid-nama. But even as he vehemently refused to
subordinate his crown to the East India Company, Tipu Sultan m aintained a deep
interest in W estern knowledge, and put into practice economic, adm inistrative, and
military reforms modeled on European exam ples.72
At the invitation of M aharaja Khande Rao, M awlabakhsh settled in Baroda,
where he established a stately residence named Naulakha. Thrice married,
69 On T ipu Sultan, see M ohibbul Hasan, H isto ry o f Tipu Sultan (Calcutta: W orld Press Private, Ltd.,
1951), and Kate Brittlebank, Tipu S u lta n s S earch f o r L eg itim a cy: Islam a n d K in gsh ip in a H indu
D om ain (N ew D elhi: O xford U niversity Press, 1997).
71 Sir M uhamm ad Iqbal, Javid -n a m a , trans. A . J. Arberry (G eorge A llen and U nw in, Ltd., 1966),
1 3 1 -1 3 4 .'
52
M awlabakhsh had two sons, M urtaza Khan (1860-1924) and A la al-DIn Khan
(1869-1949), and three daughters, Fatim a BI, K hadlja BI and Inayat BI. M ahm ood
Khan, son of M aheboob Khan, has described the cultural attitudes of the household
as: com m itted to a mystically conceived but punctiliously observed Islam; intensely
proud of M uslim civilization and culture generally and of the specifically Indo-
Islamic variety in particular, that is, with an admiring sympathy for the Hindu world
and values as well; with receptive open-mindedness towards the nascent notions of
both Ottom an panislam ism and European modernism; and alongside all that, with a
feeling of the local M uslim masses largely being little better than barbarians, m ulla
73
knowledge senselessly elementary. '
Following the death of Khanderao, in the 1870s innuendo in the court
aroused by his connections with the British Resident in Baroda, Colonel Robert
Phayre, prom pted M awlabaksh to em bark on a long musical tour.74 In Calcutta he
was the guest of M aharaja Jotindro M ohun Tagore and exchanged ideas with his
brother, the leading m usicologist and nationalist Sir Surendro M ohun Tagore (1840-
1914). Anxious to prove to the English that the musical art of India was indeed an
72 Hasan, Tipu Sultan, 377.

73 Sh. M ahm ood Khan, M aw labakhshi Rajkufu AMakhandan: The M awlabakhsh D ynastic L ineage,
1 8 3 3 -1 9 7 2 , in A P e a rl in Wine, ed. Z ia Inayat-Khan (N ew Lebanon, N .Y .: 2 0 0 1 ), 4 1 -4 2 .
74 On the rivalry betw een Phayre and Maharaja M alharrao Gaekwar, ending in the latters deposition,
see Fatehsinghrao G aekwad, S a ya jira o o f B a ro d a : The P rin ce a n d the M an (N ew D elhi: Sangam
B ook s, 1989), 34 -4 4 .
53
art,75 M awlabakhsh studied the theoretical bases of W estern music and sought
opportunities to demonstrate the com plexity of Indian music to elite English
audiences. In recognition of his accomplishm ents the Viceroy, Lord Northbrook,
awarded him the title Professor of Indian M usic.
A visit to the deposed and im prisoned Nawab of Lucknow, W ajid All Shah
(r. 1847-1856) underscored to M awlabakhsh the degradation of music in
contemporary Islamic culture.76 In M aw labakhshs eyes the ruined king was not so
77
much the victim of British im perialism as of his own corrupt abuse of the arts.
From his grandfather Inayat Khan inherited the com plaint that the status quo
-7 0
degraded musicians as mere arbab-i nashat, masters of pleasure. M awlabakhsh
left Calcutta reconfirmed in his admiration for English culture and com m itted to the
consolidation of an Indian national music on the basis of European principles and
procedures. As a non-hereditary musician, a comparativist fluent in both Hindustani
and Karnatak systems, and an interlocutor with the colonial regime, this was a
project M awlabakhsh was well positioned to undertake. Like Sir Sayyid Ahmad
76 On W ajid A ll Shah see A bd al-H alim Sharar, L ucknow : The L a st P h a se o f an O rien ta l C ulture,
trans. E. S. Harcourt and Fakhir Hussain (London: Paul Elek, 1975), 60-75.
77 Guillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y, 25-26; Inayat Khan, Gita I:
A m aliyyat and Gita I: Asrar al-Ansar, Fazal M anzil A rchive.
78 Inayat Khan, M in q a r-i m u siq a r (Allahabad: Indian Press, 1912), 90: A m ong M uslim s m usic has
alw ays been considered a genteel art. It is unfortunate that during the period when M uslim s
underwent d eclin e, m usic w as made into a sport or gam e, and its position was let fall to such a degree
that the dignity o f m usicians is reduced to the designation a rb a b -i n a sh a t.
54
K hans campaign in the field of religious education, M aw labakhshs reform ist
agenda in music affirmed W estern knowledge but simultaneously destabilized
W estern power: That the nationalists should fight the British on their own ground,
and try to match their music with a Hindu version based on scientific and rational
principles, exem plifies one reaction of the colonized to the colonizer the
79
acceptance of a struggle, the parameters of which are always defined by the ruler.
The accession of M aharaja Sayajirao Gaekwar III (r. 1875-1939) enabled
M awlabakhsh to return to his former position of honor at the Baroda court.
Groomed and installed by the British, Sayajirao busied him self with social reforms
and industrial enterprises that rapidly transformed the cultural and physical
landscape of Baroda and distinguished his rule as a paragon of modern progress in
princely India. Sayajlraos ingenious negotiation of British authority has been
described as a prim e example of Homi B habhas notion of colonial mimicry:
Educated in British Enlightenment epistemology, he turned its precepts on the
British, goading them to advocate and fulfill their Enlightenment project in India.80
Sayajlraos aims meshed seamlessly with those of M awlabakhsh.
Inspired by his experiences in Calcutta and encouraged by the new Dewan,
Sir T. M adhavrao, on returning to Baroda M awlabakhsh poured his energies into the
79 Gerry Farrell, Indian M u sic a n d the W est (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 67.
80 Julie F. C odell, R esistance and performance: native informant discourse in the biographies o f
Maharaja Sayaji R ao III o f Baroda (1 8 6 3 -1 9 3 9 ) in O rien ta lism T ran sposed, ed. Julie F. C odell and
D iane S. M acL eod (B rookfield, VT: A shgate Publishing C om pany, 1998), ed., 32.
55
reform of music education. Building on recent Bengali models, he created a system
of musical notation analogous to W estern staff notation but fitted to the distinct
Indian division of the octave. In 1886, with state sponsorship, he founded the Gayan
Shala (Academy of Music), which quickly emerged as the premier institution for
musical education in W est India. Textbooks employing the founders system of
notation supplied the basis of the Gayan Shalas progressive curriculum .81
M aw labakhshs first son inherited his fathers position as family head and
principal of the Gayan Shala. His second son, born of his Hindu M ahrattan wife,
extended his project of modernization. In 1890 the State sent A la al-Din Khan to
London for full training in European music. After receiving a doctorate from the
Royal Academ y of Music, he roamed through France, Germany and Italy, imbibing
Europes belle epoque. A love affair with his English music teachers daughter
ended, not as they both hoped in marriage, but in resentful acquiescence to the
uncom prom ising opposition of the senior ladies of the M awlabakhsh zenana.
Returning to Baroda following M aw labakhshs death, Dr. A. M. Pathan (L. R. A. M.
A. R. C. M .82) as he now styled him self83 was appointed superintendent o f all
State musical departments, charged with the oversight of 500 employees. As
81 T extbooks authored by M aw labakhsh included S a n g ltan u b h a v (1 8 8 8 ) and S a n g lta n u sa r

ch an d o m a n ja rl (1 8 9 2 ).
82 A bbreviation for L icentiate o f the R oyal A cadem y o f M usic, A ssociate o f the R oyal C o lleg e o f
M usic.
83 R eferencing the Pashto-speaking tribes that persisted in armed resistance against the Raj on the
northwestern frontier, to w hich A la al-D in Khan bore only distant relation, the surname Pathan
56
musical director of the Court orchestra he introduced a new European repertoire
ranging from Gluck, Rossini and von Suppe overtures to Strauss waltzes and
similar light classical works but also composed and conducted innovative
84
orchestral arrangements combining Indian and European instruments.
For all his inventive genius, Dr. A. M. Pathans incongruous am algam ation
of modern acculturation and brooding aristocratic pride made him an increasingly
isolated figure in Baroda society. M ahmood Khan reports: Dr. Pathan became an
anti-colonial non-nationalist, resenting the Britons in India as much as he held the
Indian nationalists in contem pt.85 His hardening anti-British attitude eventually
made his conspicuous position in the State untenable, inducing him to leave it for a
com parable one in the independent kingdom of Nepal.
Dr. A. M. Pathan exercised a formative influence on his young nephews,
who im itated his modern mode of dress and address and eagerly tried their hands at
W estern instruments. Inayats sudden zest for non-Indian instrum ents brought
dismay over the family.86 His first work was a violin manual, Inayat phidal
siksak. Following his uncles example, Inayat adopted the name (Professor) Inayat
Khan R. Pathan, and sported English three-piece suits. In the Sufi circles in which
im plied a challenge to British authority. W il van B eek, H a zra t In ayat K han: M a ste r o f Life, M odern
Sufi M y stic (N ew York: V antage Press, 1983), 21.
84 Ibid., 21.
85 Sh. M ahm ood Khan, G enealogical N o te s, 13.
57
87
he later moved in Hyderabad, this fashion statement raised eyebrows. Later, in
Europe and America, he redefined his image, growing out his hair and beard and
assuming a black cassock and a black Ottoman fez in the style of Sir Sayyid
Ahmad Khan. In both contexts the appearances he cultivated placed him as an
ambiguous and liminal figure. Lacking Dr. A. M. Pathans anti-British verve,
while living in London during the First W orld W ar he abandoned the surname
Pathan.
Aspiring to the benchm ark of success established by M awlabakhsh, but
outside the main line of his inheritance, Inayat Khan faced the same dilem m a Dr.
Pathan had earlier confronted. Dr. Pathan found his own kind of fulfillm ent in the
cultivation of a landed gentry existence enhanced by the prestige of musical
virtuosity but unburdened by the onus of performance. Inayat K hans solution was
parallel, but distinctly different. If Dr. Pathan transcended musical professionalism
in aristocracy, Inayat transcended it in sainthood.
Following M aw labakhshs death in 1896, Inayat Khan resolved to
perpetuate his grandfathers project to create a universal system of M usic.88 He
served as a teacher, then professor, at the Gayan Shala, and com posed a series of
musical textbooks, the most substantial being Inayat g it ratnavali (Bombay,
87 Ibid., 77.
88 M iriam R egin B loch , The C on fession s o f In ayat Khan (London: Sufi Publishing S ociety, 1915), 20.
58
1903).89 In 1902, the deaths of his second brother (Karamat Khan), mother, and
two newlywed brides in rapid succession prompted him to leave Baroda on a tour
of the South. On returning it became clear that his uncles occupancy of the most
im portant offices meant that there was insufficient scope for his own advancement
in Baroda State.90
In 1903 Inayat settled in Hyderabad, the last bastion of M ughal culture and
M uslim pow er in British India, in the hope of gaining the patronage of N izam
M ahbub A ll Pasha (r. 1869-1911).91 W hile awaiting introduction to the court he
com posed his musicological ch ef d oeuvre, M inqar-i m usiqar (The Beak o f the
M usiqar Bird, Allahabad, 1912). W ritten in an ornate style of Urdu prose,
M inqar-i m usiqar is divided into equal sections on theory (sangit vidyci) and
practice (sangit kalci). Technical discussions of musicological principles are
punctuated by W estern comparisons, scientific explanations, historical and
religious references, and mystical evocations. Allyn M iner comments: Apparent
here are the ecstatic spirituality, scientific realism, eclectic interest in human
89 On In a ya t g it ra tn a va li, see R. C. M ehta, M usic in the L ife o f Hazrat Inayat Khan, in A P e a rl in

Wine, ed. Inayat-Khan, 167-171.
90 Guillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g rap h y, 65-66.
91 Inayat Khan wrote: Praise be to A llah if today in the land o f India M uslim s take pride in the fact
that w e too are p ossessed o f crow n and throne, and c o llect tax and tribute. That object o f pride is
none other than this pleasant and jo y o u s kingdom , the splendor o f M uslim s and Islam, Hyderabad,
D eccan may A llah enhance the m agnificence o f its ruler throughout the a g e. The B eak o f the
M u siq a r B ird, trans. A llyn M iner, forthcom ing, 5. For an interesting account o f Hyderabad under the
rule o f M ahbub A li Pasha, see Harriet Ronken Lynton and M ohini Rajan, The D a y s o f the B e lo v e d
(B erkeley: U niversity o f California Press, 1974).
59
behavior, ambition, and talent at com municating his ideas which characterize the
90
work he did in his later public life.
On being introduced to the court, Inayat met with high appreciation and
was accorded the title Tansen al-zaman (the Tansen of the A ge93). An official
State position was not offered however. But meanwhile a new line of com m itm ent
and involvem ent was opening. During moments of meditation Inayat repeatedly
glimpsed the lineaments of a luminous countenance. Drawn by these experiences
to seek spiritual training, he visited the circles of several Sufi masters. In
Hyderabad he was introduced to Sayyid Abu Hashim M adani (d. 1907).
Immediately recognizing him as the figure from his visions, he undertook initiation
(bay a t).94
Born in M adras, Sayyid Abu Hashim, son of Sayyid M uham m ad Zahir
M adani, was descended from a line of prom inent Arabian ulama (doctors of law)
and Sufis. Inayat K hans biographical notes identify his grandfather, Sayyid
H am id M adani, as head priest of M edina. 95 Sayyid Abu Hashim studied Islamic
law with M ahbub Ata and Sufism with Sayyid M uhamm ad Hasan al-JIli al-
92 A llyn M iner. T he M in q a r-i m u siq a r and Inayat K hans Early Career in M u sic, in A P e a rl in
Wine, ed. Inayat-Khan, 202.
93 Tansen w as the c h ie f m usician at the court o f Akbar (r. 1556 -1 6 0 5 ).
94 B loch , C on fession s, 36-39; Inayat Khan, The S tory o f M y M y stic a l Life (T he Hague; E ast-W est
Publications, 1982), 17; Guillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y, 75.
95 Rabia Martin. Syed Abu Hashim M adani. Nekbakht Foundation A rchive.
60
KalimI (1808-1890), becoming a khalifa (representative/successor) of the latter.
Sayyid M uhamm ad Hasan oversaw a Chishti khanqah (hospice) in Toli Chowki in
the outskirts of Hyderabad. Born into the saintly lineage of A bd al-Qadir al-JIlanl
in Baghdad, during his childhood his family settled in Delhi, where he becam e a
m urid (disciple), and later khalifa, of M awlana Ghulam N asir al-DIn Kale
M iyan.96 A premonition of the M utiny reputedly directed Sayyid M uham m ad
97
Hasan to take refuge in the Deccan.
A descendant of Shah N izam al-Din AwrangabadI (d. 1730), G hulam N asir
al-D in was the spiritual master (m urshid) of Bahadur Shah Zafar (r. 1838-1857),
the last M ughal emperor. The darbar-khanqah nexus originated in the previous
generation, when Zafars father A kbar II (r. 1806-1837) took Ghulam N asir
al-D ins father Ghulam Qutb al-DIn (d. 1817) as his spiritual master. A kbar II and
Zafar were both authorized to initiate and instruct disciples. The emperors
reciprocally patronized the dargah complex of Khwaja Qutb Sahib at M ehrauli,

_ _ _ QO
overseen successively by Ghulam Qutb al-D in and Ghulam N asir al-Din.
Coming to terms with the complete loss of its temporal authority to the British East
India Company, the Timurid dynasty seems to have contemplated reinventing itself
96 For hagiographical notices on Ghulam N asir al-D in , see Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan,
A th.aral-san a.did, ed. K haliq A njum (N ew D elhi: Urdu A cadem y, 1992), 2:29; and Hajji N ajm al-
D in Sulaym ani, M a n a q ib al-m a h b u b a yn , trans. Ikhtiyar Ahm ad Chishti (Lahore: Islam ic B ook
Foundation, 1979), 90.
97 Zia Inayat-Khan, T he S ilsila-i Sufian : From Khwaja M u 'in al-D in Chishti to Sayyid Abu
Hashim M adani, in A P e a rl in Wine, ed. Inayat-Khan, 316.
61
as a charism atic Chishti hierocracy. The experiment was cut short by the ill-fated
Revolt of 1857. In its aftermath, Zafar was deposed and banished to Rangoon and
the Chishti establishment in the Qasimjan quarter of Delhi was laid w aste."
In a letter penned in 1863, the poet Asad Allah Khan Ghalib, an erstwhile
tenant of Ghulam N asir al-D ins house, darkly recalls the utter devastation
suffered by the Chishti order in the violent transition from indirect to direct British
Imperial rule:
Bountiful master, do you think that Delhi still prospers, and that the Fort
thrives and that the Empire continues, that you ask about the writings of
Hazrat Shaykh (K allm Allah Jahanabadi) and for news of Sahibzada Shah
Qutb al-Din, son of M awlana Fakhr al-Din (G ods mercy be upon him)?
The cow ate all this up, and the butcher killed the cow, and the butcher died
on the road. (i.e. all this is gone beyond recall.) All these things lasted only
so long as the King reigned. Even the house of Kale Sahib (whom God has
pardoned) has been razed as though a great broom had swept it away; not a
scrap of paper, not a thread of gold, not a wisp of wool remains. The tomb
of Shah K alim Allah Jahanabadi (G ods mercy be upon him) stands desolate.
The area once held the population of a good-sized village, for all his
descendents lived there. Now it is a barren waste; a tomb standing in open
ground, with nothing else there. If the people who lived there survived the
bullets, who knows where they are now. It was they who preserved the
98 Percival Spear, T w iligh t o f the M ughuls (Cambridge: Cam bridge U niversity Press, 1951), 7 4 , 78.
99 The fate o f Ghulam N asir al-D in is unclear. See Zia Inayat-Khan, The Silsila-i Sufian, 314.
62
Shaykhs writings and some of his relics; when they have gone, of whom am
I to ask? W hat can I do? Your wish is one that cannot be realized.100
Despite the traum a of this epochal uprooting, there is no record of anti-
British activity or rhetoric among the spiritual heirs of Ghulam N asir al-D in in
Hyderabad. In the years that Inayat knew him, Sayyid Abu Hashim lived as an
inconspicuous retired Sufi scholar surrounded by a small circle of disciples. Visiting
him frequently at his home, Inayat received a course of training that he later
described to a W estern readership and in M iriam B lochs literary voice as
follows:
I studied the Koran, Hadis [hadith], and the literature of the Persian
mystics. I cultivated my inner senses, and underwent periods of
clairvoyance, clairaudience, intuition, inspiration, impressions,
dreams, and visions. I also made experiments in com munication with
the living and the dead. I delved deeply into the occult and psychic
sides of mysticism, as well as realizing the benefits of piety, morality
and bhakti (or devotion). ... After receiving instruction in the five
different grades of Sufism, the physical, intellectual, mental, moral,
and spiritual, I went through a course of training in the four
Schools the Chishtia [Chishtiyya], Nakshebundia [Naqshbandiyya],
Kadaria [Qadiriyya], and Soharverdia [Suhrawardiyya].101
100 Ibid., 291.

101 B loch, C onfessions, 40 -4 1 .
63
The primary effect of this description is to draw lexical links (clairvoyance,
clairaudience, com munication, occultism, etc.) between the classical Islamic Sufi
training that Sayyid Abu Hashim provided and the occult concerns of Inayats
prim ary audience in Europe and America.
The death of Sayyid Abu Hashim in 1907 marked the end of Inayats stay in
Hyderabad. An interior epiphany at the dargah o f the Khwaja M u In al-DIn Chishti
at Ajm er crystallized a reordered hierarchy of priorities: I then chose a quite
different path to the track which I had followed until then ... I turned over a new
page in my life. 102 The reform and m odernization of Indian music remained an
ideal, but that ideal was now assimilated into the sense of a larger spiritual vocation.
He resolved that he would live the life of an adept, hidden in the guise of a
1OT
musician. ' Thus he was launched on the path that led him to becom e a prolific
modernizing and universalizing reformist not, as envisioned by M awlabakhsh, of
music but of mysticism.
102 Guillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., 86; B loch , C on fession s, 2 6 -2 7 (B loch
confusingly p laces this narrative before the narrative o f Inayats initiation).
CHAPTER THREE
THE GENESIS OF THE SUFI ORDER, 1910-1920
India
The early history of the Sufi Order is to a great extent the story of the
w anderlust of its founder, Inayat Khan. It thus serves as an illustration albeit an
atypical one of the as yet largely unstudied cultural crosscurrents generated by the
South Asian diaspora in the high-modern West.
Two specific events unmistakably function as the foundation myths o f the
Sufi Order, and as such are repeatedly invoked in its literature. One is the conferral
of a blessing or injunction on Inayat Khan by his Sufi teacher, Sayyid Abu Hashim
M adani, in Hyderabad in 1907. The second is his embarkation for the W est on
Septem ber 13, 1910. These events call for close exam ination in view of their prim e
im portance in the rhetorical construction of the Sufi O rders origins.
Apart from Inayat K hans own testimony, there is little basis for
reconstructing the life and teachings of Sayyid Abu Hashim M adani. Inayat Khans
succession from M adani is evidenced by a khilafat-nama (certificate of succession).1
In the literature of the Sufi Order, however, it is not M adam s bestowal of khilafat
1 The original docum ent was lost, probably when Fazal M anzil, the fam ily hom e and Khankah in
Suresnes, was taken over by N azi occupation forces during the Second W orld War. Inayat K hans
cousin M uhammad A li Khan had earlier made a transcription that was interred under the cornerstone
64
65
that receives attention, or the document attesting to it, but rather the words of
blessing he is reported to have spoken.
In the first version, dated 1914, these words are given as follows: Go, my
child, into the world, harmonize the East and the W est with the harmony of thy
music; spread the wisdom of Sufism, for thou art gifted by Allah, the m ost M erciful
and Com passionate.2 In the second version, dated 1915, the words are made more
specific: Fare forth ... spread the wisdom of Sufism abroad, for to this end art
th o u .. .3 In the third version, dated 1916 when Inayat Khan had definitively
shifted his focus from the presentation of Indian music to the teaching of Sufism
the harmony of thy music becomes the music of thy Soul, and the blessing is
described as an injunction :
Inayat Khan, the Pioneer Exponent of Sufism and Oriental M usic,

arrived in Am erica in 1910, trusting in the injunction of his Pir-o-
M urshid Kutub-ul-aktab [pir o m urshid qutb al-aqtab4] Syed
M ohamm ed Abu Hashim M adani, the great Sufi Saint of Hyderabad,
who struck the chord of his soul at the right time. He said, when
blessing him, Go thou abroad into the world, harmonize the East and
o f the U niversel T em ple on Septem ber 13, 1926 (see Chapter Four). That copy w as later exhum ed in
the early 1950s, reconstructed from tatters, and transliterated.
2 Baron de T serclaes, Biography o f the Author, in Inayat Khan, Sufi M essa g e o f S p iritu a l L ib e rty
(London: The T heosophical Publishing S ociety, 1914), 15.
3 R egina M iriam B loch , The C on fession s o f In ayat Khan (London: The Sufi Publishing S ociety,
1915), 150.
4 Spiritual preceptor and guide, the p ole o f p o les.
66
the W est with the music of thy Soul, spread the knowledge of Sufism,
for thou art gifted by Allah, the most M erciful and Com passionate.5
Although this was the first mention of the word injunction in the many
successive formulations of his biography, in a private letter to a mureed (m urid,
disciple) in 1911, Inayat Khan had written, My mission here is not for the money
nor for the fame [but] just to obey my Beloved M urshids com mand and spend my
life being an instrum ent of his blessed will.6 Later accounts continue to refer to an
n
injunction. But to complicate matters, the word injunction is sometimes used
without any reference to M adani. For example: Years of this were my preparation
for the inner injunction/ram G od, as a fulfillm ent of the years of devotion, when I
left hom e my native land to give the M essage of Truth to the W estern w orld
(emphasis added).8
The ambivalence of these early accounts prefigures a widening rift of
interpretation in later decades. A biographical essay authored by Baron Van
Pallandt and published by the Sufi M ovement in 1964 omits mention of an
injunction, or even a blessing, and contends: Although his own M urshid and
initiator belonged to the Chishtia [Chishtiyya] order of Sufis, H azrat Inayat Khan
5 A nonym ous, The Sufi C a ll (London: The Sufi Publishing S ociety, 1916), 5-6.
6 Inayat Khan to Rabia Martin, 2 6 Septem ber 1911, Sufism R eoriented A rchive.
7 The Sufi 3, no. 4 (1919): 3; and Guillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y ,
111 (based on a manuscript com posed in 1919-1923).
8 Inayat Khan, M y M ystica l L ife, 20 (reported by Dr. O. C. Griiner in 1919).
67
cannot, strictly speaking, be considered as a link between Chishtia teaching and the
W est, for neither his origin nor his education, culture, or esoteric training should
obscure the fact that the essence of the Sufism he taught is the product of his
individual achievem ent and originality.9 A sharply contrasting statement occurs in
a biography of Inayat Khan written by his son Vilayat in the following decade:
W hen the time of his passing was drawing nigh, Khwaja Abu Hashim M adani
made H azrat Pir-o-M urshid Inayat Khan his successor in the Chain of Sufis, saying
that he had received from Khwaja M uin-ud-din [M uIn al-DIn] Chishti (the founder
of the Order in India) instructions to tell him that he was m issioned to carry the Sufi
M essage to the W est. 10 The circumstances surrounding these divergent readings
will be exam ined in Chapter Five.
W hatever the original form and intent of M adanis statement to his disciple,
three years passed before Inayat Khan departed for America. During this period he
undertook a series of pilgrimages (Gulbarga, M anekpur, Ajmer, M iran Datar),
conducted an extensive and acclaimed musical tour through South India, Ceylon,
and Burma, and ultimately settled in Calcutta, where he lectured and recorded music
with the Gramophone Company, Ltd. Following the death of his father in 1910,
Inayat Khan made plans to travel to America. On September 13, 1910, he set out
from Baroda with his brother M aheboob Khan (1887-1948) and cousin M uham m ad
9 Baron van Pallandt, ed., The Sufi M essa g e and. the Sufi M o vem en t (London: Barrie and R ock liff,
1964), 11-12.
68
Ali Khan (1881-1958). At Bombay the party took passage on a ship bound for
Naples. Inayat K hans state of mind at the time is described evocatively in the
secretarial compilation Biography o f Pir-o-M urshid Inayat K han:
The ocean that I had to cross seemed to me a gulf between the life
that was passed and the life which was to begin. I spent my moments
on the ship looking at the rising and falling of the waves and realizing
in this rise and fall the picture of life reflected, the life of individuals,
of nations, of races, and of the world. ... This period while I was on
the way, was to me a state which one experiences between a dream
and an aw akening.11
Seven years later, Hejirat Day was established as an official annual Sufi Festival
1^
com memorating the voyage of Inayat Khan and his companions to the W est. One
of the two essential foundation myths of the Sufi Order was thus form alized with a
name that referenced the Islamic concept of hijra (emigration). As a religious
concept, hijra has its original basis in the mass migration of the early M uslim
com munity from M ecca to M edina to escape the persecution of the pagan Quraysh,
marking the com mencement of the Islamic calendar. The mythic quality of that
episode exercised a pervasive influence within Islamic civilization: Islam is
10 Pir V ilayat Inayat Khan, The M essa g e in O ur Tim e (San Francisco: Harper and R ow, 19 7 8 ), 69.
11 Guillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed.. B io g ra p h y, 121.
12 Sufi Order C onstitition, Fazal M anzil A rchive.
perm eated with a nostalgia for departure. 13 Consequently travel is a major
preoccupation of the premodern Sufi tradition. As a metaphor, travel provided
imagery that was extensively utilized in describing the progress of the Sufi toward
Allah (suluk). As a practice, travel was recognized as a legitimate Sufi vocation
replete with its own code of proper behavior (adab).14 W hile com merce and
conquest opened up new territories in the Islamic M iddle Periods, the itineraries of
wandering Sufis produced shrines that functioned as landmarks configuring an
expanding sacred geography.15
The primary meaning of hijra in Islamic law is the obligation to emigrate
from lands where Islam is threatened (dar al-harb) to lands where Islam is
unthreatened {dar al-islam ). In the late nineteenth century, M uslim jurists debated
whether British rule rendered India dar al-harb, and if so, whether hijra and jih a d
(holy war) were therefore obligatory. Not all interpretations of hijra, however,
restricted emigration to M uslim countries. M odernist exegetes supported the
aspirations of M uslims seeking higher education or employment in the W est, citing
13 Peter Lamborn W ilson, S a c re d D rift: E ssa ys on the M a rg in s o f Islam (San Francisco: City Lights
B ook s, 1993), 129.
14 S ee A h bin Uthman al-H ujw iri, K a sh f al-m ah ju b, ed. V. Zhukovsky (Tehran: A m ir Kabir, n.d.),
4 4 9 -4 5 3 . A l-H ujw iri was h im self an accom plished traveler.
15 S ee N ile Green, M igrant Sufis and Sacred Space in South A sian Islam , C o n tem p o ra ry South A sia
12, no. 4 (2003): 4 3 9 -5 0 9 .
70
the propagation of Islam and the advancement of M uslim society as sufficient
justification to authorize this new type of travel as a form of hijra.16
In describing their voyage to the W est as a hijra, Inayat Khan and his
com panions availed themselves of a convenient and respectable explanation, one
that was sufficiently commodious in its im plications to include both learning and
teaching. Viewed through the lens of Islamic modernism, the term hijra is perfectly
consistent with the motivations Inayat Khan expressed in an interview in 1907
(when his com mand of English was very limited):
M y sole object of travel is to admire the works of God by

appreciating music as exists in the different parts of the civilized
world, and thus come into close touch with G ods higher power.
Besides, I have my better and superior interest to do good to my
fellowm en and enable them to im prove by means of this Art; and I
wish to realize this object by picking up foreign music and giving
them to my friends.17
It was only later, when Hejirat Day had becom e an established holiday and
the Sufi Order was infused with messianic expectations (see Chapter Four) that
Inayat K hans embarkation took on the full weight of sacred history, and was
16 Muhammad Khalid M asud, The O bligation to Migrate: The D octrine o f H ijra in Islam ic L aw , in
M uslim T ravellers, ed. D ale E ickelm an and Jam es Piscatori (B erk eley and L os A n geles: U niversity o f
California Press, 1990), 29 -5 0 .
17 The M yso re H era ld , 28 N ovem ber 1907, cited in B io g ra p h y, 301.
71
com m em orated as the birthday of the M essage. 18 W hat mattered then was not the
social or legal definition of hijra, but its mythical and prophetic resonance.
Am erica
At a reception hosted by the orientalist aesthete Edm und Russell, Inayat
Khan was introduced to the head of the Colum bia University faculty of music, Dr.
Rybner. Dr. Rybner arranged a concert at the university. Among the audience was
Ruth St. Denis (1879-1968), a dancer who had emerged from a background in
vaudeville to become a classical performer in the category of Isadora Duncan. St.
Denis was famous for her translations of Egyptian and Indian dances, which
typified the fanciful fashions of popular orientalism .19 As a means to an end,
Inayat Khan and his com panions who styled themselves The Royal M usicians of
Hindustanjoined St. D enis troupe, touring with her as far as San Francisco. The
association, however, was short lived: when St. Denis requested a certificate of
proficiency in Indian dance, Inayats refusal led to a parting of company. He later
observed:
W e had an interesting tour together throughout the States, and yet for
the public ... our music became merely an entertainment. This was
an amusement for them, and therefore painful for us. Also it was not
18 R. C. C. Faber, W . M usharaff Khan-de K onigh, J. M . M unst, M ahm ood Khan, A . van Seters, and
H. J. W itteveen, ed., 19 1 0 -1 50 : F o rty Years o fS u fism (The Hague: The Sufi M ovem ent, 1950), 11,
85.
72
satisfactory to combine real with imitation. However it helped keep

20
the w olf away from our door.
In the spring of 1911 Inayat Khan made successful presentations in academic
venues in California. He was also invited to speak at the Vedanta Society Hindu
Temple in San Francisco, where his presentation made a particularly deep
impression on one m ember of the audience, a m arried Jewish woman in her m id
thirties named Ada Martin. The encounter with Inayat Khan inspired in M artin an
ecstatic state according to one account she experienced a visitation of the Prophet
M uham m ad and prom pted her to follow the Royal M usicians to their next
concert.21 Soon thereafter Inayat initiated her as his first mureed, granted her the
honorary name (laqab) Rabia, and began her training. This was the beginning of
Inayat K hans Sufi work, as he later reflected: ... I was meant to com e to San
Francisco, a land full of psychic powers and cosmic currents, and begin from there
the work o f my M essage.22
Several others were initiated in the wake of M artin, but she was to remain Inayat
K hans prim ary student and prospective representative in America. Frequent letters
19 S ee Farrell, Indian M usic a n d the W est, 150-52.

21 M urshid W ali A li M eyer, A Sunrise in the W est: Hazrat Inayat Khans L egacy in C alifornia, in A
P e a rl in Wine, ed. Zia Inayat-Khan (N ew Lebanon, N .Y .: O m ega Publications, 2 0 0 1 ), 395. S ee also
M artins letter to Khan, dated 17 April 1911, reproduced in Guillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst
van B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y, 36 0 -1 .
22 Guillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y, 124-5.
73
were exchanged between them, in which he provided instructions and she in turn
described her experiences. Recognizing what he considered to be her special
spiritual capacity, his first instruction to her was to perform 200 repetitions of dhikr
(.la ilaha ilia llah) every night at 11 PM .23 The following month, he encouraged her
to see God in every form, continuing the dhikr as a silent //7r.24 Next he advised
watching the heart for at least fifteen minutes per day, maintaining//& r on the breath
at all times, holding the image of the murshid, practicing shughl (explained below),
and avoiding meat and specifically refraining from eating pork.
As M artin com municated the results of her practices, Inayat Khan expressed
great satisfaction in her progress. He recom mended that she read the M asnavi of
RumI, the Divan of Hafiz, and the Gulistdn and Biistan of S adl to which he later
added the Q uran, and the works of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Sayyid A m ir
A ll.26 Nonetheless, he wrote, the Sufi practice of one hour is more than the Sufi
reading of one year, and M urshids presence is more that the Sufi practice of one
27
year. He acknowledged the difficulty she was having in holding a mental image
of him (in tasawwur-i m urshid), but explained that using a photo would be
idolatrous. W hen she would succeed in constructing a concrete form she would
23 Inayat to Martin, 4 M ay 1911, Sufism R eoriented A rchive.

24 Inayat to Martin, 12 June 1911 and 30 June 1911, Sufism R eoriented A rchive.
25 Inayat to Martin, 25 July 1911, Sufism R eoriented A rchive.
~b Inayat to Martin, 29 July 1911 and 11 D ecem ber 1911, Sufism R eoriented A rchive.
27 Inayat to Martin, 16 A ugust 1911, Sufism R eoriented A rchive.
74
pass the grade o f f ana f i shaykh (annihilation in the master).28 In anticipation of the
grade of f a n a f i rasul (annihilation in the Prophet), he instructed her to recite darud
29
(benediction on the Prophet) 1100 times every morning.
Inayat Khan wrote reverently of the piran-i khandan, or murshids in chain,
and repeatedly attributed M artins rapid progress to their blessing. He described
M edina as the holy headquarters of the Sufis of the world, and Baghdad and
Ajm er as the headquarters of the Sufis of Persia and India respectively. O f his own
m urshid, he wrote with traditional humility, I am not even worthy of calling m yself
the dust of his feet.30 He explained his intention to establish a Sufic Order in
A m erica in fulfillm ent of M adanis com m and, confiding that, my connection
with music or theater was just to keep up my mission by the financial help of my
31
art. Nonetheless, he differentiated his motivations from the actions of Christian
missionaries in India:
There is nothing that could satisfy our M urshids, if an order of

Sufism is established in America, because they are not hungry for
anything but one, and that is the satisfaction by honest human service.
America is spending such a lot of money by sending missionaries
there in India who instead of doing service, do harm to the people. If
they just think to improve the religious and philosophic ideas of their

31 Ibid.
75
own people by helping such a holy cause it would be a great service

to God and much favor on hum ankind.32
Despite his criticism of Christian missionaries, the com parison itself suggests
that Inayat Khan saw his journey to America as one that mirrored and inverted the
civilizing mission of orientalist adventurers and missionaries in India. For him,
Europe and Am erica were the exotic and in some sense benighted destinations in
need o f spiritual acculturation. In this he followed in the tracks o f Swami
Vivekananda, with whom we begin to notice the beginnings of a mission in
reverse an attempt to shout down the colonizer, to make the W est listen for a
33
change. ' W hen it was suggested to Inayat Khan that he take some of our
Christian religion to the East, he replied, It has already come from the East, sir.34
By the end of 1911 M artin had received instructions in all of the basic
practices. Inayat wrote, You have now to continue your practice of wayalat [amal]
with zikar [dhikr], fikar [fikr], shagal [shughl], and darood [darud] forever.35 The
focus of his letters now shifted to the mission of establishing Sufism in America, and
M artins im portant role in this. From New York he wrote:
... I want somebody to undertake my mission as my successor in

A m erica before I would leave, and you know that my presence is
33 I b 'd '
Hatcher, E clecticism a n d M odern H indu Thought, 98.
35 Inayat to Martin, 7 N ovem ber 1911, Sufism R eoriented A rchive.
76
very necessary in India to save Hindu music from its downfall. I find
you the most suited of my mureeds because I see in you a great faith
and devotion besides very good heartful of love and affection
together with illuminated intellect. Also you are possessing all of the
attributes of humanity that is the m ost im portant thing for a spiritual
guide. Now in your spiritual development I see great im provement
and every hope for the future. All this shows that God almighty and
all M urshids in Chain have selected you to bestow upon you this
honour but before I give you a written diplom a of Khilafat in Sufic
order, I must teach you the work of training mureeds of different
dispositions. You are trained by quite an exceptional method. It was
no training, it was ju st a divine blessing. But this could not be the
case with others 36
Though characterized as ju st a divine blessing, M artins training included,
in addition to the guidance she received by mail, a full set of instructions titled
Book of Instructions for the M urshid. According to M artins later esoteric
secretary Samuel Lewis, [the manuscript] was dictated largely by Pir-o-M urshid
him self and under these circumstances: The lights went out and Pir-o-M urshid
turned on his own light and Rabia took down these notes under the spiritual light.37
36 Inayat to Martin, 11 D ecem ber 1911, Sufism R eoriented A rchive.

37 Samuel L ew is to Shamcher Bryn B eorse, 1 1 April (no year), Fazal M anzil A rchive. Sim ilar
miracles are attributed to pre-m odern Chishti saints. A ccording to R ashid al-D in M awdud Lala,
M u kh bir a l- a w liy a , fol. 4 7 9 v , Shahibagh C ollection, Shaykh Muhammad Chishti (d. 1630) was
known to read books at night by the light o f his ow n aura.
The Book of Instructions outlines seven stages of study: K alam a (kalm a),
Nimaz (namaz), W azifa (w azifa), Zikar (dhikr), Fikar (fikr), Shagal (shughl), and
Amal ( am al).38 The first section, on Kalama (or M antram), lists five Islamic
professions of faith to be recited in Arabic by new initiates 100-300 times daily. In
the second section, on Nimaz (or Yoga), the Islamic ritual prayer (salat) is
summarized and prescribed as a prerequisite for further esoteric study: If [the
39
practitioner] fails to advance in this, there is no hope for his future.' The third
section, on W azifa (or Secrets of M antra Yoga), lists a series of D ivine Names and
other Arabic invocations, and explains the circumstances under which they are to be
used, stressing the importance of secrecy and dietary purity. The fourth section
introduces the distinctively Chishti practice of dhikr-i ya kza rb i, in standing and
sitting forms, and presents a picture of the effects of dhikr on the practitioner:
mildness in the face; meekness and humbleness in nature; delicacy and tenderness
in system; tears very often in the eyes; signs increasing in proportion to
development; calm and quietness every moment; sometimes mild pain in the
heart.40 The fifth section, on Fikar, details a variety of practices belonging to the
traditional categories of dhikr-i khafi (silent dhikr), muraqaba (contemplation), and
38 A revised sequence is given in the first edition o f Inayat K hans first E nglish book: N im az. W azifa,
Zikar, Fikar, Kasab (q a sb ), Shagal, A m al. See Inayat Khan, S p iritu a l L ib erty, 55. Inayats equation
o f Arabic and Sanskrit terms in the original form ulation reflects the Ganga-Jamni hybrid culture o f
Indian Islam. Sim ilarly, A z iz M iyan identifies ib a d a t, kalm a, nam az, rauza, m u ra q a b a , d h ik r,
ash g a l, and h a b s-i d a m , with gayan , dhyan, asan , sam adh i, etc. S ee Shah M uhamm ad Taqi N iyazI,
R az-i m u h a b b a t (B areilly: M uhammad Ja'far N izam i N iyazI, n.d.), 4.
78
tasawwur-i shaykh (visualization of the shaykh). The sixth section, on Shagal,
describes a series of yogic Sufi exercises identified as sultan-i nasira, sultan-i
mahmuda, and sultan al-azkar. The instructions represent elaborations on the
simpler forms given in the classic Chishti m editation manuals.41 As in the Chishti
manuals, the m anuscript defines the objective of these disciplines as the ability to
perceive the abstract sound (sawt-i sarm adi or anahat nad). The manuscript
concludes with brief sections on the duration of practices, the ritual of initiation, and
prayers before lectures; no description of Amal is given.42
On the basis of the Book of Instructions it is evident that Inayat K hans
early mureeds in general, and Rabia M artin in particular, received an intensive and
systematic course of esoteric training that differed little in form from the Sufism
practiced among Chishti initiates in India. This was to change in later years, as one
of Inayats early American mureeds observed:
39 Inayat Khan, B o o k o f Instructions for M urshid, Fazal M anzil A rchive, 5.

40 Ibid., 18.
41 On the practices o f su lta n -i n a sira , su lta n -i m ahm uda, and sultan a l-a zk a r in classical Chishti
sources, see: Khwaja M u in al-D in C hishti (attr.), R isd la -yi sa rm a y a -yi yu g , Fazal M anzil Library, 6;
Shah K alim A llah Jahanabadi, K ash ku l-i K alirni (D elhi: M atba-i M ujtabai, 1890-1), 30; Shah
N izam al-D in A wrangabadi. N izam al-c/uluh (D elhi: M atba-i M ujtabai, 1890-1), 33: Khwaja
M ahmud Ahntadabadi, K ita b al-M ah m u d (Hyderabad: M atba-i Fakhr-i N iza m i, n.d.), 62; Hajji
Imdad A llah M uhajir MakkI, Z iy a ' a l-qu lu b (D elhi: M atba-i M ujtabai, 1894), 30-34; Khwaja Hasan
N izam i, T alqin-i Y aq in , M u n a d i-yi D ih li, June 1957: 16. In the later Esoteric Papers o f Inayat
Khan, these practices are referenced in Gita III: Ryazat: and Sangatha III: R yazat, Fazal M anzil
A rchive.
42 Instructions in this practice were later incorporated in a series o f papers titled Sangita III,
reserved for tw elfth-level initiates.
79
It surprised me ... to discover that later mureeds must have protested

at having to devote a half-hour to practices. I protested, too, but in
those days my evening practices, alone, required over two hours!43
In the fall of 1911 Inayat Khan returned with his companions to New York,
where he lectured at the Sanscrit College of Baba Premanand Bharati (d. 1914).
There he made the acquaintance of C. H. A. Bjerregaard, the librarian of the Astor
Library and author of a book on Omar Khayyam and Sufism. Bjerregaard was later
made an honorary member the Sufi Order, and a second edition of his book a
m ixture of Mr. Bjerregaards style and Inayats elucidations44 was among the first
publications of the O rders publication department. During this period Inayat
K hans youngest brother M usharaff Khan (1895-1967) arrived from Baroda. It was
also at this time that Inayat Khan met the woman whom he was to marry. The
young Ora Ray Baker (1892-1949) was under the guardianship of her half-brother
Pierre Bernard (a.k.a. Oom the Om nipotent, 1875-1955), the charism atic founder
of the Tantrik Order of America45, who had arranged for her to study vina with
Inayat. W hen courtship ensued, Bernard took extreme exception, alternately
43 Munira N aw n, An Old M ureed R em em bers, in F orty Years, ed. R. C. C. Farber et al., 4 6 .

44 Elisabeth de Jong-K eesing, In a ya t A n sw ers (The Hague: E ast-W est Publications, 1977), 240. For
an analysis, see D e Jong-K eesing, In a ya t Khan: A B io g ra p h y (The Hague: E ast-W est Publications,
1974), 103-4. Bjerregaards second edition received a lukewarm review from the esoteric scholar
Arthur Edward W aite in The O ccu lt R eview 24 (July 1916): 5 7 -5 8 . Soon after the b o o k s publication,
there seem s to have been a falling out betw een Bjerregaard and Rabia Martin, and Bjerregaards
name is not m entioned again. Inayat to Martin, 9 February 1916, Sufism R eoriented A rchive.
45 On Pierre Bernard see A ndrew R aw linson, The B ook o f E n ligh ten ed M a ste rs (C hicago and La
Salle, 111.: Open Court, 1997), 61 6 -7 .
80
threatening violence and legal action: Enthusing about oriental wisdom was one
thing, allowing ones sister to marry a brown foreigner was another m atter.46
Bernards reaction was symptomatic of the dialectic of attraction and
repulsion that Homi Bhabha describes as the am bivalence of colonial desire.
Bernards risque Tantrik Order appealed to the sensuality and mystery of an
imagined Orient, but when the power relation appeared to reverse directions,
hybridity lost its attraction. Bernard was not alone in his fears. The perception of
Inayat Khan and other Indian spiritual teachers as alluring and dangerous others,
threatening the purity of American women, formed the basis of a synchronous news
story, titled American W omen Victims of Hindu M ysticism :
The latest addition to the ranks of Oriental mystics is Inayat Khan, a

Pathan, from the mountain regions of Afghanistan. He is slightly
above medium height, very dark, good looking, and wears a short,
pointed Van Dyke beard and well waxed moustache. ... Inayat Khan,
in India, is recognized as a clever exponent of Eastern vocal music
and voice culture. He preaches a different cult altogether from the
Vedanta swamis, with the exception of the love element. Islam ism as
the Sunnis, the strictest of the M oslem sects, understand it is readily
poured into listening ears by Inayat Khan. ... W ith almost physical
force the insistent cry of Love, love dominates all other sensations.
The dark, liquid eyes of the preacher are luminous with emotion. Fair
bosoms rise and fall, for a major part of the audience is women the
46 D e Jong-K eesing, In a ya t K han, 107.
81
atmosphere is electrical. A new sensation is experienced; there is

something new to think of; an attraction springs up between teacher
and pupils and a new religion or new obsession is formed and
propagated, with American women for disciples and a dark-skinned
hierophant from the mountains of Afghanistan as the master.47
England
In the spring of 1912 the Khans sailed for England. No explanation is given
for the move in the Biography, but B ernards threats may have been a significant
factor in the decision. Several months in London yielded a num ber of interesting
social contacts (including Cyril Scott, Lord Dunsany and Rabindranath Tagore) but
few professional opportunities. A clergym ans daughter, Mary W illiams, became
the first English mureed, with the laqab Zohra. On the advice of the musicologist
Eox Strangeways, the Khans departed for Lrance, leaving W illiams to tend the seed
of Sufism in England.48
Across the Channel, the occult bookshop ow ner Edm ond Bailly organized a
concert for the Royal M usicians. Afterward, between lectures hosted by the
Theosophical Society, they performed in the orientalist drama K ism et and with M ata
Hari. M oving in the monde of French society among aristocrats and artists, meeting
celebrities like Lucien Guitry, Auguste Rodin, and Isadora Duncan, Inayat Khan
47 W ashington P o st, 18 February 1912.

48 B loch , C on fession s, 5 1.
was, by his own account, reversing the colonial gaze: studying the W estern mind,
the m entality of the Occidental people, their attitude towards life, religion and
God.49 In March of 1913 Ora Ray Baker arrived from America and, marrying
Inayat Khan in London, became Pirani A m eena Begum. M eanwhile more initiations
were given. Inayat wrote to Rabia M artin, I have already started the Sufi
movem ent in Paris and now I am going to spread it in England.50 A manuscript by
Inayat Khan was published in a French edition. The title, A Sufi M essage o f
Spiritual Liberty, suggests that Inayat was now clearly attuned to the avant-garde
spirit o f the age, the m otif of liberation.51
Following contacts with Claude Debussy in the spring, the Royal M usicians
accepted an invitation to Russia, where Inayat Khan lectured to large audiences and
was widely introduced in musical circles. Concert performances brought in
substantial income, and in a mood of confidence the brothers wrote to their cousin
M ehrbakhsh in Baroda, renouncing the remittances they had until then regularly
received from the family estate. An army officer named Henry Balakin received
initiation, and promptly translated A Sufi M essage o f Spiritual Liberty into Russian.
Inayat Khan later com mented appreciatively on the Eastern type of discipleship he
49 Guillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, eu., B io g ra p h y, 132-3.
50 Inayat to Martin, 10 June 1913, Sufism Reoriented A rchive.
51 M odris Eksteins, R ites o f Spring: The G re a t "War a n d the Birth o f the M odern A g e (N ew York:
A nchor B oo k s. 1990). xv.
83
found among Russian mureeds.52 Russia was culturally closer to home: In Am erica
the four men from Baroda had been colored people; in England, natives; in France,
foreigners; here, they were Khans.53 Inayat K hans first daughter, Noor-un-nisa,
was born in M oscow on 1 January 1914.54 Oral tradition suggests that the family
intended to return to India via Central Asia, but were deterred by political
disturbances in Turkistan.55 Instead they returned to Paris, ostensibly to participate
in the Congres International de M usique, for which they arrived late. In August,
Germany declared war on France, and they fled to Fondon, leaving behind numerous
valued possessions, including instrum ents and recordings. Their travels had come to
an abrupt end.
In Fondon the family found lodging at Addison Road. A Dutch singer
named M adam e de Revalieu (who later wrote under the name Raden Ayou Jodjana)
soon joined them in the double capacity of music student and housekeeper. Her
memoirs provide a unique account of the early phase of Inayat K hans work in
Fondon. She writes:
52 B loch . C onfessions, 52.

53 D e Jong-K eesing, In a ya t Khan, 132.
54 For her biography, see Jean Overton Fuller, N ur-un-nisa In a ya t Khan (Rotterdam and London:
East-W est Publications, 1 9 7 1).
55 A ccording to the oral transm ission. Henry Balakin, orientalist and secret service officer, in M ay
1914 warned Hazrat Inayat Khan and his brothers o ff their intended return to India via Turkistan, as
war may break out any m om ent n o w . O nly Russian archives m ight as yet decid e whether that
referred to the perrenial feuding in Central A sia or, tantalizingly, to the im m inent disaster in E urope.
Shaikh ul-M ashaikh M ahm ood Khan, N otes on the History o f the Sufi M ovem en t, Asan M anzil
A rchive, 1.
84
In the intimate circle of Inayat K hans family in Addison Road, we

formed the first group in England of initiated adepts. Begam, his
young wife, and I were the only women in his circle. Inayat Khan
taught us all to master emotional states causing reactions in conduct
and expression. And he submitted all of us to severe tests.
M aheboob was the most advanced murid. He showed me the way to
listen towards within for the answer to the problems we met in daily
life. M ohamm ed Ali, a man of deep passions, was very severe with
him self and with others. M ushraff [Musharaff] never arrived at
mastering his emotions.^6
It was not long before the intimate circle of Addison Road expanded and
gave rise to a growing organization. The burgeoning organization announced itself
by means of a journal, titled The Sufi: A Quarterly M agazine, the first issue o f which
appeared in February 1915. The first page lists the Representatives of the Sufi
Order: Inayat Khan (The General Representative on W orlds Tour), M iss M ary
W illiams (London), M. Albert Caillet Chishte (Paris), Mme. Rabia A da M artin
(San Francisco), and M eherbux Jafir Khan (Baroda). This is followed by a summary
o f the O rders teachings and objects, the first of several formulations drafted in the
London years:
The Sufi Teachings:

1. To overcome beliefs and disbeliefs by self-realisation.
56 Raden A you Jodjana, A B ook o f S e lf R e-E du cation (E ssex: L. N . Fow ler & C o., 1981), 172.
85
2. N ever to be enslaved by principles.

3. That the best moral is Love and the m ost praiseworthy Beauty.
4. To be pure from distinctions and differences by merging into the
Oneness.
5. That wisdom is the true religion.
6. That Harmony is in justice, while justice lies in reciprocity.
7. That music is food of the soul and the source of all perfection.
The Objects of the Order are:
1. To establish a human brotherhood with no consideration of caste,
creed, race, nation or religion, for differences only create a lack of
harmony and are the source of all miseries.
2. To spread the wisdom of the Sufis, which has been until now a
hidden treasure, although it is indeed the property of mankind and has
never belonged to any race or religion.
3. To attain that perfection wherein mysticism is no longer a mystery,
but redeems the disbeliever from ignorance and the believer from
falling victim to hypocrisy.
4. To harmonize East and W est in music, the universal language, by an
exchange of knowledge and a revival of unity.
5. To bring forth Sufi literature which is most beautiful and instructive
in all aspects of knowledge.
The Theosophical Publishing Society had published the first English edition
o f A Sufi M essage o f Spiritual Liberty in 1914, but now The Sufi announced the
formation of an official publishing department of the Sufi Order. In its first year the
Sufi Publishing Society published four volumes: The Confessions o f Inayat K han, a
86
collaborative autobiography of Inayat Khan by Regina M iriam Bloch; The Diwan o f
Inayat Khan and Songs o f India, products of a collaboration between Inayat Khan
and the poet Jessie Duncan W estbrook; and Bjerregaards Sufism: O mar Khayyam
and E. Fitzgerald.
The Sufi also announced a series of public lectures to be given by Inayat
Khan at the Royal Asiatic Society, and a schedule of prayers, classes and interviews
conducted at Addison Road. W hen Inayat Khan later recalled these lectures and
classes, he stressed the difficulty of generating interest in Sufism in the m idst of a
terrible war:
Owing to the war, the mind of every person in England was taken up
by the thought of war, and the voice of peace at that mom ent was a
dissonant chord to the ears of many. In answer to my call for peace I
often heard people say: Kill or be killed. ... I cannot forget the time
when I spoke for about six months continually to no more than three
persons as my audience.57
In 1915 the European conflict was sinking to new depths of brutality, taking
on the character of Total W ar. Soldiers and civilians faced ordeals that were
unprecedented in the history of warfare. In April, in violation of international
conventions, the Germans utilized poison gas with devastating results at the second
battle of Ypres on the W estern Front. In May, German Zeppelins began bombing
87
the British capital, causing few casualties but sending masses of terrified Londoners
into the shelter of the Underground.58 Nonetheless, British resolve remained high; in
fact, G erm anys systematic flouting of international standards more firmly
convinced the British of the morality of their cause: For the Germans this was a war
to change the world; for the British this was a war to preserve a w orld.'59
In this climate of moral indignation, Inayat K hans idealistic message of
Love, Harmony, and Beauty could be expected to find few listeners. The idea of
peace through music seemed a naive dream at a historical moment when bombs
were routinely raining down over London. Even The Occult Review expressed
skepticism:
The harmonizing of East and W est in M usic, the universal language,

is a beautiful sentiment, but the heart must be ready for this harmony,
which cannot otherwise outlast the discords of conflicting national
interests. We see now in the violent struggle of Germany with her
neighbors the present hopelessness of this idea; for the glorious
harmonies of music gained their most majestic heights in that
unhappy country, now drunk with hate and disharmony.60
57 Guillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed.. B io g ra p h y, 139.
58 Fam ily oral tradition relates that air raids repeatedly com p elled the Khans to take refuge in the
basem ent o f the Khankah, where they w ould practice prayer and meditation. M ahm ood Khan,
personal com m unication, 25 Septem ber 2005.
59 Eksteins, R ites o f S prin g, 119.
60 The O ccu lt R eview 2 2 (A ugust 1915): 122.
Inevitably, Inayat Khan was confronted with persistent queries about the
occult causes of the war and the outlook for the future. He professed a reluctance to
answer, saying the Holy Prophet was never in favor of prophecies, but then
enum erated three principal causes: the curse of modern civilization, purely
material progress, and lack of harmony between the sexes. He anticipated a
mounting cataclysm, after which would come a period of peace when a new
religion of universal brotherhood will be form ed and Truth ... will arise in the
souls of men and unite different faiths and beliefs in the perfect unity of sublimest
wisdom Sufism .61 The essay makes explicit reference to the Q uran and hadith,
and invokes the term Kayamat (qiyam at, resurrection). Hence its millenarian
vision m ight be interpreted as a heavily secularized articulation of Islamic
eschatology. Equally, however, it resonates with the expectations of the
Theosophical Society, which foresaw the advent of a Golden Age in which nation
states would coexist in a harmonious federation based on brotherhood.62
From the Headquarters of the Theosophical Society in Adyar, Annie Besant
com mented extensively on the events of the war. She drew attention to the League
of M editation in England, which organized daily meditation groups to send thoughts
of love and goodwill to all who were suffering, and anticipated that the Theosophical
Society would have a role to play in the process of reconciliation that would follow
61 The Sufi 1 (February 1915): 9.
89
the war: W hen the war is over, I hope the influence of the Society in the various
countries may draw the nations again more nearly together, and I am sure that no
Theosophist will allow for one moment any feeling of hatred to enter his heart
against any nation.63 At the same time, Besant had little sympathy for the
Germans, whom she described as, the reincarnation of the barbarous tribes which
destroyed Roman civilization and drove Europe out of the light of Greece and Rome
into the Dark Ages.64 This was a war for the imperial crown of the w orld, and
the two rival claimants were opposite in every respect. Germany was a bestial
autocracy inspired by the New Barbarism of N ietzsches will to power. England
was human, progressive, peaceful, and com mitted to international law and the
Concert of Nations.65 Englands cause therefore justified the sacrifice of life and
limb on the altar of a high Ideal.66 If Englands colonies would rise to the occasion
and come to her defense, victory over Germany would usher in a new era in which
the British Em pire would re-create itself as a federation of self-governing nations
united by brotherhood and righteousness.67
Privately, Inayat Khan and his brothers were ambivalent in their political
opinions. Colonial bonds culturally linked them to England, but they were not
62 Gauri V iswanathan, O u tside the Fold: C onversion, M odern ity, a n d B e lie f (Princeton: Princeton
U niversity Press, 1998), 189-90.
63 A nnie B esant, W ar A rticle s a n d N o tes (London: The T heosophical Publishing S ociety, 1915), 43,
22.
64 Ibid., 68.
65 Ibid., 67 -7 2 .
90
indifferent to the indignity of foreign rule.68 They planned to contribute to the war
effort by performing a string of concerts for Indian soldiers, but after they were
overheard performing a song with clearly rebellious implications C H anum an ki puja
Ram k a re V ) the tour was cancelled.69 Their feelings about the war were also
com plicated by the Ottoman Em pires involvement; as M uslims, they looked to
70
Ottoman Turkey as the last bastion of Islamic culture and power.
Publicly, in contrast to Annie Besant, Inayat Khan avoided analyzing the war
in terms of the differing ideologies of the parties of the conflict. Instead he called
attention to the problems of W estern modernity itself. Devoid of spiritual idealism,
the K ali-Y ugas so-called civilization had succeeded only in producing engines of
destruction. He mused ironically: It would have been better if the present crisis
could have taken place at a later date, when man could have perfected his machinery
to such an extent that machine might have fought with machine, and humanity
would have been saved from annihilation.71
After the Battle of Somme resulted in a million casualties and no advance for
the Allies, many people in England seriously contemplated the possibility that the
66 Ibid., 3.
67 Ibid., 70.
68 A s com in g from the Indian states, not British India, they were not really very nationalistic until
infected in London: one available link with local Indians! Sh. M ahm ood Khan, personal
com m unication, 3 0 Septem ber 2005.
69 D e Jong-K eesing, In a ya t K han, 144-5, 2 8 2 n. 5.
70 Sh. M ahm ood Khan, personal com m unication, 25 Septem ber 2005; and D e Jong-K eesing, In a ya t
Khan, 145.
71 The Sufi 1 (Septem ber 1915): 66.
91
war m ight never end.72 But Inayat Khan was convinced that, the present nightm are
73
is but a passing dream which will vanish as does the mist of the m orn. In July
1918 German troops began deserting in large numbers, and Inayat forecasted a new
era using imagery that echoes the rhetorical valorization of death for the sake of
creative rebirth that originally underwrote G erm anys w ar culture74: the great
suffering that mother earth is passing through in these times, and the blood that is
staining the soil of the world is not in vain from a seers point of view; it signifies
the birth o f a new era which promises new life and a new w orld (italics added).75
The idea of a new era, born of sacrifice, is what the Sufi Order, the
Theosophical Society, and hyper-modern German nationalism all had in com m on to
some measure, in contradistinction to the predominantly conservative tenor of the
m ainstream English response to the war. But if Germany anticipated an apotheosis
of nationalism, and Annie Besant foresaw a world brotherhood endowed with the
characteristics o f a spiritualized British com monwealth, Inayat Khan envisioned a
radically post-nationalist, and even post-religious, future:
The races of the coming era will mix, every day more and more,
developing finally into a worldwide race. The nations will develop a
dem ocratic spirit and will overthrow every element that embitters
them against each other. Nations will group themselves in alliances,
72 Paul F u ssell, The G re a t W ar a n d M o d ern M em ory (N ew York: O xford U niversity Press, 1977), 7 1-
74.
73 The Sufi 2 (N ovem b er 1916): 16.
74 Eksteins, R ites o f S prin g, 90 -9 4 .
92
and will grow into a world alliance of nations, so that no nation may
be oppressed by another, but all work with harmony and freedom for
a com mon peace. Science will probe the secrets of the life unseen,
and art will follow nature closely. The people of all classes will draw
nearer, and a spirit of equality will be seen everywhere. The caste

system will vanish and com munities will lose their exclusiveness, all
m ingling together in one hum an brotherhood. The religions will
draw closer to each other and their followers will be tolerant to one
another. In the house of worship of one religion the followers of
another will be able to offer their prayer, until the essential truth will
becom e the religion of the world of humanity, when diversity of
religions will be no more.76
The Sufi O rders futurism can be seen as an extension of B esants
Theosophical politics, denuded of racial and imperial metaphors. The need to
engage the concerns of Theosophy is reflected in the list of Inayat K hans lecture
subjects, which include, in addition to various topics related to Sufism and music,
such themes as Re-incarnation, M ahatmas of Himalayas, and Our Future
Religion.77 Privately, Inayat noted to Rabia Martin: the power of all murshids [in]
chain ... is [a] thousand times greater than Mme. Blavatskys M ahatm as,78 evoking
75 The Sufi 2 (July 1918): 5.

76 Ibid.: 6.
77 The Sufi 1 (Febraury 1915), back cover interior.
78 Inayat to Martin, 13 July 1914, Sufism Reoriented.
93
the old hagiographic rivalry between Sufis and yogis. M uch later, in his Review of
Religions, Inayat Khan expressed his views on Theosophy in unequivocal terms:
Though I have always had a great response from the members of the
Theosophical Society, who love the Eastern thought and readily
respond to it, still my position became very difficult when people
brought me the question of karm a and reincarnation. The doctrine
that interested them most, had the least interest for me. ... It is the
lack of personal mystical influence and the absence of a prophetic
M essage that necessitated the [Theosophical] Society bringing
forward the belief in M asters, that there m ight be something for the
7Q
believers to hold on to.
It is difficult to gauge the degree to which Theosophically oriented questions
shaped the early development of the Sufi Order. To what extent was Inayat Khan, in
public and private contexts, confronted with insistent, leading questions dem anding
rhetorical and organizational concessions? Not surprisingly, official accounts
em phasize the primacy of the charismatic founders personal intentions and
authority. A dissenting narrative, however, comes from Khorshed de Revalieu
(Jodjana):
I witnessed different people beginning to frequent Inayat K hans

house. Not in search of a Sufi message, but eager to introduce into
their lives something very attractive by its beauty, and by its unique
79 G uillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g rap h y, 224.
94
artistic expression. They tried to create a closed circle of people

under the gentle guidance of a great artist, beginning to be known in
Europe for his art. Inayat Khan was the head of a family group
stranded in London when the First W orld W ar broke out, without any
means of a livelihood. The group of adepts in London began to lay
down restraining rules for those becom ing members of their circle.
They fixed a contribution, imposing the responsibility of paying for

housing the center, sheltering Inayat K hans family, and assuring
their livelihood. Inayat Khan never created the Sufi Order in London.
He accepted the offer of a group of people who made the proposal.
He was then told by the board of the circle to give lectures and
lessons, as they wished to know more about the still unknown secrets
of Hindu Yoga. They wanted him to teach by word and explain
clearly what it was all about.80
The unequivocal assertion that Inayat Khan never created the Sufi O rder in
London has the ring of hyperbole. Inayat had written to Rabia M artin of his
81
intention to establish the Sufi m ovem ent in England as early as 1913.
Nonetheless, there is no doubt that the family was in a precarious financial situation
that severely lim ited their options. In Russia they had renounced their family
stipend, and now the war prevented travel, and with the exception of a part in the
opera Lakme, few opportunities presented themselves to generate income through
music. Several activities of the Order introduced in this period were probably
80 Jodjana, S e lf R e-ed u ca tio n , 171.
95
conceived with the primary purpose of bringing in revenue.82 Coming from a
83
spiritual tradition with very specific restrictions on appropriate income, between
the im peratives of propagating Sufism and classical music with intact integrity and
providing for his growing family under adverse circumstances, Inayat Khan was in a
delicate p o sitio n .84 He later reflected:
Poverty proved to be my bitterest enemy. For it always put me in a

position that gave my adversaries every facility they desired to cause
me harm. ... I was several times in a position which I should never
have chosen to be in. ... If there are any pages in my life which I
would rather be closed than open, they are [the] narrative of my lack
f 85
of means.
From Addison Road the family shifted to Ladbroke Road, where they lived
with Zohra W illiams in a three-story house that was ceremonially inaugurated as the
Khankah (Headquarters) of the Sufi Order on 15 October 1915. A bdullah Y usuf
Ali presided over the occasion, as he would on several subsequent occasions.86
Lucy Goodenough, the daughter of an English General and an A ustrian princess,
81 Inayat to Martin, 10 June 1913, Sufism R eoriented A rchive.

82 For exam ple, a class on Eastern and W estern languages (such as E nglish, French, German,
R ussian, Persian, Arabic, H ebrew , and H industani). The Sufi 1 (Septem ber, 1915): 45.
83 In principle, shaykhs in the C hishtiyya are permitted to receive only unsolicited donations (futuh).
In practice, interpretations varied, and many shaykhs subsisted on prayer stipends.
84 Three children were born during the war: V ilayat (1 9 1 6 ), Hidayat (1 9 1 7 ), and Khair-un-nisa
(1919).
86 A li, w ho later attained fam e as translator o f the Quran, was a fello w Gujarat native and friend o f
the fam ily.
96
became a constant presence at the Khankah, and was given the laqab Sharifa. Fluent
in several languages, Goodenough was reputed to have D antes Divine Comedy
com m itted to memory.
From 1917 to 1920, Inayat Khan gave regular classes from October to July
each year. The subjects are listed in The Sufi: Psychology, Occultism,
Concentration, Literature, Comparative Religions, M etaphysics, M oral Culture,
Natural Science, the Science of Life ... [and] special esoteric classes for initiates
87
only. Each lesson was dictated slowly by the Pir-o-M urshid and written down by
all present. Afterward questions were asked and answered. Sharifa Goodenough
collated the written records and com piled three series of ten papers each, of thirteen
subjects. These papers were later titled the Gitas, and designated for advanced
initiates (levels 4-6). As new lodges opened, beginning with a Brighton Branch in
1916, the papers were cyclostyled and distributed, and provided the content for
88
classes.
Zohra W illiams and Sharifa Goodenough also collected Inayat K hans
lectures for the purpose of producing books, in the Chishti tradition o f m alfuzat
(recorded oral discourses). W illiams planned a series of com pilations of Inayat
K hans teachings under the title W ord of Inayat, but produced only one slender
volume, Pearls fro m the Ocean Unseen, which appeared in 1919. M eanwhile,
87 The Sufi 2 (O ctober 1917): 5.
97
Goodenough prepared her own series, titled Voice of Inayat. Three volum es were
published under this heading: Aqibat, Life A fter Death, 1918; Love, H uman and
Divine, 1919; The Phenomenon o f the Soul, 1919.
The relationship between W illiams and Goodenough was an increasingly
tense one.89 W illiam s com mon origins and more conventional Anglican religious
sensibilities contrasted sharply with G oodenoughs leisured class urbanity and
Theosophical predilections.90 U nder G oodenoughs influence, the Khankah took
full part in contemporary cultural and intellectual trends. Artists and writers were
frequent visitors, including the orientalist painter Edm und Dulac and the poet
laureate Robert Bridges. To her husbands chagrin, Mrs. Havelock Ellis becam e an
initiate.91 A m idst aristocrats and literati, W illiams was out of her element. De
Revalieu observes:
[Miss W illiams], though meaning to be humble, could not m aster her

em otional reactions. She suffered much, being neither appreciated by
members of the Sufi Order, who made her life hard, nor by the family
92
silently witnessing her suffering.
88 Inayat Khan, The C o m p lete W orks o f P ir-o -M u rsh id In a ya t K han 1922 I: J an u ary-A u gu st, ed.
Munira van V oorst van B eest and Sharif Graham (The Hague: E ast-W est P ublications, 1990), xvi.
89
Sh. M ahm ood Khan, personal com m unication, 25 Septem ber 2 0 0 5 .
90 O f G ood en ou gh s upper-class background, Inayat Khan com m ented, there is certainly truth in the
idea o f heredity. Guillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y, 141.
91 Her fam ous sex o lo g ist husband wrote in his autobiography: I hardly think this m ovem ent w ould
have appealed to her in earlier days and it is not clear to m e h ow far its leader w as a charlatan but
it appealed to her now as to others w hose minds were b ecom in g im perfectly balanced, and she tried
to serve its cause and m ake it more w id ely know n. H avelock E llis, M y Life (Cam bridge, M A:
H oughton M ifflin C o., 1939), 607. A tribute to Mrs. E llis appears in The Sufi 2 (N ovem b er 1916).
92 Jodjana, S e lf R e-E du cation , 173.
98
Goodenough and her circle took a special interest in marginal scientific
theories. Alongside articles on Ottoman poetry, music in Islam, and G reek rhythm
m ovem ent, the M ay 1915 issue of The Sufi carried an article on the Victorian
science of phrenology, with the curious assertion that this subject was looked upon
as one of the most interesting subjects by Sufis in the past. This was not the end
of the O rders tryst with phrenology: the following year The Sufi printed a
supplem ent describing the results of an exam ination performed on Inayat Khan,
wherein a half-dozen well-known phrenologists were happy to seize so unique an
opportunity of studying his cranial developm ents. The report praises the size of his
pre-frontal lobe, and concludes rather tautologically that he is pre-em inently fitted
to be w hat he has become, a religious exponent.94
A nother theory that attracted the attention of the Order was telergy, or vital
force. In 1917 Inayat Khan reviewed a book on the subject titled M ental Biology,
noticing correlations with the mystical science of our ancient seers of the East.95
The following year, Sharifa Goodenough announced that she had invented three
instrum ents for measuring the activities of vital force: the telergiscope, alternvisor
93 The Sufi 1 (M ay 1915): 30.

94 The Sufi 2 (April 1916): 2-4.
99
and bilaterpoise. A telergiscope was set up in the Khankah and used in Inayat
K hans classes to test students progress in concentration and silence.96
These developments illustrate the rationalizing thrust of the Sufi O rders
evolving articulation of Sufism in this period. Scientific rationalization is already
foreshadowed in a reformulation of the O rders objectives produced in 1916,
concluding with the aim: To simplify mysticism by a logical and scientific
97
training. Retrospectively, this was to be seen as a definitive feature of Inayat
K hans legacy: As secular modernism had largely displaced mysticism as the
cultural counterpart of formal religion, Hazrat Inayat Khan tried to make of Sufi
QO
mysticism the spiritual counterpart of modernism itself.
But if the Order was concerned with remaking Sufi mysticism to
accommodate modernism, it was equally occupied with critiquing the post-
Enlightenm ent positivism that was m odernitys foundation, and redirecting rational
inquiry tow ard the inner depths of the modern subject. It shared this interest with
the larger occult movem ent of the fin de siecle, which operated in dialogue with a
concurrent innovative theorizing of the mind, but at the same time it refused a purely
secularized formulation of human consciousness and sought to advance both the
concept and experience of self as inherently spiritual and potentially divine.99
96 The Sufi 3 (April 1918): 9-14.

97 The Sufi 2 (April 1916): 1.
98
Van Pallandt, ed., Sufi M essa g e a n d Sufi M ovem en t, 6.
99 O w en, P la c e o f E nchantm ent, 114.
100
The need to reorient medical and psychological knowledge to encom pass the
spiritual constitution of m an is reflected in the work of the English physician O. C.
Grtiner. Dr. Griiner credits Inayat Khan with recasting ... my outlook. 100 In 1920
Griiner opened a Lodge of the Sufi Order in Leeds, and in 1921 produced an edited
com pilation of Inayat K hans teachings under the title The Way o f Illumination. The
following year he was initiated to the 10th degree (Khalif). Inayat introduced Grtiner
to the Qanun of Ibn Slna, which became a lifelong study. In 1930 he com pleted a
translation of the first book.101 In the com mentary he explained his views on the
contemporary value of A vicennas magnum opus. His interest was not in a
theosophical eclecticism , but in a unified vision in which modern m edical science
is reoriented to the spiritual worldview of scholastic theology:
Science has been removed from its usual role of master, and has been
pressed into service; and that service is to illuminate the subject of
hum an nature. ... The old teaching about constitution should

undergo a m utual in-growth with the knowledge of modern science,
pervaded throughout with the fundamental teaching of Thom istic
philosophy, where there would emerge the beginnings o f a possible
system o f modern scholastic m edicine thoroughly logical, plain, free
of mystery, free of materialism, but not ignoring the so-called
occult and metaphysical; with the knowledge of the nature of the
101 O. Cam eron Griiner, M .D ., A T rea tise on the C anon o f M ed icin e o f A vicen n a, In co rp o ra tin g a
T ran slation o f the F irst B ook (London: Luzac & C o., 1930).
101
constitution of the individual patient as its central and dominant
them e.102
The cultural and scientific currents that stim ulated many of the Sufi O rders
members existed in an uneasy equilibrium with the O rders Islamic heritage. Inayat
K hans earliest letters and compositions convey a strong Islamic flavor. In an
undated but very early unpublished manuscript, he wrote, in faltering English:
M oham m ad is the existence of God in a particular state. ...

[Mohammad] is called K hatimul M ursaleen [khatam al-m ursalln] in
the Koran which means the last m essenger of G od103, who im parted
the easiest and most complete method, of God wisdom. Lord
M oham m ad the Light of the W hole Universe the first evolution of the
highest spirit, the mind of the Holy W isdom , the treasure of love, the
m ost beloved of God Almighty came in the human form on the
surface of the earth ... The heart being the producer of all em otions it
spreads its effects all through the body, in the same way Lord
M oham m ad was naturally born in the land of Arabia, which as the
heart of the world spread his holy doctrine all through the w orld.104
As the Book of Instructions for the M urshid demonstrates, in 1911 Inayat
Khan had instructed his American mureeds in the basic rituals of Islam, as a
foundation for higher mystical disciplines. He had specifically encouraged Rabia
102 Ibid., 5 5 4 -5 .
103 M uhamm ad is described as khatam a l-n a b ly ln (the seal o f the prophets) in Quran 33:40.
102
M artin to learn Arabic and to read the Q uran. Regarding the practice of nam az, he
had stated, If [the practitioner] fails to advance in this, there is no hope for his
future. 105 According to Samuel Lewis, whose information presumably cam e from
M artin, Inayat K hans public presentations in that period had a markedly more
Islamic, and devotional, orientation:
In his 1911 career ... [Pir-o-M urshid] was using mostly music and
concentration. He often broke into ecstasy and sang loudly in praise
o f M ohammed. This probably did not go over big.106
At first, in London, significant efforts were made to involve the M uslim
community. Good relations existed between the Khankah and the W oking M osque
established by Khwaja Kamaluddin, and the Order frequently hosted M uslim
speakers, including Shaikh M ushir Hosain Kidwai (author of The Philosophy o f
L ove)101, M uham m ad Ishaq (author of The H istory o f Urdu Literature), Shaikh
Habib Ahmad, and M. H. Ispahani. In 1917 the Islamic Society of London
convened its holiday prayers of id al-fitr and id al-adha at the Khankah. In the
same year the Sufi Publishing Society announced its plans to publish an English
translation of the M aliki legal text Al-muwatta by the barrister Syed H. R. Abdul
104 Inayat Khan, Su fism , A rchive o f Fazal M anzil, 1-2.

103 Inayat Khan, B o o k o f Instructions for M urshid, A rchive o f Fazal M anzil, 5.
106 Sam uel L. L ew is, Sufi Vision a n d In itia tio n , ed. N eil D ou glas-K lotz (San Francisco and N ovato:
Sufi Islam ia / Prophecy Publications, 1986), 219.
107 S ee Tanvir S. W asti, M ushir H osain K idwai and the Ottoman C ause, M id d le E a stern S tu d ies 30
(April 1994): 2 5 2 -2 6 2 .
103
M ajid, a personal friend of the K hans.108 In the following year Inayat Khan
collaborated with Ikbal Ali Shah (father of the later popularizer of Sufism Idries
Shah), a friend of the family, to create a new organization called A njum an Islam, the
purpose of which was the promotion of a better understanding between Christians
and M oslim s.
But at the same time as the Sufi Order was cultivating good relations with the
M uslim community, its own internal developm ent was carrying it away from the
moorings of Islam. Several factors need to be considered in this regard. De
Revalieus com ment that Inayat Khan was told by the board of the circle to give
lectures and lessons, as they wished to know more about the still unknown secrets of
Hindu Yoga, has already been cited. It must also be noted that the Sufi Publishing
Society did not publish a single volume of Inayat K hans own com position. Instead
a string of edited com pilations were produced. Inayats two secretaries to a great
extent assumed the roles of their respective series titles, the W ord of Inayat and
the Voice o f Inayat.
Zohra W illiam s was of a pious Christian temperament. She shared nothing
o f Sharifa G oodenoughs Theosophical tastes. Though deeply devoted to Inayat
Khan personally, she sometimes uttered derogatory comments about Islam, to which
he sharply took offence. On one occasion he is reported to have exclaim ed, Every
108 The Sufi 2 (M ay 1917): 25.
104
drop of my blood is a Muslim! I have consum ed M uham m ad! 109 W illiam s book,
Pearls fro m the Ocean Unseen, has as several of its chapter headings verses from the
Gospels. Goodenough was more sophisticated and eclectic in her religious ideas,
but was perhaps still more thorough than W illiam s in downplaying the Islamic
vocabulary and imagery in the literature she edited. On her advice A Sufi M essage
o f Spiritual Liberty was not reprinted, due to what she regarded as its excessively
Islamic style.110
Beginning in September 1915, God began to replace A llah in Inayat
K hans articles in The Sufi. As time progressed Islamic references consistently
dim inished in all of the O rders publications.111 Inayat Khan was clearly conscious
of the general shift in his teaching style. In 1920 he confided to Martin:
No doubt I have been by experience more adaptable and I can work

with the W estern people much better than I did before. I have studied
their psychology and I know what they like and what they do not like
and how to approach them on these subjects and therefore I have been
112
lately successful too.
109 Sh. M ahm ood Khan, personal com m unication, 25 Septem ber 2005. T h ese words carry an ech o o f
the devotionally charged clim ax o f an Urdu ghazal Inayat Khan had com posed a d ecade earlier: H ai
ja n M u h am m ad ki m ere tan m in Inayat; m a sh ra b hai m era ta rz U w a ys-i Q a ra n i ka. T he spirit o f
M uhammad is the Inayat (or, grace) in my body; my creed is the way o f U w ays Q arani. Inayat
Khan, M in q a r-i m u siq a r, 221.
110 Sh. M ahm ood Khan, personal com m unication, 25 Septem ber 2005.
111 In H IK W orks, the electronic database o f Inayat K hans published and privately distributed works,
G od occurs 3 5 2 5 tim es, A llah occurs 108 times; B ib le occurs 2 6 6 tim es, Quran (in various
spellin gs) occurs 213 times; Christ occurs 5 8 4 tim es, Jesus occurs 2 2 8 tim es, M uham m ad (in
various sp ellin gs) occurs 2 4 6 times.
Overt Islamic rhetoric was especially problematical in England during and
after the war. Two months after the inauguration of the London Khankah, the Allied
campaign in Gallipoli ended in utter defeat, leaving a toll of over 20,000 English
casualties. Popular animosity toward the Ottoman Turks, and by extension toward
Islam, reached a high pitch. The collective imaginary of Islam continued to
darken soon after the war, when the Indian independence movement, and
particularly its pan-Islamic element, was widely perceived as a subversion of the
hard-won Pax Britannica. Inayat Khan later observed, There is little tendency seen
among people in the W est to follow Islam, especially among the intellectual classes,
on account of the wrong impression spread in the W est by political and religious
sources. 113
The Anjuman Islam soon proved to be an ill-fated venture. Its four goals
were to build a mosque, to procure a house for its offices, to publish religious
literature, and to raise a fund for the support and education of the oiphans of those
M uslims of the British Em pire who fell in the recent war. 114 An orphanage was to
be established in A jineed apparently a misprint for Ajmeer (Ajmer). In
pursuance of the latter objective, the Secretary of the Anjuman Islam, Khadija Isa
Young, sent out 300 letters of appeal, but received only one reply: a note of refusal.
Even the Sufi O rders own mureeds were largely apathetic. M ore seriously, some
112 Inayat to Martin, Sunday (no date) 1920, Sufism R eoriented A rchive.
recipients reported the appeal to the authorities, causing the A njum an Islam to com e
under government scrutiny due to lack of proper registration under the W ar Charities
Act. In departmental notes, Mr. Hose of the India Office wrote tersely, Inayat
Khan is a well-known shady personage. Ikbal Ali Shah pretends to be an
Afghan. 115 Inayat Khan and K hadija Young sent explanatory letters to the India
Office and Scotland Yard, but received no replies. However an application was
meanwhile made to the London County Council, and on 24 August 1920, the D eputy
Clerk of the Council overruled the objections of the India Office and officially
registered the A njum an Islam, with the caveat that it should be kept under close
observation. 116 Nothing more was to become of it.
The creation of the Anjuman Islam appears to have been, in some measure,
an attempt on Inayat K hans part to placate his M uslim friends. M ahm ood Khan
writes, The Anjuman-i Islam looks like having been intended as an accom m odation
for those am ong the Indian com munity in Britain who had not disappointed H azrat
Inayat Khan by their indifference to his innovative endeavors, but on the other hand,
neither cared much, or felt awkward, to practice Sufism alongside com plete, and
very British, new com ers. 117 In particular, M ahmood Khan recalls that Ikbal Ali
Shah who served as Vice-President of the Anjuman Islam was rem em bered in
114 Inayat Khan to the India O ffice, 13 April 1920, India O ffice F ile 1797.
115 J. W . H ose, 17 July 1920, India O ffice F ile 1797.
116 London C ounty C ouncil to India O ffice, 27 August, 1920, India O ffice F ile 1797.
117 Sh. M ahm ood Khan, G enealogical N o te s, 1.
107
family oral tradition as having vigorously disapproved of the O rders policy of
118
adm itting non-M uslims.
W hile downplaying Islam and stressing the universality of Sufism made non-
M uslims more comfortable, it was bound to have the opposite effect on M uslims.
The case of the English M uslim soldier and novelist M armaduke Pickthall (1875-
1836) is noteworthy. Pickthall was invited to join the Sufi Society as an honorary
member. He was, however, taken aback by the October 1917 issue of The Sufi,
which listed seven Sufi Teachings :
1. There is One God, the Eternal, the Only Being; none exists save
He.
2. There is One M aster, the Guiding Spirit of all souls, who
constantly leads his followers towards the Light.
3. There is One Holy Book, the sacred manuscript of nature, the
only scripture which can enlighten the reader.
4. There is one religion, the true knowledge of our being, within and
without.
5. There is one brotherhood, the human brotherhood, which unites
the children of earth indiscriminately in the Fatherhood of God.
6. There is one law, the law of reciprocity, which can be observed
by a selfless conscience together with a sense of awakened
justice.
118 Sh. M ahm ood Khan, personal com m unication, 25 Septem ber 2 0 0 5 . Ikbal A li Shah later wrote a
book with the em phatic title Islam ic Sufism (D elhi: Idarah-i Adabiyat-i D elli, 1979). T he title Islam ic
Sufism w as later used by the Pakistani Sabiri-Chishti Capt. W ahid Bakhsh Rabbani, w ho cited Inayat
Khans legacy as an exam ple o f Islam ic Su fism . W ahid Bakhsh Rabbani (Lahore: A l-Faisal
Nashran, 2 0 0 5 ), 198.
108
7. There is one moral, the love which springs forth from self-denial
and blooms in deeds of beneficence.119
Pickthall particularly objected to the third Teaching, which he interpreted as
implying that the Sufi Order did not recognize textual scriptures. He wrote to Lucy
Goodenough, I would not have my name identified with any religious m ovem ent
that was not Islam ic. 120 An excerpt from Pickthalls letter, and Inayat K hans reply,
were printed in the next issue of The Sufi:
[Question:] ... I have come across a great many Sufis in the East,
and have read a great deal of Sufi literature from early times, and I
have never yet heard of any Sufism which was not definitely Islamic,
nor of any Sufi who did not accept the Koran as the final Revelation.
That is why I was led to believe that in joining a sufi com munity I
was associating with M uslims, of my own religious faith. ... Is the
Sufi Order really M uslim or to put it in the straightest possible
terms, M oham m edan?
[Answer:] To a Sufi revelation is the inherent property of every soul.
... W e do not shut ourselves off from any community, but are ready
to unite with all and any, for within we are already united with the
Infinite. Our Order is com posed of truth-seeking people of different
119 The Sufi 2 (O ctober 1917): 1. In the January 1920 issue the text appears under the heading Sufi
T houghts with minor revisions and the addition o f three thoughts: 8. There is one ob ject o f praise,
the beauty w hich uplifts the heart o f its w orshipper through all aspects from the seen to the U nseen; 9.
There is one truth, the true k now ledge o f being, within and without, which is the essen ce o f all
w isdom ; 10. There is one path, the annihilation in the unlim ited, which raises the mortal to
im mortality, and in w hich resides all perfection. T he tenfold form henceforth remained unchanged,
with the excep tion o f minor rew ording o f the tenth thought. S ee D onald A . Graham, Spreading the
W isdom o f S u fism , in A P e a rl in W ine, ed. Inayat-Khan, 140-1, n. 30.
109
faiths and beliefs, who are not in any way obliged to give up the faith
or belief they have nor to accept a certain faith or belief, nor are they,
121
if they have none, com pelled to adopt one.
Syed A bdul-M ajids A l-m uw atta was never published; nor were two
manuscripts on the Prophet M uhammad, one of them book-length, that Inayat Khan
him self com posed during this period.122 The Order increasingly took on a less
Islamic and more Theosophical cast. Sentiments Inayat had expressed in 1915 were
reconfirmed: spiritual fellows from among the Europeans ... proved to be more at
1^3
one with my soul, than my own people.
The war years were a period of energetic institution building. The Sufi
O rders Constitution and Rules, drafted in 1917, represents a first attem pt to adapt
the uncodified oral tradition of tariqat hierarchy to the legal demands of modern
constitutionalism . The result is a bureaucratic maze of offices, secretaries, exoteric
and esoteric councils, and m ulti-tiered membership, in which the num ber seven
(favored in Theosophy) continually recurs.124 Later, in an essay titled
120 Pickthall to G oodenough, 2 4 A ugust 1918, N ekbakht Foundation A rchive.

121 The Sufi 3 (January 1919): 4.
122 N am ely, The M ystical L ife o f the Prophet M uham m ad, 19 1 7 -1 9 1 9 , and Meraj: The
Transform ation o f M uham m ad, n.d.
123 B loch , C on fession s, 50.
124 A sin gle sentence should su ffice as a typical exam ple o f the constitutions septipartite com plexity:
In the General M eetin g o f the Sufi Order at large, at such tim es as C onventions, the Chairman w ill
have seven votes, the General Secretary six, the General Treasurer five, m em bers o f the E xecu tive
C ouncil four votes each, mem bers o f the General C ouncil three, initiates tw o, and every m em ber w ill
have one v o te. Sufi Order C onstitution and R ules, Fazal M anzil A rchive, 5-6.
110
Organization, Inayat Khan expressed his m ixed feelings about the organizational
developm ent of the Sufi Order:
In the adm inistration of the work I had no end of trouble and

difficulty, caused by some of my helpers, who for some reason or
another worked for the Cause without my point of view and outlook
on life. ... And yet I found that w ithout an organization it was
im possible to carry the work through, especially in the W est. For in
the beginning I had tried to do so, on the same principle as in the
East, but could not succeed. ... You cannot collect flowers without a
basket, so is the organization for the ideal.125
Although the German submarine blockade prevented international travel,
Inayat Khan traveled and lectured within the British Isles during these years,
enabling the Order to expand beyond London. In 1917 the Theosophical Society
hosted lectures for Inayat Khan in Harrogate and Leeds, where he spoke to
audiences of four to five hundred people.126 The Society hosted him again in
Nottingham in 1918, and in Scotland in 1919. By the end o f 1918, the Sufi Order
had opened lodges in Harrogate, Brighton, Tottenham, Luton, and Southam pton.
M eanwhile, Rabia M artin was making progress in San Francisco. In 1918 she
opened a School of Philosophy and M ysticism on Sutter Street, and a second center,
styled Kaaba Allah, was established in rural M arin County.
125 Guillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y, 234-5.
126 Inayat to Martin, 23 April 1919, Sufism R eoriented A rchive.
Ill
The expansion of the Sufi Order in Britain through Theosophical channels
needs to be contextualized within the history of occultism outlined in Chapter One.
The spiritualist m ovement of the late nineteenth century had transformed occultism
into a mass-cultural phenomenon, and building on this momentum, the Theosophical
Society had rendered Oriental W isdom a household word.
Like the Theosophical society, the Sufi Order positioned itself as an
interlocutor between secularism and religion. Already in A Sufi M essage o f Spiritual
Liberty, Inayat Khan highlighted Sufism s medial position between the domains of
faith and reason.
Strictly speaking, Sufism is neither a religion nor a philosophy; it is

neither Theism nor Atheism; but stands between the two and fills the
gap. Among religionists, Sufis are considered free-thinkers; while

among intellectual philosophers they are considered religious,
because they make use of subtler principles in life to elevate the soul,
127
than can readily be followed by material logic.
Inayat K hans explanation contains a distant but distinct echo of M uham m ad
al-G hazalis (1058-1111) discussion of Sufism in his influential spiritual
autobiography Al-m unqidh min al-dalal. Al-G hazall recounts how an acute
intellectual crisis prom pted him to resign from his prestigious university position to
127 Inayat Khan, S p iritu a l L iberty, 38.
112
seek a viable alternative to what he regarded as the naive traditionalism o f the
theologians (m utakallim un) and the irreligious rationalism of the philosophers
(falasifa). He found that alternative in Sufism, which he appreciated chiefly for its
128
non-discursive, experiential character.
But if Inayat K hans presentation of Sufism as a tertium quid in the
confrontation between philosophy and theology was in some respects a restatem ent
o f al-Ghazali, it was equally a very contemporary move, one that situated the Sufi
Order directly within the intellectual project of the fin-de-siecle occult movement.
In a cultural climate in which rationalism was suddenly confronted with the
irrational depths of the modern human subject, the prospect of a m ethodical
excavation of spiritual interiority held considerable interest.
Assaulting the presumed objectivity of m aterialist science was a m ajor
theoretical preoccupation of the Theosophical Society. Theosophists utilized the
lexicon of science, and particularly the vocabulary of evolution, to construct a rival
discourse premised on romanticist rather than positivist assumptions. W hereas
materialist science assumed the existence of an inanimate substratum of matter,
Theosophy posited a living, numinous cosm os.129 H. P. Blavatsky conceded
sciences legitimacy within a circumscribed field of knowledge, but contended that it
was methodologically ill-equipped to answer the deeper questions of life: Science
128 Abu Ham id M uhamm ad al-G hazali, The Faith a n d P ra c tic e o f a l-G h a za li, trans. W . M ontgom ery
W att (London: G eorge A llen & U nw in, Ltd., 1970), 26 -6 3 .
113
can, it is true, collect, classify, and generalize upon phenomena; but the occultist,
arguing from admittedly metaphysical data, declares that the daring explorer, who
would probe the inm ost secrets of Nature, must transcend the narrow lim itations of
sense, and transfer his consciousness into the region of noumena and the sphere of
primal causes. 130
In confronting the hubris of post-Enlightenm ent materialism at the m om ent
of its dissatisfying triumph, Theosophy found many subscribers. But if the prom ise
of transcendence was the Theosophical Societys greatest strength, its inability to
fulfill the promise was its greatest weakness. The Society prom oted ideas of
spiritual evolution and super-physical consciousness in elaborate theoretical terms,
but offered little of substance in the form of practical instruction. Serious aspirants
seeking technical knowledge were disappointed, and turned instead to groups like
the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn,
which offered courses in practical occultism.
For Theosophists and ex-Theosophists who sought technical instruction in
esoteric practice, but continued to favor Eastern spirituality over W estern magic, the
Sufi Order filled a pressing need. Through its lineage of transm ission in the ChishtI,
Suhrawardi, Qadiri, and Naqshbandi schools of Sufism, the Sufi Order was heir to a
rich and sophisticated repertory of contemplative and m editative practice one that
129 B lavatsky, S e c ret D o ctrin e, 1:507.

130 Ibid., 1:477.
114
did not, like H erm eticism or ritual magic, require reinventing. The technical
manuals produced in South Asia in the M ughal period illustrate a vibrant tradition
linked in dialogue with Hatha Yoga and related Indie systems. Surrounded by
Theosophists predisposed to pursue the still unknown secrets of Hindu Y oga,
Inayat Khan specifically em phasized this feature of South Asian Sufism: The Sufi
schools of Arabia had a more metaphysical Arabic culture; the Sufi schools of Persia
developed the literary aspect; the Sufi schools of India developed the meditative
faculty. 131
The Theosophical Society was also vulnerable in its claims of authority.
The Societys authority derived from mysterious personages, called Hidden M asters
or M ahatmas, who purportedly directed the affairs of the organization from a lofty
distance. The credibility of this spiritual hierarchy was seriously underm ined as
early as 1886 when a report com m issioned by the Society for Psychical Research
produced conclusive evidence that the letters of the M ahatmas were forgeries. Two
decades later, Besant undertook to train a young Brahm in boy, Jiddu Krishnam urti
(1895-1986), to becom e a Mahatma. A new organization called the Order o f the
Star in the East was formed in 1911 to prepare for his advent as the W orld-Teacher.
This messianic experim ent alienated a number of influential members, including the
131 Inayat Khan, Gatheka 23: W orking for the Sufi M essa g e, Fazal M anzil A rchive.
115
German occultist Rudolph Steiner (1861-1925), who went on to create the
A nthroposophical Society in 1912.
These considerations clarify the positive reception of the Sufi Order in
Theosophical circles. In Inayat Khan, Theosophists found an exem plar of Oriental
W isdom in the flesh, one that came with a genuine initiatic pedigree and was
capable of offering practical instruction in time-honored techniques of meditation.
Although Inayat defied some of their expectations he was married, not vegetarian,
and had little patience for Blavatskian mythologizing many Theosophists were
sufficiently im pressed to shift their allegiance to the Sufi Order. As result, the
Societys leadership eventually began to see the Sufi Order as a threat, as Inayat
Khan later observed: M any members of the Theosophical Society have taken
interest in my work, since Theosophy prepares them to appreciate the deeper
knowledge; although it has made the authorities of the Theosophical Society afraid
of losing their members and for some time they have taken precautions so as to close
their ears to my call. 132
On 1 October 1918, the Sufi Trust Limited was officially incorporated.133 In
November, Germany and the Allies signed an armistice; the war that many believed
would be interminable was finally concluded, and a spirit of renewal was in the air.
Since 1916, regular appeals had been made in The Sufi for the donation of a small
132 Guillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y, 224
133 Ibid., 149, 380.
116
house, or a plot of ground for building ... for our Khankah. 134 Now M argaret
Skinner, a newly wealthy mureed whose prosperity was attributed to Inayat K hans
blessing and guidance, offered to pay the lease on a palatial property in Central
London, 29 Gordon Square. The new Khankah was to be, however, a temporary
one. In the Biography, Inayat Khan says only this: By the rising enthusiasm of a
mureed, we then were situated in Gordon Square in a much more suitable house,
I TS
more convenient in every way; but at the falling of the wave it was ended. The
biographer Elisabeth de Jong-Keesing, provides the only available account of the
problem, based on oral sources:
A hysterical woman im agined that [Inayat Khan] had made passes at

her. This typical spinsters dream was believed by the lady mill-
owner who paid the rent. She withdrew, and suddenly the Sufi
Society and the family were faced with a debt of a few hundred
pounds.136
The Gordon Square crisis interrupted the Sufi O rders linear developm ent in
London. Inayat Khan wrote to Martin, W e are at present confronted with a great
difficulty which is about the house of K hankah and this may bring about definite
134 The Sufi 2 (N ovem b er 1916): 24.

135 G uillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g rap h y, 149. Inayat w rote to Martin:
Khankah is a palace-like house given to us by one mureed ... w ho had not enough m oney to pay
her fees w hen she join ed u s. Inayat to Martin, Sunday (no date) 1920, Sufism R eoriented
A rchive.
136 D e-Jong K eesing, In a ya t K han, 163.
117
change in the w ork of our m ovem ent. 137 In the same year, Inayat m oved his family
to Tremblaye, France, and traveled on to Geneva, where he lectured and prepared to
establish the Sufi O rders new international headquarters. A new phase was now to
begin.
The war had im posed severe restrictions on efforts to raise the profile of
138
Sufism: During the war it was just like wanting to cultivate the desert. On the
other hand, the Sufi Order was itself a product of the war, as Inayat Khan and his
family would not otherwise have remained in Europe. Though unintended and
adverse, the situation could only be interpreted as providential: Although the
apparent reason for my stay was the present crisis which is passing over land and
sea, yet the hidden reason which I perceive is the will of Allah, who had in His plan
that the Khankah of the Sufi Order, which by the mercy of G od exists today, should
139
be opened in London. '
The limited success of the Sufi Order in its first decade was the result of
many factors. M uslims soon felt uncom fortable within the O rders quasi-religious
but not specifically Islamic framework. Jews and Christians were sometimes ill at
ease with the O rders hybrid mix of Theosophy and Islam. Theosophists were
attracted by Inayat K hans resemblance to the legendary oriental M asters and

118
piqued by the possibility that he m ight be the awaited W orld-Teacher, but were, in
many cases, disappointed to find that he did not fit the mold of their expectations.
Equally am bivalent was the general wartime mood. For some, the enormity
of the conflict that had overwhelm ed Europe with unthinkable destruction rendered
the O rders idealistic philosophy of Love, Harmony and Beauty meaningless. But
others were now profoundly convinced by the war of the dangers of nationalism , and
actively sought a redemptive spiritual vision prem ised on the brotherhood of
humanity beyond the boundaries of nation, race, and religion. It was in cognizance
of this kind of soul searching that Inayat Khan wrote to Rabia Martin: This great
heartbreaking experience is opening the w orlds mind to thought, and my m essage
for the unfoldm ent of [the] soul has its special tim e. 140
140 Inayat to Martin, T uesday (no date), Sufism R eoriented A rchive.
CHAPTER FOUR
FROM ORDER TO M OVEM ENT, 1920-1927
Geneva
It was in the protean cultural milieu of the years between the First and
Second W orld W ars that the Sufi Order enjoyed its greatest florescence. In the
w inter of 1920, however, when Inayat Khan and his family hastily vacated the
Gordon Square Khankah and settled temporarily in the village of Tremblaye
southeast of Paris, the O rders prospects were far from certain. The abruptness of
the transition fueled rumors in later years that the English presumably meaning
Scotland Yard had threatened Inayat K hans life.1 But Mrs. Skinners refusal to
continue to underw rite the Khankah is sufficient explanation to account for the
sudden move. On the advice of Jessie Eliza (Nargis) D owland2, a generous
benefactor and efficient organizer who succeeded Zohra W illiams as the English
1 Baron van Tuyll cited by Paul R eps, interview by W ali A li M eyer, 1972, Sufi Ruhaniat International
A rchive.
2 Jessie E liza D ow land w as the manager o f the P olygon H ouse H otel in Southam pton, England.
Initiated into the Sufi Order in 1919, she served as N ational R epresentative o f England from 1921 to
1933. Under the name N argis she authored three books: B etw een the D e se rt a n d the S o w n , The
G ate o f D iscip lesh ip , and The L ifted Veil. For a biographical sketch, see G uillaum e-Scham hart and
Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y, 4 9 6 -7 .
119
120
National Representative the following year, the family shifted to Trem blaye until
5
matters could be resolved.
Inayat K hans reaction to the collapse of the Khankah was philosophical. He
wrote to Rabia Martin, who was herself confronting adverse circumstances: W e are
all sharing the w orlds fate, we must not worry for the whole planet is going through
a state of chaos.4 Recognizing that major organizational restructuring was now
needed, Inayat urged M artin to postpone legalizing the American Branch of the
Order. In August he wrote to M artin from Geneva, expressing the hope of going to
A m erica to help her rebuild her work, but explaining that his first responsibility
was to set right the unsatisfactory affairs of the European branches.5
Inayat K hans visit to Geneva exem plifies an exercise of non-rational
confidence that resonates palpably with the Sufi concept of tawakkul (trust in Divine
Providence)6, and therefore constitutes one of the O rders most vivid legendary
episodes. Inayat is reported to have gone to Geneva on impulse, traveling on a one
way ticket and carrying only enough money for a single evenings lodging.7 A
chance encounter with a couple of English mureeds retrospectively proved to be a
turning point in the O rders fortunes: Inayat had arrived in Geneva without a penny
3 D e Jon g-K eesin g, In a ya t Khan, 165.

5 Ibid.
6 A full account o f the Sufi theory o f trust is given in the thirty-fifth book o f the Ih y a uliim a l-d in o f
M uhamm ad al-G hazali. S ee Faith in D ivin e U nity a n d T rust in D ivin e P ro vid en ce , trans. D avid B.
Burrell (L ou isville, KY: Fons V itae, 20 0 1 ).
121
and w ithout any contacts; within a m onth he was able to start his journeys around the
w orld and within a few years the Sufi M ovem ent had become known everywhere in
the w orld.8
The deep response of Baron von Graffenried opened doors in aristocratic
circles, and soon a small group was form ed in Geneva. The group consisted
prim arily of foreigners; the Calvinist Genevese came with difficulty and went away
easily.9 Inayat Khan promptly set up the rudim ents of an international
headquarters, utilizing a hall and a small room at the Salle Centrale. In the evening,
after delivering lectures, Inayat slept on the carpet on the floor of the room .10 Soon
Sharifa Goodenough arrived to manage affairs. Oral tradition reports that Inayat
wished to move his family to Geneva, but was opposed by his family, who, after the
Gordon Square debacle, were wary of finding themselves once again out on a lim b .11
Considering that he had no prior contacts in Geneva, Inayats im pulse to
visit the city in 1920, and the importance he subsequently attached to it, require
explanation. The earliest hagiographical explanation is from the pen of Sophia
7 R. C. C. Faber et al., ed., F orty Years o f Sufism , 17.

8 D e Jong-K eesing, In a ya t K han, 166.
9 G uillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y, 154.
10 S ee the story related to this in Van B eek, H a zra t In a ya t K han, 130-131.
11 Sh. M ahm ood Khan, personal com m unication, 21 O ctober 2 0 0 5 .
122
Saintsbury-Green, a former prom inent Theosophist who was initiated to the rank of
M urshida in 192312:
The M aster was ... sitting by the waters of the Lake with one of His
disciples. How strange, said the latter, how strange, M urshid, that
you should have chosen Geneva for the International Headquarters of
the Sufi M ovement, and that the same place should be selected by the
League of N ations. The M aster turned with a smile. Is it so
strange? he said. Perhaps the same place was chosen for the two
activities at the same time and by the same thought! W hen I was here
in the Spring of 1914 I have seen them both as they would be later,
after the W ar. 13
Talewar D ussaq14 provides another account:
At that time M urshid got the feeling to go to Geneva, not knowing
why. The mystic knows there is a Divine Plan, and when the im pulse
cam e to Him, He went, without argument, as St. Paul did, when he
went to Rome. ... W e tried, unsuccessfully, to find the place where
M urshid stayed a few days in meditation, but a fact is that during that
tim e by the Divine M ind through the M aster on earth, the League of
Nations was created in Geneva, at the same time that M urshid thought
to create His Headquarters which is founded ju st in front of the Palais
des Nations, on the opposite side of the lake.15
12 A biographical sketch o f Saintsbury-Green is given in Guillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van
B eest, ed ., B io g ra p h y, 5 0 9 -5 1 0 .
13 Sophia Saintsbury-G reen, The W ings o f the W orld (Deventer: E. Kluwer, 1934), 7-8.
123
There are significant differences in these two accounts. According to
Saintsbury-Green, Inayat Khan prophetically foresaw both the League of Nations
and the International Headquarters of the Sufi Order while passing through Geneva
in 1914 (a visit which is referred to in no other place). According to Dussaq,
conversely, it was a feeling that he did not understand that attracted Inayat to Geneva
in 1920, and it was only after arriving that the thought of establishing the
International Headquarters there occurred to him. W hat the accounts have in
common, however, is the conviction that the League of Nations and o f the
International Headquarters were both brought to Geneva by a single mystical telos.
Supernatural explanations aside, it cannot have been a coincidence that Inayat
K hans arrival in Geneva coincided precisely with the transfer of the seat of the
League of Nations from London to Geneva, which occurred on the first of N ovem ber
1920. The advent of the League of Nations was a powerful symbol of the prom ise of
a new world order. Europe emerged from the Great W ar in a m ood of profound self-
criticism, its intelligentsia riveted by the idea of a crisis of civilization. The
publication in 1918 of Oswald Spenglers D er Untergang des Abendlandes (The
Decline o f the West) was paradigmatic in this regard. The contem porary debate
about crisis and reconstruction registers in Inayat K hans discourses in this period as
a frequently repeated exhortation to the members of the Sufi Order to become
14 S ee b elow , note 91.

15 R. C. C. Faber et al., ed., F o rty Years, 17-18.
124
collectively a nucleus for the com ing spiritual reconstruction of the w orld. If
London represented the old order, characterized by nationalism and colonialism , as
the new seat of the League of Nations, Geneva had the potential to represent a new
political dispensation, characterized by international cooperation and brotherhood.
Despite an official policy of aloofness from kings (b u d al-salatin), Inayat
K hans predecessors in the Chishti Order almost invariably established their
khanqahs at major centers of temporal power. M u in al-DIn Chishti (d. 1236)
settled at the Chauhan capital, Ajmer, and stationed his successor Qutb al-DIn
Bakhtiyar Kaki (d. 1235) at the Ilbari Turkish capital, Delhi. Farid al-D in Ganj-i
Shakar (d. 1265) retired to Ajhudan, but his successor N izam al-D in (d. 1325)
returned to Delhi, where the headquarters of the Order remained until Tim ur sacked
the city and term inated the Tughluq dynasty in 1398. Siraj al-D in (d. 1414)
transferred the headquarters to Patan, capital of the M uzaffarid sultanate of Gujarat.
W hen the seat of the sultanate was moved to Ahmadabad, M ahm ud Raj an (d. 1494)
accordingly shifted the headquarters to the new capital. Ahmadabad rem ained the
headquarters of the hereditary lineage-holders of the Order, but a new branch was
created by Shah K alim Allah (d. 1729), housed opposite the gates of the Red Fort in
the new M ughal capital, Shahjahanabad. M eanwhile his successor Shah N izam al-
D in (d. 1730) followed the imperial camp in the Deccan and established a khanqah
at A w rangzibs eponymous military outpost, Awrangabad. Shah N izam al-D ins son
125
Shah Fakhr al-D in (1785) revived the Jahanabad headquarters, which was
m aintained by his son and grandson until the Revolt of 1857 brought an end to
M ughal rule. M uhamm ad Hasan Jill al-K allm i subsequently built a khanqah in the
last bastion of M uslim power in India, the nizamate of Hyderabad, and so it was
there that Inayat Khan met his m urshid, Abu Hashim M adani. Thus when Inayat
Khan established his headquarters first in London, the heart of the largest em pire
in the world, and following the W ar in Geneva, the ostensible hub of a new post
nationalist w orld order, he was simply extending the logic of seven centuries of
Chishti tradition.
In the winter of 1920 Inayat K hans family moved from Tremblaye to the
village of W issous. A new group was soon formed in Paris, and Inayat delivered a
series of lectures at the M usee Guimet, the National M useum of Asian Arts. In the
spring of 1921 Inayat visited England twice, first in M arch and again in May. On the
second visit, a new religious activity was instituted under the nam e of the Church
of All.
The Church o f A ll
The inaugural service of the Church of All, later called the Universal
W orship, was performed in London on the 17th of M ay at the house of Gladys
(Kefayat) Lloyd, an English aristocrat who dedicated her life to Sufism following the
126
death of her husband the same year.16 A vivid account of the event recorded by a
participant bears quoting at length:
... One is invited upstairs into a room on the first floor. As the door
is opened ones eyes first catch a glimpse of a lighted candle, and the
smoke of burning incense on an im provised altar. On both sides of
the room, facing one another, are to be seen double rows of chairs,
occupied by ones fellow mureeds, some of them well-known friends,
others strangers. M usic is being played on an American organ, the
scene resembles that of a chancel in a private chapel.
... It seems that we have waited a long time, when the music ceases,
the door opens and M urshid enters. His presence alters everything, all
rise as he comes in and he passes between the double rows of standing
mureeds, to [a] seat near the altar, then we sit down once more.
Presently M urshid, who is wearing his black robe, rises and begins to
speak. He explains the value of devotion, [the] im portance of prayer,
how none, even the most intellectual can dispense with their aid.
How ritual, though not a necessity to spiritual progress, may yet be a
help. The hour, he says, has come when it is desirable that a firm er
prayer shall be used in connection with the Sufi Order.

... M urshid stands facing his mureeds and M iss Dowland the National
Representative, on his left hand begins to read the prayers in a calm,
strong voice. As she reads, M urshid, with closed eyes makes gently
and with deliberation, the appropriate gestures, his movements being
watched by all with indescribable emotion. The prayers themselves
are the most com prehensive we have ever listened to, they lift the
16 A biographical sketch o f K efayat L loyd is given in Guillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van
127
thoughts to things above and turn them on things beneath. They

speak of the greatness, the power, the beauty, the all-pervadingness of
God, also of His M essengers, Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Abraham,
Zoroaster, M oses, Jesus, M ohammed, and those whose names are
unknow n.
... And when the little company disperses to pass into the London
night, the thought in ones mind is that there has just been planted a
tiny seed, which shall one day spring up into a great tree whose leaves
shall be for the healing of the nation.17
The advent of the Church of All marks a watershed in the transm utation of
the Sufi Order from a traditional esoteric school into a new religious movement, and
therefore provides a crucial index to patterns of continuity and change. An early
docum ent titled Universal W orship confirms that the formation of the Church of
All was from the outset seen as part of a larger process of change:
Changes and innovations for the W ork of the M essage were effected
by Pir-o-M urshid in the spring of 1921. The time was ripe for a more
definite organization - one that would move onwards (The Sufi
M ovem ent now became the title).18
Yet the Church of All was not a complete departure from what cam e before.
During the War, a service was held at the Khankah every Sunday, which in certain
B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y, 5 1 8 -5 1 9 .
17 E. A . (Shabaz) M itchell, O pening C erem ony, N ekbakht Foundation A rchive.
128
respects prefigures the later form of the Universal W orship service. A description of
this earlier service is extant among the letters of Sharifa Goodenough:
M urshid holds the service. The order of proceedings is this: First the
Secretary reads the teachings and objects of the Sufi Order and
announces the subjects of all classes that are held here at Khankah.
Then M urshid speaks on some subject for fifteen or twenty minutes.
Then passages from the Bible, Q uran, Qabala, Gita, etc. are read by
different members of the Order, after which a hymn is sung. ... This
ends the service.19
The basic elements of this original service were preserved in the Universal
W orship: scriptural readings, an address, and music. But now the inform al prayer
m eeting was reinvented as a m eticulously choreographed and scripted liturgical
ritual. The setting was now identified as a church. The text of the Sunday Service
begins with a description of the altar:
There is a flam e burning above the altar, before the doors o f the
church are opened. Incense is burning on the altar, which is adorned
with flowers. Six candles stand on the altar in the form of a crescent,
each representing one of the great W orld Religions.
Between the third and the fourth candles ... stands a candle
representing the Spirit of Guidance. In front of this taller candle the
incense is burning, and before this lies the Gayan, Vadan, or Nirtan.
18 A nonym ous, U niversal W orship, N ekbakht Foundation A rchive.

19 M itchell, O pening C erem ony.
129
The Scriptures belonging to the six W orld Religions lie at the foot of
20
the six different candles ...
The text goes on to describe the entry of the officiants (called Cherags, from
the Persian chiragh, lamp), the recitation of a sequence of formulas and prayers in
tandem with specified gestures, the lighting of the seven candles, the reading of the
scriptures followed by a silence, the delivery of a sermon, and finally the offering of
a benediction and the exit of the Cherags.
W as Inayat Khan the author of this elaborate service? The origins of the
Church of All are outlined in the unpublished text Universal W orship :
Pir-o-M urshid appointed M iss Dowland of Southampton, the National

Representative of England, and ordained Miss Sophia Saintsbury-
Green the first Cheraga. She was the first to help Pir-o-M urshid in
founding the Church of All (the Universal W orship), the religious
activity of the M ovement, and the details of the service were thought
out and settled upon in M iss D ow lands sitting room (in
Southampton) before the London inaugural Ceremony, which took
place during a three week visit to London in M ay 1921.21
This m atter-of-fact description of the origination of the Church of All in tete-a-tete
conversation between Inayat Khan and Sophia Saintsbury-Green in a sitting room in
20 The Sufi M ovem ent, U niversal W orship, N ekbakht Foundation A rchive (cop y), 8.
21 M itchell, U niversal W orship. S ee also Guillaum e-Scham hart and V an V oorst van B eest, ed.,
B iograph y, 152: [Saintsbury-Green] has been the first to help m e in founding the Church o f A ll, the
religious activity, w hich was introduced in England by her.
130
Southam pton represents a uniquely candid account of the invention of a hybrid
tradition.
Saintsbury-Green, an erudite aristocrat, had been a special pupil o f Mrs.
Besant.22 As such, Saintsbury-Green m ust have been thoroughly acquainted with
recent developments in the Theosophical Society in general and the Order of the Star
of the East in particular. She would probably have known, then, that C. Jinarajadasa
had recently been in London, [proclaiming] to members the virtues of introducing a
23
note of ecclesiastical ceremony into their m ovem ent. Jinarajadasa was a loyal
disciple of the prominent Australian Theosophist C. W. Leadbeater, co-founder with
Annie Besant of the Order of the Star in the East, and co-founder with James Ingall
W edgw ood (founder of the Order of the Rosy Cross) of the Liberal Catholic Church.
W edgw ood and Leadbeater developed the Liberal Catholic Church specifically to
serve as one of the vehicles for [the W orld Teachers] force, and a channel for the
preparation for His Coming.24 M essianic expectations formed the basis of the
ecclesiastical ritual that the Liberal Catholic Church inherited from W edgw oods
Order of the Rosy Cross:
During the ritual, the lives of successive W orld Teachers were

represented by the lighting of a candle, with appropriate quotations
23 R oland Vernon, The S ta r in the E ast: K rishnam urti, The Invention o f a M essia h (London:
C onstable, 2 0 0 0 ), 98.
24 Leadbeater cited in ibid., 91. Ironically, the M aster-to-be Krishnamurti had little regard for the
Liberal C atholic Church. S ee ibid., 98.
131
from the religion they had founded. The culmination was the
dedication of an unlit candle, intended to represent the coming
incarnation of the W orld Teacher. In the words of the ritual, That
candle must remain unlit till He with His own divine hand shall light
it and bring new guidance to our hearts and lives.
This shines a revealing light on the Sunday Service of the Church of All.
W hen the two services are compared, it becomes clear that the Church of All
borrowed the basic elements of its service the lighting of candles and reading of
scriptures for the m ajor world religions from the Liberal Catholic Church. There
is, however, one very im portant difference in the form of the two services. In the
Liberal Catholic Church, the final candle was kept unlit, symbolizing the as-yet
unfulfilled expectation of the coming of the W orld Teacher. In the Church of All,
the seventh candle was lit. The 1937 text narrates: After [lighting the candles
representing the six religions] the Cherag lights the candle representing the Spirit of
Guidance, standing at the left corner of the altar and saying: To the glory of the
O m nipresent God we kindle the light symbolically representing all those who,
whether known or unknown to the world, have held aloft the Light of Truth through
the darkness of human ignorance.-
Against this background, the lighting of the Spirit of Guidance candle in the
Sunday Service can only be seen as a direct answer to the messianic expectations of
132
the Order of the Star in the East. The intention of giving answer to the Order of the
Star is explicitly confirm ed in the text Universal W orship : It is believed that the
M aster had hoped that a certain celebrated Esoteric Society would be ready to
receive him, but it only offered a platform for some lectures; so a fresh organization
had to be started to launch the M essage with its activities.26 Yet the answer given in
the service is an ambivalent one: the seventh candle is lit, but it is not consecrated to
a single, identified W orld Teacher, but rather to all those who, whether known or
unknown, have held aloft the light of T ru th ...
As the original form of the Sunday Service has not been preserved, it is not
known w hether a particular text was used in connection with the Spirit of G uidance
candle, in the same way that the scriptures of Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism,
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were used in connection with the preceding six
candles respectively. By 1936, when the booklet Universal Worship was published,
Inayat K hans three collections of sayings, titled Notes fro m the Unstruck M usic
fro m the Gayan (1923), The Divine Symphony or Vadan (1926), and Nirtan or the
Dance o f the Soul (1928), were used for this purpose. In fact, it is quite possible that
these three volum es which constitute the only English writings of Inayat Khan
25 The Sufi M ovem ent, U niversal W orship, 10.

26 In his R ev iew o f R elig io n s, Inayat Khan states: W hen the m em bers o f the T heosop h ical S ociety
thought that it w as only intellectual and there was nothing spiritual there, they introduced as a separate
activity, the Liberal C atholic Church, and connected it with the Roman Church by tracing som e
m issing link in the tradition. But since no religion w hich is not divin ely inspired w ill take root in this
133
published or prepared for publication in his lifetime (all of his other books were
collaborations or transcriptions of lectures) were originally com piled specifically,

'y -j
or primarily, to serve the liturgical needs of the Universal Worship.~ The use of the
Gayan, Vadan, and Nirtan in connection with the Spirit of Guidance candle reduce
the ambivalence of the phrase, all those ... who have held aloft the light, and,
when considered in the light of the service of the Liberal Catholic Church, seems to
explicitly postulate that the author of the three volumes, Inayat Khan, is the
M essenger of the age. As we will see, though never stated officially, this perception
was far from uncom mon among members of the Sufi Movement.
It m ight now be reasonably asked, as an Indo-Islamic spiritual lineage-bearer,
on what grounds did Inayat Khan legitimate the creation of a new religious activity
based on M asonic and Catholic models? In a number of addresses, later collected
under the heading The M essage Papers, Inayat Khan described his vision of the
Universal W orship. One such address, delivered on the occasion of the first service
perform ed in Holland (3 September 1922), bears quoting at length:
The Sufi Order constitutes three aspects in its mission: The main
aspect is the development of individuals, the unfoldm ent28 of souls,
which is the object of every soul in the world, whatever be the grade
of its advancement. The second side of the activities is brotherhood,
world long enough, it is a question if this m ovem ent w ill really m eet with su ccess. G uillaunte-
Schamhart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y, 225.
27 It is significant that the notebooks from w hich the contents o f these volum es derive begin in 1921.
28
The non-standard word unfoldm ent b elon gs to the lexicon o f Theosophy.
134
w hich is most necessary at this time in the world, when hum anity has
been divided into so many sections...

There is another side to it, which is the devotional side, which in
every way is the most important side, upon which the unfoldm ent of
the soul depends. ... The Church of All therefore provides a religion
to those who have none, who wish to have one, for hum an nature is
made so that the soul yearns constantly, and many souls there are in
this world, who have been discontented with the faiths and beliefs
which have been enforced upon them by their parents and guardians,
or in which they are com pelled to live by the force of their com munity
or race. They lose faith in that belief, and at the same time are
constantly yearning to find something in their life which can take the
place of that innate yearning which wants a belief.
... But at the same time it is a school for those who already have a
religion given by their parents or teachers. They come to learn in this
school of the Church of All that tolerance which is the spirit of the
religion of these days, the desire to respect and to recognize and

appreciate wisdom in all forms where it is given; in the Buddhist
scripture or in the Zoroastrian scripture, in Hinduism, in Christianity,
or in the scriptures of Islam. ... Therefore the Church of All is all
churches. You may call it a church because we offer prayers, but I
call it a school where we learn the lesson of all religions. ... In this
way wisdom is recognized and respected in all forms, w isdom which
alone is the essence of religion, and the various religions are only its
135
different expressions, which in the Church of All are united and made
29
one.
Two significant points are made here. First, the Church of All and the
Brotherhood a second activity, which emerged simultaneously, the purpose of
which was to form a nucleus of human brotherhood, beyond all differences and
distinctions of caste, creed, race, nation, and religion30 are clearly differentiated
from the Esoteric School. The Esoteric School represented the extension of the
fourfold silsila of the Sufi Order, whereas the Church of All and the Brotherhood
constituted com pletely new and distinct activities. To clarify matters, in 1923 the
overarching organization was officially renam ed the Sufi M ovement, and the Sufi
Order became its Esoteric School of Inner Culture. Innovative activities were
accommodated within the large scope of the Sufi M ovement, while the Sufi Order
(Esoteric School) remained the preserve of traditional Indo-Islamic spiritual
teachings and practices.
Second, the address clarifies the purpose of the Church of All. Inayat Khan
accepts the skepticism of modern secular society as an understandable reaction to the
enforced dogmatism of tradition, but contends that reason is ultim ately insufficient.
In another context Inayat introduced the terms iman-i m uhmil (negligent faith :
29 Inayat Khan, The C o m p lete W orks: 1922 II: S ep tem b er-D ecem b er, ed. Munira van V oorst van
B eest and Sharif Graham (N ew Lebanon, N .Y .: O m ega Publications, 1996), 21 -2 3 .
30 Sangitha I, T a lim , Fazal M anzil A rchive (copy).
136
superstition), iman-i kamil (perfect faith : religion), haqq al-im an (truth of faith :
reason), and ayn al-iman (essence of faith : mystical experience), suggesting a
progressive historical dialectic periodized in four stages: tribal custom, revealed
31
religion, enlightened rationalism, and finally, the mystical perception of unity. The
Church of All, then, was presented as an exoteric articulation of the esoteric
experience of the mystic who perceives the transcendent unity of being underlying
all names and forms, and, as such, was intended to be instructive both to agnostic
rationalists and tradition-bound believers.
Inayat Khan describes the universalism of the Church of All as an expression
of that tolerance which is the spirit of the religion of these days, im plicitly placing
it within the modern tradition of liberal humanism. The universalistic
prophetological vision that forms its basis is not, however, unrelated to the pre
modern tradition of Islamic Sufism. The Q uran refers to a M other of the Book
(umm al-kitab, also translated as Archetype of the Book) within which the Q uran
(an Arabic Q uran) is inscribed (43:4). Y usuf Ali comments: From this fountain-
head are derived all streams of knowledge and wisdom, that flow through Tim e and
feed the intelligence of created m inds.32 The Q uran specifically names the Torah
(.tawrat), Psalter (zabur), and Gospel (inj'd) as revealed books. To this list
31 Inayat Khan, The Sufi M essa g e o fH a z r a t In ayat Khan, ed. Baron van Pallandt (London: Barrie &
R ockliff/Jenkins, 1 9 6 0 -1 9 6 7 ), 1:55-56.
137
ecum enically minded theologians in Iran and India variously added the Zend-Avesta,
Vedas, Upanishads, and Bhagavad Gita. In doing so, they could rely on the authority
of a Q uranic verse: Surely W e have sent M essengers before you, some of whose
account we have related to you, and that of some W e have not told you (40:78). On
the basis o f this verse, the 18th-century Naqshbandi shaykh M irza M azhar Jan-i
Janan wrote: Thus, when the holy Q uran has preferred to remain silent about many
prophets, it is incum bent on us to adopt a liberal attitude with regard to the prophets
of India.33
A ccording to Inayat K hans own testimony, it was not in Am erica and
Europe that his ecumenical sentiments reached their full development, but rather
previously, in Hyderabad, at the feet of Abu Hashim M adanl. At the culm ination of
his Confessions, Inayat recounts:
M y Pir-o-M urshid once gave me a goblet of wine during a trance, and

said: Be thou intoxicated and come out of name and shame! Be thou
the disciple of love and give up the distinctions of life. Because to a
Sufi, to be this or that, means nothing.34
32 The H o ly Q uran, trans. A. Y u su f A li (Lahore: Sh. M uhamm ad Ashraf, 1973), 2 :1 3 2 4 . S ee also the
analysis o f M oham m ed Arkoun in R ethinking Islam : C om m on Q uestions, U ncom m on A n sw ers, ed.
Robert D . L ee (Boulder: W orld view Press, 1994), 35 -4 0 .
33 M oham m ad Umar, Islam in N orthern India D u rin g the E igh teen th C entury (N ew D elhi: M unshiram
M anoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 1993), 527.
34 B loch , C on fession s, 65.
138
It is im possible to know, on the basis of the text, whether it was a literal or
metaphorical goblet of wine that M adani offered Inayat.35 In any case, M adam 's
action immediately recalls a famous couplet from the opening ghazal of the D ivan of
Hafiz: Stain your prayer mat with wine if the M agus tells you to, for such a traveler
knows the road and the customs of its stations.36 M adam s verbal adm onition, in
turn, evokes a memorable passage from the Gulshan-i raz of M ahm ud Shabistari (d.
circa 1339-40): Pass beyond hypocrisy and name and shame ... be free of all belief
and disbelief.37
Shabistari was the legatee of a literary tradition of mystical universalism
frequently identified by the rubric the School of Love (madhhab-i ishq). A basic
feature of this tradition was the attempt to rhetorically or spiritually transcend the
dichotomy of faith (iman) and infidelity (kufr) that marks the boundary of
conventional piety. The topos of faith and infidelity can be traced back to M ansur
al-Hallaj (d. 922), who wrote to one of his disciples: M ay God veil you from the
35 A ccording to the Chishti author Jamah D ihlaw i (d. 1542), w ine represents love and the cup
represents the heart. S ee The M irro r o f M ystic M ean in gs, trans. A . A . Seyed-G ohrab (C osta M esa,
CA: M azda Publishers, Inc., 2 0 0 2 ), x x x ix -x lii, 4 4 -4 5 .
36 Sham s al-DTn M uhammad H afiz, G reen Sea o f H eaven: F ifty G h a za ls fr o m the D iw a n o f H afiz,
trans. E lisabeth T. Gray, Jr. (A shland, OR: W hite C loud Press, 1995), 37. O b edience to the com m and
o f the p i r is often given priority over ob ed ien ce to the provisions o f religious law in the theory and
practice o f ta r iq a Sufism . See, for exam ple, M uhamm ad M akhdum al-H usaym , M akhdum a l- ijaz
(Hyderabad: Sham s al-Islam Press, 1923-4), 205: If you regard an act as repugnant even if you
know it to be rank infidelity and unlaw ful if the m u rsh id com m ands that act, rem em ber the ca se o f
M oses and K hizr.
37 M ahmud Shabistari, G u lsh an -i raz, ed. Ahmad M ujahid and M uhsin Kayant (Tehran: Kitabkhana-
yi M anuchihri, 1951-2), 100, lines 9 6 9 -9 7 1 .
139
exterior of the religious law, and may He reveal to you the reality of infidelity.- In
Persian poetry, the celebration of the religious other emerged as a popular genre
(called kufrlyyat), preoccupied with images of wine, Christian and M agian youths,
idols and idol-temples, church bells, cinctures, and Brahmanical threads. In prose,
authors generally exercised greater circumspection. After the Tawasin of al-Hallaj,
the Tam hidat of Ayn al-Quzat HamadanI (d. 1131) stands out as the m ost candid
39
and com prehensive articulation of the topos of faith and infidelity in prose." In a
passage that, nine centuries earlier, m ight be seen as prefiguring Inayat K hans
universalism, Ayn al-Quzat wrote:
The members of each of the seventy-two religions are adversaries of

each other, and for the sake of their respective national com munities,
struggle against one another. Yet if they could all come together and
listen to the words of this wretch, they would reckon that they all
adhere to one religion and one nation. People have been alienated
from Reality by means of their erroneous conceptions and similitudes
[about God], ... The Names are multiple but the Essence and the
Named Object is one.40
W hile the ecum enism of thinkers like Ayn al-Quzat and Shabistari remained
purely theoretical, in the margins of the Islamic world, where M uslims found
38 Carl W . Ernst, W ords o f E csta sy in Sufism (Albany: State U niversity o f N ew York Press, 1985), 64-
5.
39 It is notew orthy that both authors were executed for heresy.
140
themselves em bedded within complex com posite cultures, the hybridization of
originally distinct religious traditions often produced new ritual practices. In South
Asia, many of the practices associated with M uslim festivals m irror indigenous
Hindu custom s 41 The shrines of Sufi saints often coincide with Hindu sacred sites,
and rituals in which members of both com munities jointly participate are not
uncom mon, although this is quickly changing with the rising political fortunes of
reform ist movements in recent decades.42
Comparison has sometimes been made between the Universal W orship and
the practices of the Bektashi Order, which flourished in Anatolia and A lbania and
reached its zenith in the Ottoman period.43 According to John Birge, Bektashi
practice includes parallels to six of the seven sacraments of the Eastern Church,
including the Holy Eucharist.44 The m ost im portant ceremony of the Bektashi Order
is the aynicem, which took place before an altar (throne) holding a series of small
candles and one large candle. In the course of the ceremony, while reciting ritual
formulae, an officiant (called ciragci, candle-lighter) lights the small candles with
40 Leonard L ew isohn, B eyo n d F aith a n d Infidelity: The Sufi P o e try a n d T each in gs o f M ah m u d

S h a b ista ri (Surrey: Curzon Press, 1995), 276.
41 Garcin de T assy, M u slim F estiva ls in India a n d O th er E ssa ys, trans. M . W aseem (N ew D elhi:
O xford U niversity Press), 2 8 -1 2 2 .
42 S ee Y oginder Sikand, S a c re d S p a ces: E xplorin g T radition s o f S h a red F aith in India (N ew D elhi:
Penguin B o o k s, 2 0 0 3 ), and D om inique-Sila Khan, C rossin g the T hreshold: U n derstan din g R elig io u s
Iden tities in South A sian (London: I. P. Tauris, 20 0 4 ).
43 Van B eek , H a zra t In a ya t Khan, 125.
44 John K in gsley B irge, The B ektash i O rd e r o f D ervish es (London: Luzac & C o., 19 3 7 ), 2 1 5 -1 8 .
141
a taper lit from the large candle.45 The similarity between these features of the
aynicem and the Universal W orship is striking, but as there is no evidence that either
Inayat Khan or Sophia Green had direct knowledge of Bektashi rites, the possibility
of influence can only be a hypothesis.46
A nother analogue is the D in-i Ilahi (divine religion) founded by the
M ughal em peror Akbar 47 A kbars watchword was sulh-i kull (peace with all), a
phrase that was appropriated by Inayat K hans predecessors in the Chishti Order in
the eighteenth century.48 An inscription for a temple in Kashmir com posed by
A kbars prim e minister, A bul-Fazl A llam i, gives eloquent poetical voice to
A kbars policy of religious tolerance:
O God, in every temple I see people seeking you and in every

language I hear people beseeching you.
Infidelity and islam are running after you; Saying, He is one,
without partner.
If it is a mosque, in remembrance of you they exclaim the call to

prayer, if a church, in longing for you they ring the bell.
O you whose device is the heart that bears the m ark o f lovers; A ll
creatures are anxiously looking fo r you, but no building contains you;
45 Ibid., 175-189.
46 Sh. M ahm ood Khan considers B ektashism a probable reference point: [Inayat Khan and his
brothers] c o u ld n o t have been so w h olly ignorant o f Turkish affairs at a tim e that the Ottoman
Khalifate meant so m uch to Indian M u slim s. Personal com m unication, 15 M arch 2 0 0 6 .
47 On the D in -i Ilahi, see M akhan Lai R oy Choudhury, The D in -i-Ilah i o r the R elig io n o f A k b a r (N ew
D elhi: M unshiram M anoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 1985), and Khaliq Ahm ad N izam i, A k b a r a n d
R elig io n (N ew D elhi: Idarah-i A dabiyat-i D elli, 1989).
48 Shah K alim A llah Jahanabadt, M a k tu b a t-i K a lim i (D elhi: M atba-i M ujtabaI, 1897-8) 63.
142
Sometimes I seclude m yself in the temple; sometimes I retreat to the

mosque; Which is to say, I seek you fro m house to house.
If your elect have no business with infidelity or faith it is because
neither has admission beyond the veil of submission to your will.
Infidelity to the heretic and orthodoxy to the pious, but the dust o f
rose belongs to the heart o f the perfume-seller.
This temple has been built with the intention of joining together the
hearts of the Unitarians of Hindustan, and in particular, the
worshippers of the province of Kashmir.
By order o f the Lord o f the throne and the crown, the lamp o f
creation, Shah Akbar; In whom the seven minerals are temperately
balanced and the fo u r elements are perfectly combined.
W hoever, not looking on this temple with sincere consideration,
defaces it, should first tear down his own place of worship, for if one
looks into the heart, one is constructive toward everything, whereas if
one looks only on outer appearances, all is destruction.49
A collection of sayings of Inayat Khan published in 1936 opens with one of
the verses from this inscription (Orthodoxy to the orthodox, and heresy to the
heretic.. .).50 This indicates that Inayat K hans editors were fam iliar with the Ayin-i
A kbari in the Blochmann translation (published first in 1873, and again in 1927), in
which A buT-Fazls inscription is quoted in the preface. They would have been
49 A b u l-Fazl A llam i, A y in -i A k b a ri, trans. H. B lochm ann (Calcutta: The A siatic S ociety o f B en gal,
1927), liv -lv i (Persian text re-translated with Peter Lamborn W ilson ).
50 Inayat Khan, The B o w l o fS a k i.
143
aware, then, that the title applied to officiants in the Universal W orship was the same
word that A bul-Fazl used to describe Akbar: chiragh, lamp.
They must also have been cognizant too, as Inayat Khan him self doubtless
was, of the resemblance between the lighting of the candles in the Sunday Service
and A kbars own religious proclivities. The A yin-i Akbari features a chapter titled
On Illum inations, which describes a series of experimental ceremonies. Although
A bul-Fazl makes no mention of origins, scholars have em phasized the relevance of
Zoroastrian and IshraqI m odels.51 The text relates:
His M ajesty maintains that it is a religious duty and divine praise to

worship fire and light; surely, ignorant men consider this
forgetfulness of the Almighty, and fire-worship. ... W hen the sun
sets, the attendants light twelve white candles, on twelve candlesticks
of gold and silver, and bring them before his Majesty, when a singer
of sweet melodies, with a candle in his hand, sings a variety of
delightful airs to the praise of God, beginning and concluding with a
prayer for the continuance of his auspicious reign.52
Family oral tradition confirms that Inayat Khan and his brothers held A kbar
in high esteem, as a paragon of spiritual and aristocratic virtues. They were keenly
aware of the D in-i Ilahl, and considered it a genuine Sufi tariqa.53 It is therefore
quite possible that in his private thoughts, Inayat Khan legitimated the Universal
51 Chaudhury, D in -i lla h i, 90 -9 5 ; N izam i, A k b a r a n d R eligion , 2 0 3 -2 0 7 .

52 A b u l-Fazl A llam i, A y in -i A k b a ri, 50 -5 1 .
144
W orship as a modern expression o f the religious pluralism and light sym bolism of
A kbars DIn-i llahi.
Like the lighting of the candles, the first two of the three liturgical prayers
instituted in the Sunday Service Saum, Salat, and Khatum represent a
com bination of preexisting source material and original inspiration. Saum and Salat
are Inayat K hans elaborations on the first and second verses, respectively, of an old
Indian song translated into English by a French mureed, Franco is M arquis de
Breteuil. The translated text of the two verses has been preserved, but nothing is
known about the identity of the song.54
Finally, in surveying the sources of the Church of All, mention should be
made of the League of Nations. The significance of the newly created League of
Nations for the Sufi Order in general has already been noted. Specifically, the
political pluralism of the League of Nations provided a model for religious pluralism
of the Church of All. Inayat Khan called attention to the affinity between the League
of Nations and the Church of All in a sermon delivered in Holland.55 W hile visiting
Geneva in 1924, Rabia M artin expanded on the parallelism:
W hen I review the process of development of the Sufi Order and its
religious activity through the Universal W orship, I see the same
53 Sh. M ahm ood Khan, personal com m unication, 11 N ovem b er 2 0 0 5 .

54 Inayat Khan, The C o m p lete W orks o f P ir-o -M u rsh id In a ya t Khan, S ayin gs P a rt 1, ed. M unira van
V oorst van B eest (T he Hague: E ast-W est Publications, 1989), 199-205.
145
principle, the same process enacted in the whole Cosmos. ... Like
the blessed Sufi M ovement and this Universal W orship, [the League
of Nations] cannot bring the m illennium here on earth in a day. Time
alone, with G ods hand guiding us, with His blessed m essenger who
has labored ceaselessly, unremittingly, and most divinely, organizing
our individual efforts into a collective spiritual force, will, as it is

even doing now, bring about the Unity of Faiths of man, and the Truth
em bodied in all, through sympathy, tolerance, and spiritual
enlightenment. And like the League of Nations ... so does the Sufi
M essage come to dissolve by its spiritual force, the many existing
religions, hatreds and differences...56
To summarize, the invention of the Church of All was a hybrid post-Christian
religious response to the mood of civilizational crisis that swept the W estern world
following the First W orld War. Its pluralistic vision drew explicitly on the League of
Nations and im plicitly on the Indo-Persian Sufi School of Love, while its ritual
form m irrored the Liberal Catholic Church and obliquely referenced the D in-i llahi.
The M essage and the M essenger
Between his two visits to London in the spring of 1921, Inayat toured
H olland and Belgium, delivering lectures at the invitation of the Theosophical
55 Inayat Khan, The C o m p lete W orks o f P ir-o -M u rsh id In a ya t Khan, 1924 I: Jan u ary-Ju n e 8 , ed.
Sharif Graham, Berthi van der B ent H am el, and M ary Jane Parrish (N ew Lebanon, N .Y .: O m ega
Publications, 2 0 0 4 ), 273.
146
Society and other groups. Baron van Tuyll van Serooskerken joined the Order, and
was appointed National Representative, a capacity in which he was to play an
increasingly im portant role in the O rders development, alongside his wife, Saida
(the artist Henriette W illebeek Le Mair). In the summer, an international retreat was
held in W issous, the first of what was to becom e an annual tradition of Summer
Schools. In the fall, following return visits to Holland and Belgium, Inayat
em barked on a private tour of Germany accompanied by Tuyll. Despite
disappointing arrangements, contact was made with a number of artists and thinkers,
including, at Jena, the Nobel laureate R udolf Eucken, and at W eim ar, Elisabeth
Forster-N ietzsche.57 Inayat could not fail to notice the prevailing pessim ism in
Germany, but also observed that young Germans were especially receptive to the
idea of spiritual unfoldment.
In the winter and spring of 1922, between lectures delivered at the M usee
Guimet, Societe Geographique, and Loge des Francsma 5ons in Paris, Inayat Khan
continued to travel widely, addressing public and private audiences in Belgium,
Switzerland, Holland, and England. As spring turned to summer he sum m ed up his
recent achievem ents in a cautiously upbeat letter to Rabia Martin:
W ith all my troubles the work is spreading[;] in England lately I had a

greater success than ever before. In Belgium it is beginning[,] in
56 Sufism, D ecem b er 1924, 6.

57 The latter, Friedrich N ietz sc h e s sister and literary executor, really show ed a kindred spirit.
G uillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B iograph y, 160.
147
Holland there is a great hope[,] in Switzerland it is getting on and in

France it will grow. M y position is that of a mother of several infant
children who are entirely dependant upon her care and [one] cannot
58
for one mom ent depend upon them.'
In the same letter, Inayat confided, this is the M essage of the time, and it is our
destiny to fulfill it. During the war Inayat had written to M artin of G ods
M essage, but this new formulation, the M essage of the time, conveys a newfound
sense of opportunity and urgency.
From mid-June through the end of August Inayat Khan presided over the
second annual Summer School, which was now held in Suresnes, a village ju st north
of Paris where Inayat and his family had recently taken up residence in a stately
house, styled Fazal Manzil. The house was the gift of a newly initiated Dutch widow
nam ed N. (Fazal Mai) Egeling (d. 1939), who in making the gift became a m em ber
of the household.59 Inayat Khan later expressed his appreciation in his
autobiographical reminiscences: [Fazal M ais] hand, as a hand of Providence,
became my backbone, which comforted me, and raised my head upw ard in
thanksgiving, the head which so long was hanging in humiliation, owing to the utter
lack of m eans.60 An erstwhile Theosophist, Egeling was convinced that in Inayat

59 A biographical sketch o f E gelin g is given in Guillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed.,
B io g ra p h y, 4 9 8 -5 0 0 .
60 Ibid., 187.
148
Khan she had met the M aster she had long awaited. The following year Inayat made
Fazal M ai a M urshida, and henceforth she made it her daily practice to send prayers
of blessing (fazl) out from Fazal M anzil to the mureeds of all nations. Though the
Headquarters was in Geneva, as the residence of the Pir-o-M urshid, Fazal M anzil
became the spiritual axis of the Order. During Inayat Khans lifetime Suresnes and
Geneva cooperated effectively, but soon thereafter the relationship was to devolve
into a destructive rivalry (see Chapter Five).
The presence of mureeds and inquirers from many countries (Holland,
Switzerland, Poland, Russia, France, America, and England), gave the Summer
School a distinctly international coloration. On Inayat K hans birthday, Viladat
Day, the representatives of various countries presented reports and felicitations. A
statement made by Inayat Khan on the occasion epitomizes the broadening scope of
the O rders aspirations amidst the recent flurry of expansion: I wish to say to all my
mureeds that the voice I always hear, and to which I constantly respond, is always
saying, The W orld W ork, The W orld M essage.61
The Suresnes Summer School was followed in September by an additional
tw o-w eek Sum m er School, hosted by Sirdar and Saida van Tuyll at their villa in
Katwijk-aan-Zee, a scenic seaside village in the Netherlands near Leiden. Each day,
Inayat Khan devoted several hours to private interview with mureeds and inquirers.
61 C o m p lete W orks: 1922 /, 302.
149
The two hallm ark concerns of the Sufi Order, individual spiritual developm ent and
collective world reconstruction, provided the themes for Inayats two series of daily
lectures: The Inner Life and Problems of the Day.62 The lectures on The Inner
Life were collected and published as a book in Decem ber of the same year.
During the Dutch Summer School an incident occurred that was to quickly
find its way into the O rders most prized hagiographical traditions. Sophia
Saintsbury-Green provides an eloquent eyewitness account:
... At lunch again He neither spoke nor ate, but on rising from the
table He asked His host and the disciple who writes to accompany
Him for a walk. They hasten to fetch their coats; but, quick as they
are, His im patience is evident, He is waiting at the door, and as they
appear, walks hurriedly inland towards the wastes of sand. Faster He
walks, with a gait so unlike His measured steps, that they glance at
one another in surprise, and soon it is almost only by running that
they are able to keep close to H im as He goes. After some ten
m inutes walk they reach the dunes and there the master stops;
imperiously, and in a voice they scarcely know, He bids them wait till
He returns, and awe-struck by His manner, they obey in silence. The
spot in which He leaves them is a little m ound on which a flagstaff
has been fixed; and from it the two who wait can see the M asters
figure as He walks rapidly in long strides, planting His stick before
Him in the shifting sand. He is bare-headed, and His hair, usually so
expressive of His love of beauty, is all disheveled and streams out
62 T h ese lectures were transcribed, and are contained in Inayat Khan, C om plete Works, 1922 II. For
an account o f the 1922 Summ er S ch ool in H olland, see Sufism 1 (D ecem ber 1922): 6-7.
150
upon the wind. His garment, a long black cassock and over-cloak,
adds to the impression of some Prophet of old, and involuntarily the
disciples utter the same word, Elijah! ; how is it that we know he
looked like that? His haste does not im pair the sense of M ajesty and
Power that comes to them as they watch that figure while it seems to
grow larger instead of smaller in the distance, until some quarter of a
mile away it disappears among the further dunes. For perhaps three-
quarters o f an hour they wait in silence which is like a prayer, but then
they see Him come. ... At supper ... His host is asked if he can find
the spot, a tiny basin green and fresh with grass, behind the M ount
near which the M aster disappeared. For from today it shall be given
the name M orad H a s s if3, the M ount of Blessing, and those who pray
for blessings there shall have their wish granted. So spoke the
M aster, and no more; but in their hearts the two disciples thought, It
is the place of tryst, He kept it there with W hom ?64
This account comes from Sophia G reens anonymously authored volume, M em ories
o fH a zra t Inayat Khan, a deeply devotional w ork divided in five chapters,
respectively titled The Man, The M urshid, The Saint, The M aster, and The Prophet.
The anecdote of Inayats disappearance in the dunes of K atwijk belongs to the
culminating chapter, in which Green portrays the Prophetic Aspect of the M aster.
In this aspect, Green asserted, Inayat was essentially remote and mysterious:
Naturally it was not possible for [disciples] to know the nature of the Call that came
63 M u ra d h asil, [place of] w ish fulfillm ent.

64 [Sophia Saintsbury-G reen], M em ories o fH a z r a t In a ya t K han (London: Rider & C o., n.d.), 7 5 -6 .
151
to turn His thoughts away from them; or to summon Him to Councils held in the
secret places of the Earth.65
G reens account of the incident in the dunes of Katwijk constitutes an
im pressionistic reconstruction of a visually dramatic but essentially ambiguous
scene, charged with the chiliastic awe of an ardent Theosophist. Her reference to
secret places of the Earth could be read as a discrete allusion to the Theosophical
legend of H idden M asters who control the destiny of the world from the mountain
fastnesses of the Himalayas. Green is convinced that the incident relates to Inayats
Prophetic Aspect, though in her written account she makes no claim to know its
significance. It was nonetheless frequently speculated that Inayat was initiated as
prophet on that day.66
By the fall of 1922, the notion that Inayat Khan might be, or was, the
prophet of the age was widely entertained among members of the Sufi Order. Early
mureeds who were averse to this messianic trend of thought, such as Zohra
W illiams, had dropped away, while Sophia Green and Sirdar van Tuyll increasingly
infused the Order with their distinctly millenarian devotional style. An original
mureed explained: I found later that many of [Inayat K hans] disciples almost
resented the name Sufi, because they saw Inayat as a great teacher and leader of
65 Ibid., 72.
66 Shireen Smit-Kerbert, ed., M em ories o f M urshid, Fazal M anzil A rchive (cop y), 26.
152
humanity in the age, which required an understanding of all religions and all not
only spiritual, but also material m ovem ents.67
In an unpublished com pilation of personal narratives by forty-six original
mureeds titled M emories of M urshid, Inayat is variously referred to as the
W orld-Teacher, Christ, Christ-man, Prophet, M essenger, Nabi, and Rasul.68 In
several cases it is evident that Theosophical ideas feature significantly in the
w riters perceptions. For instance, Mr. Salamat Louis Hoyack wrote:
The axis around which all my relations with Inayat Khan spun, and
still spin today, was my M essianic expectation. This was because
Theosophy had accustomed my mind to the idea of a W orld-Teacher
in general, and in particular to the coming of a W orld-Teacher in this
tim e.69
A nother mureed, Mrs. Bakhtavar Lugt-baak, wrote:

M urshid asked me, W hat are you thinking of? I said, of my still
being a member of the Order of the Star in the East, who expect the
W orld Teacher. But I dont expect him any longer! W hy not?
M urshid asked. Because I am walking beside him . Then M urshid

said, D ont speak about it to anyone.70
67 Sham cher Bryn B eorse, interview by W ali A li M eyer, Sufi Ruhaniat International A rchive.
68 Smit-Kerbert, ed., M em ories o f M urshid, 6, 19, 34, 4 0 , 4 7 , 5 2 -5 3 , 66, 68, 7 7 , 87.
69 Ibid., 46.
70 Ibid., 68.
153
A num ber of accounts follow the same general form. M ureeds describe
privately asking Inayat Khan whether he is Christ, or the W orld-Teacher. In each
case his response is reported as affirmative, if somewhat enigmatic. W hen M iss S.
Van B declared, M urshid, you are the Christ, he replied, You may say so.71
Similarly, asked by Louis Hoyack whether he was the W orld Teacher, Inayat
answered, You have said it.72 To Mrs. K , Inayat Khan replied, Yes, but do not
speak about it.
The messianic aura surrounding Inayat Khan needs to be understood in
m ultiple contexts. The expectation of C hrists return at the end of history is a basic
tenet of the Christian tradition based on the Revelation of John. During the
nineteenth century, the rapid transformation of American and European societies
reinforced both secular notions of progress and religious notions of im pending
apocalypse. In the fin-de-siecle progressive m essianism of Besantian Theosophy,
the two converged: social progress was reconceived through the lens of an occult,
post-Christian religious imaginary. The Great W ar conformed to Jo h n s vision of the
eschaton more closely than any event in human memory, and in its wake,
m em bership in the Order of the Star swelled to 30,000. The advent of Christ in
Krishnamurti, however, remained a distant and uncertain prospect. As Inayat Khan
moved through the Theosophical Society circuit, his charismatic and visionary
71 Ibid., 7.
72 Ibid., 47.
154
qualities attracted considerable attention, and inevitably, many cam e to see him as
the anticipated messiah.
Though like Krishnamurti, Inayat Khan was an exem plar of the Mystic
East, unlike his younger contemporary his religious roots were in Islam.
Consequently, the negotiation of his m ureeds messianic expectations could not be a
simple matter. The Q uran refers to M uham m ad as khatam al-nabiyin (the seal of
the prophets, 33:40), a phrase that Islamic theologians have generally interpreted to
mean that M uham m ad was the last prophet.
In his early works, Inayat Khan em phasized the finality of M uham m ads
revelation. In A Sufi M essage o f Spiritual Liberty he reiterated the conventional Sufi
account of the culm ination of the cycle of prophecy (nubuwwa) in the figure of
M uhamm ad, following which proceeds the cycle of sainthood (w ilaya):
Each Prophet had a mission to prepare the world for the teaching of
the next; each one prophesied the coming of the next, and the work
was thus continued by all the Prophets until M ohammed, the
Khatimal M ursaleen [khatam al-mursalin] (last messenger of Divine
W isdom and the supplem ent74 of Prophets), came on his mission, and
in his turn gave the final statement of D ivine Wisdom. That is: La
ella ha el allah hoo [la ilaha illa llah hu.]. (None exists but Allah.)
This message fulfilled the aim of prophetic mission. This final
definition is a clear interpretation of all religions and philosophies in
73 Ibid., 52 -5 3 .
74 This curious word is replaced by sea l in the later Sufi M essa g e edition.
155
the most apparent form. There was no necessity left for any more
Prophets after this divine message, which created by its Pantheism the
spirit of democracy in religion. By this message man received the

knowledge that he may attain the highest perfection under the
75
guidance of a perfect M urshid (spiritual teacher).
W hen Inayat Khan returned to the subject in later years, his interpretation
was more nuanced. He asserted that prophecy itself was not term inated with
M uhamm ad, but only specific aspects of it, albeit the preponderance of aspects:
The M essenger has five aspects of his being: (1) the Divine, (2) the
Ideal, (3) the Prophet, (4) the M essage-bearer, (5) the Teacher. Four
of these aspects have been terminated, so that now only one is
distinguished, which is the Teacher.76
In his Review of Religions, which remained unpublished in his lifetime,
he wrote, still more candidly:
M oslim s have closed the doors of the mosque by saying that

M oham m ed was the seal of Rissalat [risalat] which they interpret as
the last of the prophets. They do not seem to realize that it does not
mean that he was the last prophet to come, it only means that he was
the last of claimants to prophecy; and that according to the nature and
character of humanity after his time it would not be advisable for his
75 Inayat Khan, S p iritu a l L ib erty, 34-5.

76 Inayat Khan, The U nity o f R elig io u s Id ea ls (London and Southampton: T he Sufi M ovem ent, n.d.),
282-3.
156
successor to make an open claim, for it would be against the rule of

the time. There is no seal that cannot be opened, though it must not
be opened by everyone, but only by the one who has the right to open
it.77
The subdivision of prophecy into specific functions can be traced to the
works of Ibn al-A rabi (d. 1240). Ibn al-A rabi distinguishes between general
prophecy (nubuwwat al- amma) and legislative prophecy (nubuwwat
al-tashri ), and insists that it was only legislative prophecy an aspect which is
incidental (am r arid) to prophecy as such which was term inated with
M uham m ad in his role as khatam al-nabiyin ,78 In his magnum opus , the Futuhat
al-M akkiyya, he writes:
The prophecy that ceased is the legislative prophecy and not its
(spiritual) rank. No law will ever abrogate his (M uham m ads) law ...
and will not add to his law another law. This is the meaning of the
Prophets statement that mission and prophecy ceased and there will
be no messenger after me and no prophet. It means that after me
there will be no prophet who will enact a law different from mine.
M oreover, should there be (a prophet after me), he will be subject to
my law. (And the meaning of the phrase) and no m essenger is that
no messenger will be sent after me with a law to a group of A llahs
78 Yohanan Friedmann, P ro p h e c y C ontinuous (B erkeley: U niversity o f C alifornia Press, 1989), 7 1 -7 6 .
157
creatures in order to invite them to im plem ent it. This is the thing that
79
ceased and its door was closed, not the (spiritual) rank of prophecy.
It has been shown that Ibn al-A rabis doctrine of the persistance of non
legislative prophecy exercised powerful influence on the prophetology of M irza
G hulam A hm ad (d. 1908), the eponymous founder of the AhmadI movem ent
80
notorious in m ainstream M uslim circles for his prophetic claim. M irza G hulam
A hm ad described his own prophethood as revelatory but not legislative, and as
subsidiary to the prophethood of M uhammad, as its shadow.81
Inayat K hans assertion that the seal is meant to keep only the unqualified out
has clear precedents in the Sufi tradition. According to the teachings of
al-H aklm al-Tirm idhl (ninth-century), and much later IsmaTl H aqqi al-BursawI
(1652-1752), the seal is not so much a confirm ation of finality as it is a safeguard
against interference from enemies and the Prophets own lower soul (nafs
O ')
al-ammara).
Inayat K hans assertion that prophecy continues without claim has precedents in
the Sufi tradition as well. In his Fihi m a fih i, M aw lana Jalal al-DIn RumI (1207-
1273) argues along similar lines:
79 Ibid., 74.
80 Ibid., 142-144.
81 Ibid., 131-134. Interestingly, in his frequently polem ical R ev iew o f R elig io n s, Inayat m entions
the A hm adiyya w ithout com m ent. Guillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest. ed.. B io g ra p h y,
233.
82 Friedmann, P ro p h e cy C o n tin u ou s, 76.
158
It is said that after the Prophet and the elder prophets, no one else will
receive prophetic inspiration. W hy should this be? Indeed prophetic
inspiration does come down to humans, but it is not called prophetic
inspiration ... the intrinsic meaning of prophetic inspiration is present

83
even though it may not be called by that name. '
It is Inayat K hans concurrence with Rum i that prophethood m ust not be
claim ed in the post-M uhamm adan age that fundamentally differentiates his
prophetology from that of M irza Ghulam Ahmad and M irza Husayn A ll N url
(1817-1892), or Baha A llah.84 W hile Inayat Khan conceded the continuity of
prophecy after M uhammad, unlike the founders of the Ahmad! and B ahai
com m unities he never publicly claim ed the role for himself, and considered such
claims to be out of place. This comes across clearly in his account of his encounter
with Abd al-B aha (1844-1921), the eldest son and successor of B aha Allah:
During the conversation we had, he exclaim ed, There should be no

secret, you must speak; either you know or you do not know. I
answered, The whole nature of things and beings has a secret; each
thing and each being has a secret which reveals its nature and
character and the life itself has its secret, and its uncovering of its
secret which is the purpose of life. Speaking out aloud does not prove
a person to be the know er of the secret. Neither every occasion is the
83 Jalal a l-D in R um i, Sign s o f the Unseen: The D isco u rses o fJ e la lu d d in R u m i, trans. W . M .

T hackston, Jr. (Putney, VT: Threshold B o o k s, 1994), 135.
84 On B ah a A llah, see Peter Smith, The B a b i a n d B a h a i R elig io n s: F rom M essia n ic S h iism to a
W orld R elig io n (Cambridge: C am bridge U niversity Press, 1987), 57-97.
159
suitable occasion, nor is every person a person fitted for the truth to
85
be spoken to.
Yet if Inayat Khan refused to make a prophetic claim in public, in private he
affirmed his m ureeds perceptions of him as a prophet, as noted above. But here
again, significant precedents exist in the pre-modern history of Sufism. The
disciples act of identifying his m aster as the prophet, either spontaneously or at the
m asters behest, is not an uncom mon scenario in Sufi literature. An early exam ple is
the Kitab al-insan al-kamil of Ibn al-A rabis celebrated com mentator A bd al-
K arlm al-Jill (d. 1408?). A l-Jili describes how the eternal essence of M uham m ad,
the M uham m adan Reality (al-haqiqat al-M uhammadiyya), transm igrates through
history, and is witnessed by disciples in the forms of their masters:
His own original name is M uhamm ad ... In every age he bears a name
suitable to his guise in that age. I once met him in the form of my
Shaykh, Sharaf al-D in IsmaTl al-Jabarti, but I did not know that he
(the Shaykh) was the Prophet, although I knew that he (the Prophet)
was the Shaykh ... The real meaning of this m atter is that the Prophet
has the power of assuming every form. W hen the adept sees him in
the form of M uham m ad which he wore during his life, he names him
by that name, but when he sees him in another form and knows him to
be M uhamm ad, he names him by the name of the form in which he
appears ... Thus, when he appeared in the form of Shibli, Shibll said
85 Guillaum e-Scham hart and V an V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y, 2 3 0 -2 3 1 .
160
to his disciple, Bear witness that I am the apostle of God ; and the
disciple, being one of the illuminated, recognized the Prophet and

said, I bear witness that thou art the apostle of God.86
The story of Shibli is given a slightly different telling in M ir at al- arifin, the
major prose w ork of the Chishti author M asud Bakk, who was executed for heresy
in 1433. M asud Bakk relates that a seeker came to Shibli requesting initiation. To
test his sincerity, Shibli challenged him to declare la ilaha ilia llah Shibli rasiil Allah
(There is no god but God and Shibli is the messenger of God). W hen the seeker
obeyed, Shibli explained, In turning toward reality [one sees that] Shibli is the
essence ( ayn) of M uhammad, and M uham m ad is the essence of Shibli. The story
ends with a couplet by Awhad al-DIn KirmanI: I asked, are you a prophet or p ir V ;
He said, Remove duality from the path.87
A nother Chishti author, Sayyid M uhamm ad Husaynl GIsu Daraz (d. 1422),
quotes this same verse in a passage in which he explains the extrem e veneration of
the spiritual guide (pir-parasti) that distinguishes the Chishti path: There are many
Sufis who view the p ir as an instructor and teacher, but for us, and for our masters,
86 R eynold A lleyn e N ich olson , S tu dies in Islam ic M ysticism (N ew Delhi: Idarah-i A dabiyat-i D elli,
1988), 105.
87 M a sud Bakk, M ir a t a l-'a rifin (D elhi: M atba-i M ufid, 1892), 139. In Dara Shikuh, H a sa n a t
a l - arifin , trans. M uhamm ad Umar Khan (Lahore: Tajuran Kitab Q aum i, n.d.), 34, the sam e story is
attributed to M u in al-D in C hishti. T he prospective initiate w as m ade to recite, . . . C h ish ti rasu l
A lla h .
161
the p ir is the beloved, and we are the lover. ... W e do not see or know any
distinction between the p ir, the Chosen One (M uhammad), and God.88
The M anaqib al- arifin, com posed by Shams al-Din A hm ad AflakI in 1353,
attributes a similar episode to the biography of Shams-i Tabriz. In A flak is
narrative, a disciple of B aha al-Din W alad who had borne a grudge tow ard Shams-
i Tabriz unexpectedly has a change of heart:
Suddenly, he felt a new faith glow within him, and he shouted out:
There is no god save God; Shams al-D in is the apostle of G od. The
market-people, on this, raised a great hubbub, and wished to kill him.
One of them came forward to cut him down; but Shams uttered so
terrific a shout, that the man fell at once down dead. The rest of the
m arket-people bowed, and submitted. Shams now took the disciple
by the hand, and led him away, remarking to him: M y good friend;
my name is M uhammad. Thou should have shouted: M uham m ad is
the apostle of G od. The rabble will not take gold that is not
coined.89
Framed in the context of narratives of this kind, Inayat K hans responses to
the chiliastic expectations of his mureeds reveal the lineaments of a spiritual
pedagogical strategy that fits an established pattern. As Gisu Daraz attests, in the
Chishti Order the disciple is expected to recognize the Prophet in the master, and
88 G isu Daraz, K hatim a, ed. Sayyid Ata Husayn (Hyderabad: Barqi Press, n.d.), 67.
89 Shams al-D in Ahm ad A tlak i, L eg en d s o f the Sufis, trans. Jam es W . R edhouse (K ingston-upon-
T ham es, Surrey: C oom b Springs Press, 1965), 105.
162
God in the Prophet. In this way, the disciple moves progressively through the
stations of annihilation in the master (fana f i l-shaykh), annihilation in the
Prophet (fana f i l-rasul), and annihilation in God (fana f i llah). To respond
positively to the subjective experience of a mureed who is in transit from
annihilation in the master to annihilation in the Prophet is not equivalent to
asserting an objective prophetic claim. In doing the former but never the latter,
Inayat rem ained fully within the circumference of traditional Sufism. Inayats
caution is evident from the tentativeness in his answers to mureeds who asked
whether he was Christ. His customary replies were You may say so (or You have
said it) echoing Jesus answer, It is you who say I am or, Yes, but do not
speak about it.
The Sufi M ovem ent
In the fall, Inayat Khan toured England and Switzerland. To facilitate the
O rders expansion, he called Sharifa Goodenough to Suresnes to serve as M adar-ul-
M aham 90 of the Esoteric School, and asked Em ilien (Talewar) Dussaq, a congenial
Spaniard living in Vevey, to succeed Goodenough as General Secretary.91 W hen
90 M a d a r al-m aham nr. center o f important affairs, a M ughal ministerial title used in the Sufi Order
for the headship o f the Esoteric S chool.
91 E m ilien D ussaq w as born into a w ealthy cosm opolitan fam ily in Havana in 1882. W h ile holding
the office o f General Secretary o f the Sufi M ovem ent, he served in the largely honorary capacity o f
V ice C onsul at the C onsulate General o f Cuba in G eneva, refusing opportunities for prom otion in
order to d evote his full attention to the Sufi M ovem ent. In 1924 Inayat Khan initiated him as a K h alif
163
D ussaq protested that he lacked sufficient organizational capacity, Inayat simply
answered, If you dont know anything, you will be told.92 D ussaq proceeded to
acquire a large apartment in the six-story M aison Royale on the Quay des Eaux
Vivres overlooking Lake Geneva, which became the new Headquarters, and which
was to remain the official seat of the organization for several decades to come. The
inherent auspiciousness of the name Quay des Eaux Vives was com pounded by the
recollection that two years earlier, unbeknow nst to Dussaq, Inayat had stopped on
the Quay and declared to Goodenough, I would like to have my Headquarters
here!93
In February 1923, in response to frequently repeated requests from Rabia
Martin, Inayat Khan em barked on a three-month American tour. After a stormy
voyage, on arrival in New York he was detained and questioned by a tribunal on
Ellis Island.94 He recounts: And I, whose nation was all nations, whose place was
the world, whose religion was all religions, whose occupation was search after truth,
and whose work was the service of God and humanity, my answers interested them,
but did not satisfy the requirem ents.95 A mureed, the Prussian-Am erican M arya
(Khushi) Cushing, arrived to provide the necessary references, and the episode was
and ordained him as a Cherag. D ussaq died in 1954. A biographical sketch is given in G uillaum e-
Schamhart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y, 498.
92 R. C. C. Faber et al., F o rty Years o fS u fism , 17.
93 Ibid.
94 Pittsburgh Here After Storm y Trip, N ew York Tim es, 27 February 1923.
164
reported in the press, bringing the benefit of added publicity.96 After several lectures
in New York, Inayat visited Boston, where he met the distinguished Indian art
historian Dr. A nanda Coomaraswam y (1877-1947). He then made his way to San
Francisco, stopping briefly in Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
Inayats stay in San Francisco lasted seven weeks. During this tim e he
delivered a series of w ell-publicized lectures on Persian Sufi poetry at the gallery of
the Paul Elder bookstore. Other lectures were given as private classes for mureeds.
A collection of transcriptions of these classes, five series of ten papers on the them e
o f meditation, was later circulated, heavily edited and stylistically altered, under the
title G ita Dhyana.97 W hile staying in San Francisco, Inayat was taken to m eet the
famous horticulturalist Luther Burbank in Santa Rosa. On learning that Burbank was
attempting to breed a cactus without thorns, Inayat commented, My work is not
very different from yours, Sir, for I am occupied in taking away thorns from the
QQ
hearts of m en.
In May, en route to New York, Inayat lectured in Chicago and Detroit. In a
letter that reveals the strain of his ambitious itinerary, he wrote to his wife from the
Great Northern Hotel in Chicago:
96 Inayat w as keenly aware o f the pow erful influence o f the press in A m erican so ciety , and sought to
use it to the best advantage. H e observed: T he great difficulty I found in the U nited States w as to
make the M essage audible, for I felt as though blow in g a w histle in the n oise o f a thousand drum s.
G uillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y, 175.
97 Inayat Khan, C o m p lete W orks o f P ir-o -M u rsh id In a ya t Khan, 1 9 2 3 I: Jan u ary-Ju n e, ed. M unira van
V oorst van B eest (T he Hague: E ast-W est Publications, 1989), 2 1 9 -3 2 2 .
165
It is always full of risk to be constantly in the midst of the activity. I

am foolishly trying to do the work of three years in three months [;]
thats where is the cause of all trouble. I must do my best after taking
all this long journey and expense. The physical and m ental strain
caused by all this w ork takes every bit out of one [;] I will be glad
when I am through it and come home among my little o n e s."
Following lectures and press interviews in New Y ork and Philadelphia, in June
Inayat sailed for Europe. Accompanying him on the voyage were Mrs. Bhakti
Eggink, a Dutch mureed who had come over to assist him, and Mr. Earl (Fatha)
E ngle100, a young newly initiated American who was coming to live and w ork in
Suresnes.
The Summer School in Suresnes was again larger than the previous year.
The garden was now extremely crowded, and participants had to seek lodging miles
aw ay.101 Inayat gave a lecture or address three or four times each day. Two
secretaries, Ms. J. E. D. Sakina Furnee102 and Ms. D. Kismet S tam 103, were
99 Inayat to A m ina B egum , 19 M ay 1923, Inayat M anzil A rchive.
100 Earl E ngle was born in Indiana in 1888 and orphaned at the age o f five. In early life he worked in
agriculture in various capacities. A m ystical experience at the age o f thirty-one led him to undertake a
course o f study with Rabia Martin. From 1923 to 1924 he served as Inayat K hans driver and
assistant in Suresnes. Returning to A m erica, he established a Sufi center in C leveland. H e is said to
have initiated hundreds o f m ureeds. H is notebook contains the nam es and address o f seven ty-five
mureeds w hom he personally initiated. For a fuller biographical sketch, see G uillaum e-Scham hart
and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y, 5 0 2 -5 0 4 .
101 Van Stolk, M em o ries o f a Sufi S a g e (The Hague: E ast-W est Publications, 1975), 38.
102 Born in The H ague in 1896, J. E. D . Furnee becam e Inayat K hans personal secretary in 1921,
prompting her to learn shorthand. Furnees reports o f Inayat Khans talks set a new standard for
166
instructed to report Inayats words in shorthand. Sharifa Goodenough incorporated a
number of the Sum m er School lectures in the Esoteric Papers. Others were used in
the preparation of books. A volume on metaphysics titled The Soul, Whence and
Whither was com piled entirely from lectures given during the Sum m er School and
published in 1924.
During the Summer School Inayat outlined two major organizational goals
that he would continue to underscore throughout the remainder of his career: the
need to develop a large cadre of active workers, and the need to build a Sufi
tem ple.104 The first goal was reiterated in the most clear and em phatic terms the
following year, when Inayat visited The Hague, where Sirdar and Saida van Tuyll
had built a large Sufi Centre at 78 Anna Paulownastraat (beside the Peace Palace):
... I must appeal to your deepest hearts, that we sorely need ten
thousand workers to begin our movement. Until we have got this, we
have not developed. I do not consider that we have made a beginning.
accuracy and com pleteness. She was appointed Peshkar o f the Brotherhood in 1922 and N ational
R epresentative for B elgiu m in 1923. From 1922 to 1925 Inayat Khan dictated to her many parts o f
his B io g ra p h y, w hich rem ained unpublished until 1979. In 1950, Furnee w h ose first initiatic name
w as Sakina, and second was N ekbakht established the foundation N ekbakht Stichting and gave
into its charge the volum inous archive o f the B iographical Department housed in her hom e opposite
Fazal M anzil in Suresnes. S ee Guillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y, 5 0 5 -
506.
103 Born in Jakarta in 1893, D orothea Stam w as introduced to the Sufi M ovem en t by her cousin
Sakina/Nekbakht Furnee in 1923, and began serving as a secretary soon thereafter. She accom panied
Inayat Khan w ho named her K ism et to A m erica in 1925, and to India in 1926. F o llo w in g her
return to Europe in the wake o f Inayat Khans death she lived with Furnee in Suresnes and com p iled
the third volu m e o f Inayats trilogy o f aphorisms and prayers, N irtan: The D a n ce o f the S ou l (London
and Southam pton: T he Sufi M ovem ent, n.d.).
104 Inayat Khan, C o m p lete W orks o f P ir-o -M u rsh id In ayat Khan, 1923 II: J u ly -D e ce m b e r, ed. Munira
van V oorst van B eest (T he Hague: E ast-W est Publications, 1988), 145-7.
167
A cause which is for the whole humanity at least needs the num ber I
have mentioned. ... One m ight ask whether in any case quality is not
more than quantity. This m ight be true for an esoteric school, but not
for a world cause.105
The goal of building a temple, which resonated acutely with the messianic
expectations of the time, was variously articulated. Sometimes the em phasis was on
a physical structure. In 1924 North African artists and masons were in the French
capital building the Andalusian-style marble M osquee de Paris, and Inayat wished to
engage them to construct a temple for the Universal W orship in Suresnes, to be
named the Universel. Inayat envisioned the temple in Suresnes as a m iniature model
that w ould be replicated on a larger scale in numerous countries.106 At other times
Inayat spoke of building a temple in metaphorical terms. Here the em phasis was on
the temple as a spiritual phenom enon, built of the devotion of the workers for the
M essage:
The Sufi cause is ... a temple built for the worship of the future. And
some will have to be the pillars of the temple, and some will have to
serve in the m aking of the walls, and some must help the position in
the dome and minarets. .. .This all must be provided and supplied. By
what? By the devoted hearts of the mureeds. This temple built in the
I 07
abstract will be indestructible.
105 Inayat Khan, C o m p lete Works, 1924 /, 36.

106 Inayat Khan, C o m p lete W orks: 1923 II, 146.
107 Inayat Khan, C o m p lete W orks: 1924 /, 35.
168
In the fall of 1923 Inayat traveled to Geneva, where he undertook a m ajor
revision of the legal organization of the Sufi work. Since 1921 the Sufi Order had
been unofficially reconceived as the Esoteric School of a larger organization known
as the Sufi M ovement, which also included the Brotherhood and the Universal
W orship. The time had now come to formalize the new structure. The task of
drafting the Constitution of the Sufi M ovem ent was entrusted to a newly initiated
Harvard-trained lawyer nam ed Enrique (Birbal) de Cruzat Zanetti. After first
drawing up a draft that was rejected for ignoring Inayats specifications, Zanetti
produced a version that met with his approval. Gone are all of the superfluous
com plexities of the London constitution. The Pir-o-M urshid remains the General
Representative, and in the decisions of the Executive Comm ittee holds four votes as
well as the pow er of veto, ensuring maxim um control within an ostensibly
dem ocratic framework. The Universal W orship, Esoteric School (Sufi Order), and
Brotherhood are reflected in the three Purposes of the Sufi M ovement:
1. To realize and spread the knowledge of unity, the religion of love

and wisdom, so that the bias of faiths and beliefs may of itself fall
away, the human heart may overflow with love and all hatred
caused by distinctions and differences may be rooted out.
2. To discover the light and power latent in man, the secret of all
religion, the power of mysticism, and the essence of philosophy,
without interfering with customs or beliefs.
169
3. To help to bring the w orlds two opposite poles, East and W est,
close together by interchange of thought and ideals, that the
Universal Brotherhood may form of itself, and man may meet
108
w ith man beyond the narrow national and racial boundaries.
Following lectures in Lausanne, Basel, and Zurich, and a meeting with the
famed pianist and former Polish Prime M inister Ignacy Paderewski, Inayat
proceeded to Italy, where lectures in Florence and Rome drew small but appreciative
audiences. Inayats translator in Italy was Dr. Roberto Assagioli (d. 1974), the
founder of Psychosynthesis, a precursor of H umanistic and Transpersonal
Psychology.109 Inayat was introduced at the Vatican and spoke with the Secretary of
State, Cardinal Gaspari, who received his ideas with consent and half-consent. 110
Afterward he was invited to a ceremony in the presence of the Pope. Returning
home, more lectures were given in Paris, followed by a visit to Belgium.
Inayat Khan spent the spring of 1924 moving between the various Sufi
centers in W estern Europe: Holland (Jan. 3-25), England (Jan. 25-Feb. 11), Suresnes
(Feb. 11-Mar. 31), Geneva (April 1-10), Italy (April 11-30), Suresnes (May 1-21),
Brussels (May 22-26), and Holland (May 26-June 8). The Sum m er School was
108 The Sufi M ovem ent, A rticles o fln co rp o ra tio n , Fazal M anzil A rchive (copy).
109 A ssa g io lis basic writings are collected in P sych o syn th esis (N ew York: Penguin B o o k s, 1976).
170
efficiently organized by Apjar (Sirkar) van Stolk111, an enterprising young Dutchm an
whose chronic illness was alleviated by daily spiritual healings adm inistered by
Inayat Khan. Synchronistically, among other topics Inayat delivered a series of
lectures on the subject of health and healing.112 Several hundred participants now
attended the Sum m er School, and Van Stolk was com m issioned with purchasing the
plots of land adjacent to Fazal M anzil to create a commodious Sufi garden.
Accom panied by Van Stolk, who henceforth served as his perm anent
personal assistant, in the fall Inayat made a second tour of Germany, w here he spoke
to packed halls and established a new center in Berlin. From Germany he traveled
north to Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. In Sweden a meeting was arranged with
Archbishop Nathan Soderblom, the influential founder of the ecum enical Life and
1 1Q
W ork movement. Though audiences were not always large in Scandinavia, Inayat
justified the trip on spiritual grounds: lectures are no more than a screen; my real
task lies in the higher spheres. 114 The lecture tour was com pleted with a return visit
111 Born into a w ealthy fam ily in Rotterdam in 1894, as a young man Apjar van Stolk worked in the
fam ily business in the U .S . until a bout o f tuberculosis ob liged him to co n v a lesce at a S w iss
sanitarium. D uring this tim e he read books on T heosophy. In 1922 he took initiation in the Sufi
Order and received daily healing treatments from Inayat Khan that he credited with restoring his
health. In 1924 he su cceed ed Fatha E ngle as Inayats personal assistant. H e later recorded his
exp eriences with Inayat Khan in the book M em ories o f a Sufi S age.
112 T hese lectures w ere later collected and published as H ealth (D eventer, H olland, and London: A . E.
Kluwer and Luzac & C o., n.d.).
113 Reports o f the m eeting vary. Inayat says: W e had a short m eeting; but I felt with an im pression o f
his thoughtful personality. Guillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y, 198.
W hereas Van Stolk writes: ...M urshid felt a strong affinity; and for the w h ole o f that day the tw o o f
them talked on deep spiritual subjects. Van Stolk, Sufi S age, 61.
114 Van Stolk, Sufi S age, 62.
171
to Germany, followed by stops in Holland where M aheboob Khan now resided
with his new bride, Mme. Shadibiy Ryckloff van Goens van Beyma and Belgium.
A variety of accounts suggest that it was Inayats magnetic presence, more
than the content of his expositions, that im pressed his audiences. One mureed
described the feeling of being caught and carried away to something that made the
light dawn w ithin. 115 Another wrote, I was probably only half listening. But I felt
taken up in an atmosphere where I felt com pletely at home. 116 But not everyone
reacted positively to Inayats com manding charisma. Some Theosophists suspected
him of being on the black path. 117 Inayat eventually stopped opening his lectures
with melodic invocations after it was objected that he used music to hypnotize the
audience. But Inayats simple magnetism itself was enough to overw helm a
Frenchman who had translated some of his lectures at the M usee Guimet:
... After the lecture I was exhausted and could not rem em ber a word
of what had been said ... In any case, I had the impression of being
under the spell of a powerful personality who was no doubt
sympathetic, but did not allow me to be completely myself. So I

decided to withdraw from the Pir-o-M urshid.118
115 Smit-Kerbert, ed., M em o ries o f M ushid, 36.

116 Ibid., 52.
117 B eorse, interview by M eyer.
118 D e Jong-K eesing, In a ya t Khan, 237.
ill
The following year saw Inayat continue his relentless peripateticism despite
deteriorating health. Between lectures at the Sorbonne and M usee Guimet, tours
were organized in Switzerland in January, Italy in February, Germany in M arch, and
England in April. New centers were form ed and existing centers expanded.
W henever possible Inayats lectures and classes were recorded and subm itted to
Headquarters.
The Esoteric Papers
As was noted in Chapter Two, the first set of papers for initiates was
com piled from classes given in London during the war. These papers, known
collectively as the Gitas, included instructions or commentary related to all of the
basic spiritual practices of the Sufi Order: Nimaz, W azifa, Zikar, Fikar, Kasab,
Shagal, and Amal. W hen new centers were established these papers were
cyclostyled and distributed for use as weekly readings. The copies remained the
official property of Headquarters and their use was circumscribed by strict
regulations intended to protect their secrecy. It was later decided that an
introductory series was needed, and so in 1924 Inayat Khan dictated a series of
papers, which were then com piled and distributed as the Gathas. Later more
advanced teachings were com piled from transcriptions of collective interview s
173
and distributed as the Sangathas and Sangitas. In an address to mureeds in
New York in 1926, Inayat Khan expressed his satisfaction:
Today the Sufi organization is constructed for [a] special purpose.
W hat I am today speaking reaches every m em ber in the world, in
Sweden, in Switzerland, in India, [in] any other country. W hat is
taken down is at Headquarters produced and circulated all over,
wherever they are studying the message, the same given to the others.
In that way we are in correspondence with one another, that spiritual
which person [s/c], uniting together in order to safeguard the message.
That itself is a great blessing.119
As reports of oral discourses, the Esoteric Papers represent an extension of
the m alfuzat tradition. M alfuzat are redactions of the oral teachings of Sufi
shaykhs, usually reported from semi-formal teaching sessions (m ajlis, pi. majalis).
Two differences distinguish the Esoteric Papers from the m alfuzat tradition. The
first is organization: pre-modern m alfuzat texts are as a rule arranged
chronologically, whereas the Esoteric Papers are thematic in structure. The second
is content: the Esoteric Papers contain considerably more instructional inform ation
than is traditionally included in m alfuzat texts.
119 A n A ddress G iven to M ureeds, 25 January 1926, N ekbakht Foundation A rchive.
174
W ith respect to ritual prescriptions, the Esoteric Papers bear com parison to
the genre of Chishti meditation manuals that includes Adhkar-i Chishtiyya,
Kashkul-i Kalimi, and Nizam al-quliib. Access to m anuscript copies of these works
was highly restricted in the pre- and early modern periods. M anuscripts of
Kashkul-i K alim i were sometimes treated as equivalent to robes of succession.
These texts were radically reframed in the late nineteenth century when lithograph
copies were mass-produced. Originally written to reinforce the oral tradition,
which was intertextual and secret, these works now became com plete,
po
closed, and publicly available.
The production and distribution of the Esoteric Papers represents an attempt
to reconcile the secrecy of oral and scribal traditions and the efficiency of modern
print technology. Such a com prom ise could only be maintained for a limited
duration. George Simmel wrote, W riting is opposed to all secrecy, a dictum that
121
applies with even greater force to mechanically produced text. During Inayat
K hans lifetime the distribution of the papers was controlled, but in the schismatic
environm ent following the Second W orld W ar the authority of a single system of
regulation could no longer be assumed. W ith the advent of cyberspace at the end of
the tw entieth century, control was lost entirely.
120 On the im plications o f closure, see M arshall M cLuhan, The G u ten berg G a la x y (Toronto:
U niversity o f Toronto Press, 1966), 130-33, and W alter Ong, O ra lity a n d L itera cy (N ew York:
M ethuen, 1988), 132-35.
175
As the Gita, Gatha, Sangita, and Sangatha papers were produced,
corresponding levels of certification were established within the Esoteric School,
ultim ately leading to a hierarchical system made up of four Circles of Initiation,
each com prising three successive initiatic grades: the Study Circle (Elementary,
Junior, Senior), the Advanced Circle (Associate, Licentiate, Initiate), the Inner
Circle (Talib, M ureed, Sufi), and the Higher Circle (Khalif, M urshid, Pir-o-
Murshid).
This elaborate scheme represents a distinct departure from traditional
Chishti practice, which distinguishes only two types of initiation: bay'at, which
renders the recipient a m ember of the Order, and khilafat, which renders the
recipient a fully authorized representative of the Order. The basis for the Sufi
O rders four Circles and twelve initiations must therefore be sought elsewhere.
Before he was a Sufi, Inayat Khan was a professor o f music, and
specifically a proponent of the modern educational innovations introduced by his
grandfather M awlabakhsh. As discussed in Chapter Two, at a time of shifting
patronage, M awlabakhsh sought to bolster the classical Indian musical tradition by
the adoption o f European pedagogical methods. His newly invented system of
musical notation enabled him to create a text-based curriculum of study for the
state-sponsored academy of music he founded in Baroda, the Gayan Shala. Until
121 G eorg S im m el, The S o c io lo g y o f G eo rg Sim m el, ed. and trans. Kurt H. W o lff (N ew York: T he Free
Press), 352.
176
his departure from Baroda in 1903, Inayat Khan taught at the Gayan Shala, and
com posed several Hindi textbooks for use there. In his later work, M inqar-i
m usiqar, Inayat Khan briefly describes the system:
The College has seven levels. Each class must complete a textbook in
which singing is transcribed. This technique, the writing of music, is
in English called notation. The textbooks contain instruction on
melody and rhythm (sur and tal), and the yearly exam inations of each
122
class are based on them.
It has already been noted in an essay by Sh. M ahm ood Khan that the Gayan
Shala was the conceptual prototype of the Sufi O rder.123 M ahm ood Khan
describes the continuity between the two institutions with reference to the principle
of universal access. But equally relevant is pedagogical method: the most basic
and significant innovation made by both M awlabakhsh and Inayat Khan, the form er
in music and the latter in Sufism, was the transformation of an oral tradition into a
systematic, gradated, text-based curriculum.
A nother context that cannot be ignored is Masonry. H. P. Blavatsky
frequently referenced masonry in her writings, and the membership of the
Theosophical Society overlapped with various M asonic organizations. A number
122 Inayat Khan, The B eak o f the M u siq a r B ird, trans. A llyn M iner, forthcom ing, 6.
177
of the leading followers of Inayat Khan m aintained M asonic links, and an extensive
hand-written docum ent in Gujarati script but English language (apparently written
down by Inayat Khan himself) confirms that Inayat Khan was provided with
detailed inform ation about the secret rites of Masonry. Masonry provided a model
for conceptualizing the twelve grades of study in the Esoteric School as initiatic
degrees. This move, which facilitated the assimilation of the Sufi Order within the
fin-de-siecle occult movement, symbolically rewarded the com m itm ent of serious
aspirants and produced an elaborate theocratic hierarchy.
Return to India
The Summer School was exceptionally successful. Among various lecture
topics, Inayat delivered a three-part series on Philosophy, Psychology, and
Mysticism. Sixteen mureeds were made C herags.124 W ords Inayat had earlier
written to Rabia M artin this little town will become a Sufi colony 125 were now
distinctly substantiated. Several Sufi leaders and mureeds, including M aheboob
Khan, Sharifa Goodenough, Sakina Furnee, and the Tuylls, had acquired homes or
second homes in Suresnes. M eanwhile, through the efforts of Sirkar van Stolk, the
123 Sh. M ahm ood Khan, Hazrat Inayat Khan: A Biographical P erspective, in A P e a rl in W ine, ed.
Z ia Inayat-Khan, 121.
178
property around Fazal M anzil was expanded, a hostel for guests was purchased, and
a lecture hall was constructed.
But as the Sufi M ovement mushroomed, internal tensions intensified. As Pir-
o-M urshid of the Esoteric School, Inayat Khan functioned in the traditional capacity
of a spiritual teacher endowed with the perfect authority of a perfect m an (insan
al-kam il). As Representative General of the Sufi M ovement, however, his role had
yet to be defined in practice. The crux of the problem has been aptly described:
The leading followers, deputy initiators themselves, aimed at a

hierarchy, i.e. a theocratic bureaucracy rising pyramid-like from
base to apex, leaving duly spectacular authority at every level and
assuring a steady if honorary Sufi career to initatic elites. Hazrat
Inayat Khan and his brothers, however, understood leadership as
fam iliar from feudal statelets and clan chieftaincies, i.e., as
126
monarchial, with delegation downwards.
The clash between courtly and episcopal models came to a head in the
annual council meetings at the Geneva Headquarters in September. In Inayat K hans
absence, a proposal was made that the constitution be amended to abolish the
Representative G enerals plural vote in the Executive Committee. The stated
rationale was that, since the Representative General enjoyed the pow er of veto, his
four votes were superfluous. Essentially at issue was the role of the Pir-o-M urshid,
126 Sh. M ahm ood Khan, Hazrat Inayat Khan, 125.
179
as Representative General, in the m anagement of the organization. Did the Sufi
M ovem ent exist to serve the Pir-o-M urshids agenda, or did the Pir-o-M urshid exist
to serve the M ovem ents agenda?
The arguments may be summarized as follows. Supporters of the
am endment Sophia Green, Sirdar van Tuyll, M umtaz Armstrong, and Dr.
Steindamm em phasized the distinction between esoteric and exoteric authority:
W e feel that it will keep Pir-o-M urshid as an esoteric Head, we wish

to lift him out of the question of voting. ... The wishes of the
Representative General are not of necessity permanent. ... W hen we

try to criticize things, being full of love of Sufi ideals, that can only
work out for the best. ... W hy is it necessary that a greater num ber of
votes is concentrated permanently on a few persons? ... As M urshid
is so absorbed in the esoteric part of the work it is impossible for him
to keep his finger on the pulse of the whole organization in all parts of
the world. ... It is not an esoteric matter, but an adm inistrative matter.
127
It is now the mom ent to revise these rules.
Those opposed to the amendment, of whom the prim ary voice was Sharifa
Goodenough, challenged the distinction:
W e have here every day the opportunity of following the wish o f Pir-
o-M urshid. Is it the wish of an ordinary person, with a personal
consideration, is it an earthly wish? No, it is the wish that comes
from the M essenger for the fulfillm ent of the Message. ... W hen I
see that there is one sun in the sky and another sun on the earth then
180
only shall I be prepared to accept the point of view that a supreme

knowledge is incapable in affairs of organization, that the affairs of
must be managed by other people. ... It has been said: Pir-o-M urshid
is dependent upon inform ation brought to him by people who com e to
him. This is against the m ost elementary knowledge of what a mystic
128
is. A mystic is not dependent on what various people tell him.
The motion was put to a vote, the result of which was ten in favor of
changing the Articles of Incorporation and seven against. The Chairman consulted
with Inayat Khan, who was present in Geneva though not in the meeting, and
returned to report that the Representative General had cast his vote in the negative,
bringing the negative votes to eleven and causing the resolution to fail. The m atter
thus settled, the council moved on to other business.
It is noteworthy that two of the most vocal supporters of the m otion to limit
the Representative G enerals constitutional powers were also two o f the most zealous
advocates of the idea that Inayat Khan was the M essenger of God. Ironically, their
wish to enhance his symbolic authority led them to attempt to dim inish his literal
authority. Inayat was not flattered. On the contrary, he was profoundly offended.
His response is perhaps best understood in the context of a passage from his own
teachings:
127 M inutes o f the International C ouncil, 18 Septem ber 1925, N ekbakht Foundation A rchive, 17, 18,
1 9 ,2 1 , 23.
128 Ibid., 16, 1 7 ,2 2 .
181
W hen a disciple begins to judge the teacher or his actions, to criticize

his teachings, or try to test his inspiration or power, however cleverly
he may do it, he ceases to be a disciple in the right sense of the word.
It may not seem very bad to many, but there is a thin thread
connecting the pupil with his spiritual guide, and at any m om ent this
129
can easily break. Once broken it can never be mended.
In the Biography Inayat refers only allusively to differences which gave the
meetings a modern tone. 130 Privately, however, he was gravely disappointed.
Family tradition relates that he was seized by the desire to return to India, and would
have done so immediately if not for the pleading of his family, who feared that if he
went he would not return.131 Instead, he planned a long tour of America. Joined by
Sirkar van Stolk and Kismet Stam, he sailed for New York. On arriving he wrote to
Rabia Martin:
I am sorry you had a bad time with the workers at Los Angeles [,] but
you m ust know M urshida the same experience but much more in
quantity and quality I have been having. After the Geneva Council, if
not for the cause I would have left the whole affair and gone to the
E ast.132
129 Sangatha I: T a lim , Fazal M anzil A rchive.

131 Inayat to A m ina B egum , 5 April 1926, Inayat M anzil A rchive.
132 Inayat to Rabia Martin, 9 D ecem ber 1925, Sufism R eoriented A rchive.
182
Inayats first lecture in New York, at the W aldorf Astoria, followed a flurry
of publicity and drew an audience of more than a thousand. Several subsequent
133
lectures were less well attended, but one at least made a much greater effect. '' In
January Inayat spoke to an audience of eight hundred at a Jewish society in
Brooklyn. Nonetheless, he privately expressed disappointment: There seems to be a
stone wall before every effort. 134 His health poor and his mood disturbed,
American culture was not easy for him to assimilate. He appreciated the festivity of
135
the Christm as season (grandly celebrated ' ), but was dismayed by the plays he
was taken to see (so modern that they hurt my feelings and afterwards I cannot
136
sleep at all ' ), and baffled by the distorted reports of him that appeared in the
137
popular press (in the place of a man it was a m onkey ). M any new members
joined the Order, but as he departed New York for D etroit at the end of January
Inayat concluded, It could have been better. 138
In Detroit Inayat delivered a series of six lectures at the Twentieth Century
Club. His subjects were: The Purpose of Life, The Freedom of the Soul, The Secret
of the Spirit, Inspiration, The Control of the Mind, and M ystic Relaxation. He was
introduced to Henry Ford, who received him very cordially, took him on a tour of his
133 Inayat to A m ina B egum , N o. 5 (no date), Inayat M anzil A rchive.

134 Inayat to A m ina B egum , 15 January 1926, Inayat M anzil A rchive.
135 Inayat to A m ina Begtum , 25 D ecem ber 1926, Inayat M anzil A rchive.
137 Guillaum e-Scham hart and V an V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y , 205.
183
factory, and after an hours conversation declared: In ten years from now your
philosophy will sweep throughout the whole country. 139 The conversation was
recorded and printed in the D etroit News under the headline, A M agnate and a
M ystic Meet: Henry Ford and Inayat Khan find com mon spiritual ground, bringing
Inayat enormous publicity.140 Leaving Detroit he reported: They do not wish me to
go from here and they say if I stayed here one year I would have ten thousand
m ureeds. 141
The rem ainder of February was spent in northern California, where Inayat
spoke to a very large audience at the Fairm ont Hotel in addition to lectures and
classes at various smaller venues, including again Paul Elders Gallery. Rabia
M artin took him to visit her Khankah in Fairfax, on which occasion he consecrated a
large rock there with the name Pir Dahan {pir-dahan, mouth of the Pir). Later,
under millenarian influence, it became known as the Rock of the Prophet. M artin
also introduced him to the Zen teacher Nyogen Senzaki (1876-1958), who
subsequently wrote an article titled M oham m edan Zen: Sufism in A m erica
detailing their interactions.142 Samuel Lewis, who was a student of both Inayat Khan
and Nyogen Senzaki, was given six interviews. Lew is account of the second
139 Inayat to A m ina B egum , 9 February 1926, Inayat M anzil A rchive.

140 The D e tro it N ew s, 7 February 1926.
141 Inayat to A m ina B egum , 9 February 1926, Inayat M anzil A rchive.
142 Cited by M d. W ali A li M eyer in A Sunrise in the W est, 400.
184
interview presents a vivid if perhaps rhetorically em bellished picture of Inayats
disappointm ent in the wake of the recent Council meetings:
How many loyal mureeds do you think I have? he asked.
Oh, I guess about 100.

I wish I had 100. But how many do you think, at the least, loyal
mureeds I have?
W ell, I said, I dont believe it, but ju st to give an answer, I would
say 20.
I wish I had 20! I wish I had 10! Then he arose in full majesty and
yelled at me out loud, I wish I had 10! Then he lifted his right
hand, and using the index finger on his left hand, pointed to the
m iddle of it and yelled, I wish I had 5 loyal mureeds. Samuel, can
you believe it, I have not as many loyal mureeds as I have fingers on
one hand.
By that time, the chair in which I had been sitting toppled over like in
a Hollywood movie, and I was sitting on the floor, totally amazed.
But, by this action and by his loud speech, I received the full
m agnetism of his baraka or blessing, and I believe I still have it.143
A nother student of both Inayat and Senzaki was Paul (Saladin) Reps, who
later wrote the American Buddhist cult classic Zen Flesh Zen Bones. R eps
recollections describe the charism atic qualities of his personality, which for Reps and
many others were more com pelling than the content of his discourses:
143 L ew is, Sufi Vision a n d In itiation, 4 5 -4 6 .
185
Now, this message was from his soul, and he was the most
remarkable man I ever met. ... He was completely hum ble and
com pletely relaxed and completely concentrated at the same time.
His eyes were concentrated to one point which was outside his body a
few feet; but he looked right through your forehead all the time when
he talked to you. And yet, at the same, he was utterly at ease and said
nothing for himself; he was always letting you do the talking and
i 144
drawing you out.
Reps drove Inayat to Santa Barbara, where he stayed at the luxurious
Samarkand Hotel, whose oriental ambience he found most beautiful. 145 Lectures
were given and mureeds initiated there and in Los Angeles. W hile in Los Angeles
he received m edical treatment, and confided: Traveling, lecturing [,] teaching
people and suffering pain all go hand in hand. 146
Returning to Detroit, Inayat found the Sufi center in disarray: I ... have a
very amusing time with mureeds who do not know their minds. It happens that our
group here is a mad house [;] one goes to the north when the other goes to the
south. 147 Rather than managing matters immediately, however, he proceeded to
Denver (a success), W ichita (hundreds of people), and Chicago (large and
144 Paul R eps, interview by W ali A li M eyer, Sufi Ruhaniat International A rchive.
145 Inayat to A m ina B egum , 8 M arch 1926, Inayat M anzil A rchive.
186
appreciative audience).148 He then stopped again in Detroit to straiten [sic] affairs
before returning to New York for a final series of public lectures and private
classes.149
Inayats program in New York included an ecumenical luncheon hosted by
the International Humanity League, a non-denominational but religiously inspired
organization established in the hopes of creating a solution to the vital problem of
world harmony, as a prophylactic against future wars, and to inaugurate that unity for
which Jesus stands. 150 Presiding at the luncheon was Lady M arie Louise
M ontague, the founder and president of the league. The Humanity League urged
the establishm ent of a universal brotherhood of man under the Fatherhood of
G od. 151 This phraseology appears to derive directly from Inayats sixth Sufi
Thought: There is one Brotherhood, the hum an brotherhood, which unites the
children of earth indiscriminately in the Fatherhood of God. M ontague heralded
M arcus Garvey as the M oses of the African people and envisioned that blacks
would lead humanity toward spiritual renewal. A com ment with com parable
implications occurs in Inayats Biography. To me it seems that the com ing race will
be the race of N egroes. 152 M ontague announced that the luncheon marked the
148 Inayat to A m ina B egum , 2 0 April 1926 and 26 April 1926, Inayat M anzil A rchive.
149 Inayat to A m ina B egum , 3 M ay 1926, Inayat M anzil A rchive.
150 Robert A. H ill, The M arcu s G a rvey a n d U n iversal N eg ro Im provem en t A sso c ia tio n P a p e rs
(Berkeley: U niversity o f C alifornia Press, 1983), 7 2 1 , n. 1.
151 Ibid.
187
153
formal coalition of the East and W est in a world unity m ovem ent. It was later
reported that Inayat Khan had been elected Union Leader of the W orld Coalition
formed by a merger of the Sufi M ovement and the International Humanity
League. 154 If such a merger did in fact take place, the Sufi M ovem ent Headquarters
seems not to have been notified.
Little more can be said definitively about Inayat K hans place in black
American history. It is, however, intriguing that the M oorish Science Tem ple, a
quasi-Islamic Garveyite organization that became increasingly influential in the
1920s, was established in Newark, New Jersey, by Timothy Drew (Noble Drew Ali,
1866-1929) in 1913, just months after Inayat Khan departed for Europe following a
half-yearlong stay in New York City at the close of his first American to u r.155 W hile
many of the elements of the M oorish movem ent clearly derive from M asonry
(specifically the rites of the Ancient Egyptian Order of Nobles of the Shrine), and
others may be traced to remnants of Islamic belief and practice that persisted am ong
runaway slave com munities, the explicitly mystical (Allah and man are one) and
universalistic (To promote and practice the teachings of all the true and divine
153 C alls for T olerance o f A ll R elig io n s, N ew York Tim es, 3 0 M ay 1926.

154 Inayat Khan, Hindu P oet D ead , N ew York Tim es, 2 June 1927.
155 C. Eric L incoln, The B lack M u slim s in A m erica (Grand R apids, MI: W illiam B. Eerdmans
Publishing C om pany, 1994), 4 8 -5 2 .
188
prophets: Jesus, M ohammed, Buddha, Confucius, Etc.) features of the m ovem ent
remain to be historically contextualized.156
On June 4th Inayat sailed for France to lead the Summer School, which was to
prove the final chapter in the foundation story of the Sufi Movement.
Retrospectively, it was seen as a denouement: Many o f us felt that last sum m er at
Suresnes as a culmination of all that M urshid could give us. 157 Despite his
weakened physical condition, Inayat delivered numerous lectures and classes, which
were later edited, arranged, and printed in the books, Education, M ental Purification,
The A lchem y o f Happiness, Sufi Teachings, Sufi M ysticism, Sufi Poetry, and Art,
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. On Sunday evenings Inayat would enter a state of
samadhi (meditative abstraction), and receive each mureed in turn with a silent
glance. One mureed recalls, It was as if M urshids whole being radiated light. ...
The glance with which M urshid blessed us, the feeling of liberation and purification
that superseded everything else is all very difficult to describe. 158 Though the word
samadhi belongs properly to Vedanta rather than Sufism 159, the glance of
156 Peter Lamborn W ilson , S a c re d D rift, 26 -2 8 .

157 Smit-Kerber, ed., M em ories o f M urshid, 39.
j58 Ibid.
159 Inayat Khan variously identified sa m a d h i with the Arabic terms hal (e csta sy ), n a ja t
( salvation), and a m a l (practice, an advanced m editative discip lin e described in the Sangithas).
189
benediction (nazar-i inayat) is a phenom enon that is frequently encountered in
Chishti hagiography.160
The Sum m er School reached its clim ax on 13 September, Hejirat Day. On
that day the foundation stone of the Universel Temple was laid and a new activity,
named the Confraternity of the Sufi Message, was inaugurated. The ceremony was
carefully choreographed: Cherags and Cheragas in black robes, carrying white
candles, mureeds swinging censers, Khalifs and Khalifas, Shaikhs and Shaikhas, and
M urshidas in yellow robes, and the Pir-o-M urshid himself, walked in procession
from the lecture hall to designated places surrounding the granite block that was to
be the cornerstone of the future temple. In an urn under the stone several objects
were deposited: a copy of the shajara or initiatic genealogy of the Order, an
engraved silver tablet, a docum ent containing the Ten Sufi Thoughts and Three
Objects of the Sufi M essage, and finally the coins of several nations, placed by the
various National Representatives. Pirzade Vilayat, Inayats eldest son, was ordained
as International Head of the Confraternity, and twenty-five mureeds were initiated
into the new activity, undertaking a pledge to daily recite the full series of Sufi
prayers (Saum, Salat, Khatum, Pir, Nabi, and Rasul). The purpose of the
Confraternity was to spiritually build the Tem ple by means of acts of prayer.
160 S ee for exam ple Sayyid M uhamm ad Mubarak Kirmanl, S iy a r a l- a w liy a (D elhi: M atb a-i M uhibb-
i Hind, 1884-5), 6 1 ,7 2 .
190
Inayat had reached a terminus. His family could no longer restrain him from
leaving for India. He privately confided that if Allah meant for him to return to
Europe, he would alter his activities completely:
They want to play games. W ell then, let them play games from
Geneva or wherever they like. I will only withdraw into a private life
of m editation and reflection here, at home, in this Oriental Room.

And should any mureed on his own, truly serious and sincere, want to
com e and join me for a while, he/she (voh) will be w elcom e to do so.
Only that.161
On 28 September Inayat departed from Italy, accompanied by his secretary
Kismet Stam. Disembarking at Karachi, he traveled overland to Lahore, and then on
to Delhi, where he rented Tilak Lodge, a house on the banks of the Jumna. After
sixteen years in occidental exile, Inayats return to India was infused with
nostalgic anticipation. En route he com posed a profoundly patriotic poem titled To
My M other Land, ending with the lines: Take me in your arms my m other land so
blest, away from all worldly strife in your bosom to rest. 162 On arrival, however, he
found him self considerably disillusioned. He confided to his wife:
My im pression of India is not altogether good [;] perhaps it is partly

owing to my condition and partly by staying in Europe so long. I
have become more critical. They seem to me neglectful, dreamy,
161 Sh. M ahm ood Khan, personal com m unication, 21 M arch 2 0 05 .

162 Inayat to A m ina B egum , 11 O ctober 1926, Inayat M anzil A rchive.
191
lazy, slow, even unreliable and ill mannered. I do not see what
progress they have made all these years, except that there is a political
m ovem ent [,] but even that without real progress is nothing. If they
get out of one trap they will get into another trap.163
W hile in Delhi Inayat received treatm ent from the prom inent yimarii
physician and politician H akim Ajmal Khan (1863-1927), and had contacts with two
high-profile religious leaders who were presently locked in a heated public debate on
the politics of religious identity: Khwaja Hasan N izam i (1878-1955), a prolific
journalist and sajjada-nishin of the dargah of Hazrat Nizam al-DIn A w liya, and
Swam i Shradhanand, a m ajor proponent of the Arya Samaj. Just days after their
meeting, a M uslim assailant killed Swami Shradhanand and Inayat was deeply
dism ayed.164 N izam i hailed Inayat as our M urshid, and later com posed a detailed
article describing his visit.165 W hen N izam i asked him the difference between his
tabligh (propagation of Islam) and that of the Qadiyanis (i.e., the Ahmadiyya), he
replied: The Qadiyanis change minds by the force of arguments; I change hearts by
the influence of love. 166
Inayat had not intended to w ork in India, but was found out and accepted
an invitation to speak at the University of Delhi. Afterward he lectured at the
163 Inayat to A m ina B egum , 30 O ctober 1926, Inayat M anzil A rchive.

164 Ibid.
165 Khwaja Hasan N izam i, Yurup min ChishtI tahrlk, in R oznam cha, 8 January 1933: 6-1 0 .
166 Ibid.: 7.
192
Christian College and at a M uslim club in Lucknow. His talks em phasized religious
tolerance and social reform .167 Plans were in progress for an engagement at the
M oslem University of Aligarh, and Inayat contem plated giving a series of lectures at
the Universities of Allahabad, Benares, Hyderabad, Mysore, M adras, and Bombay.
From Lucknow Inayat traveled to Benares, and then on to A gra and Fatehpur
Sikri. In early January he made his way to Ajm er to attend the urs of Khwaja
M u In al-DIn Chishti. Soon after optimistically reporting, Coming to A jm er has
done my broken spirit [a] lot of good, he was overtaken by a spell of severe
influenza.168 He returned to Delhi in mid-January and curtailed a visit to Baroda.
Over the next weeks he suffered bouts of serious illness, probably pneum onia.169 On
the morning o f February 5th he died at Tilak Lodge, aged 4 4 .170 The news of his
death spread waves of shock through the Sufi M ovement: m ost mureeds were not
even aware he had gone to India. The charism atic phase of the M ovem ent was now
closed, and the future was far from certain.
167 K ism et D orothea Stam, R ays (T he Hague: E ast-W est Publications, n.d.), 113-14.
169 H e described his condition only as a bad c o ld and a terrible illn ess. Inayat to A m ina B egum ,
2 0 January 1927 and 27 January 1927, Inayat M anzil A rchive.
170 Khwaja Hasan N izam i arranged for the burial o f Inayat Khans body in a plot o f land op p osite his
house. F ollo w in g M uslim custom , the body w as interred into the earth w ithout a coffin . T w o years
later he opened the tomb, and found that Sufi S ah ib s corpse, even after tw o years, had not decayed
at all and w as in the sam e con d ition . N izam i, Yurup min C hishti tahrlk, 7. C ases o f bodily
incorruption are not uncom m on in the hagiographical traditions o f the C hishti Order. S ee for exam ple
Hasan M uham m ad C hishti, M a ja lis-i H a sa n iyya, Shahibagh C ollection, fol. 15r, and Khwaja
M ahmud Ahm adabadI, K ita b al-M ah m u d, 19-20.
CHAPTER FIVE
AFTER CHARISM A
We had to go o n
In the construction and propagation of the Sufi M ovement in its foundational
phase, Inayat K hans extraordinary personal charism a was a necessary condition, but
not a sufficient one. M embers were in most cases initially attracted to the
M ovem ent by the peripatetic founders aura of sanctity sometimes perceived as a
visible halo 1 but as the M ovem ent expanded and, proportionately, Inayats
accessibility diminished, the coherence of the M ovement depended on the mediation
of his teaching via books and papers and the mediation of his authority via exoteric
(organizational) and esoteric (initiatic) hierarchies. This is precisely the process that
Max W eber describes as the routinization of charism a.2 For W eber, pure
charism atic authority by definition cannot remain stable, but must be routinized
either through traditionalization, rationalization, or a combination of the two. In the
Sufi M ovement, both tendencies were already present in Inayat K hans lifetime.
W ith his death, the M ovem ent was forced to confront its internal ambiguities and
1 Smit-Kerbert, ed., M em ories o f M urshid, 35, 40.

2 M ax W eber, On C h arism a a n d Institution B uilding, ed. S. N . Eisenstadt (C hicago and London:
U niversity o f C hicago Press, 1981), 54 -6 5 .
193
194
collectively define a post-charism atic identity. Decades of recurrent dissent proved
an inevitable consequence.
The death of Inayat Khan cam e as a sudden and unexpected blow to the Sufi
M ovement. The m ajority of members had not even been aware of his absence in
India, which had been purposefully kept private. As the news spread, grief and
confusion followed. The collective mood is summed up in the recollections of a
mureed, who wrote:
The news that M urshid had passed away in February came as a great
shock. In the opinion of everyone M urshid had left us too soon; we
felt like helpless children. W hat was life without M urshid? How
w ould the w ork be continued? Innumerable questions rose in us. But
we had to go on; we had to go on alone spreading the M essage for
which M urshid had come and for which he had drawn us around
him .3
Outside Inayat K hans im mediate family, the blow of his death fell hardest
on Sharifa Goodenough. Seized by grief, G oodenoughs mental state rapidly
deteriorated, culminating, in the summer of 1927, in a nervous breakdown in the
throes of which she started a fire and incurred severe burns before being rescued by
M uham m ad Ali Khan. She was subsequently transferred to a mental clinic, where
3 Smit-Kerbert, ed ., M em ories o f M urshid, 39 -40 .
195
she was diagnosed as suffering from a disorder of an erotic strain.4 Such a diagnosis
carried considerable social stigma at the time, requiring the few who knew of her
condition to exercise great discretion in speaking of it. Nonetheless, despite her near
com plete isolation over the next several years, Goodenough was to play a crucial
role in determining the course of the debate over succession that inevitably followed
Inayats untimely death.
Contention over succession was not slow in coming. The first claim was that
of Rabia Martin, who presented herself at the Summer School in Suresnes following
a visit to Geneva on the invitation of Birbal Zanetti. Zanetti and Talwar Dussaq, the
Executive Supervisor and General Secretary o f the M ovement respectively, were
initially inclined to recognize M artin as Inayat K hans successor in the exoteric
capacity of Representative General. D ussaqs reasoning, he later explained, was
threefold: 1. M artin was the senior M urshida, 2. M artin had proven adm inistrative
ability, 3. Inayat Khan had praised M artins devotion to the Message. M artins
actions in Europe, however, soon caused Zanetti and Dussaq to change their minds.
Dussaq was taken aback by M artins reiterated self-praise, as well as violent
language she allegedly used against Kefayat Lloyd.5 M artin contended that a plot
4 G oodenough entered the Sufi Order suffering depression fo llo w in g the death o f her fiancee in the
First W orld War. W h ile he lived, Inayat K hans influence p rogressively alleviated her condition. Sh.
M ahm ood Khan, personal com m unication, 21 March 2 0 0 5 .
5 D ussaq to Martin, 12 M ay 1930, Fazal M anzil A rchive (copy).
196
was hatched to oppose her at the Summer School, but in D ussaqs estimation
M artins greatest opponent was herself:
I do believe that it was your indirect self praise and self assertion that
turned every one against you. For instance; when you were given the
Sacred Readings of The M aster to be read at a gathering of his
disciples, among whom were a M urshida and several Shaiks, you
started the meeting by addressing them as my dear m ureeds and
you gave them a shock. For we are all mureeds of The M aster,
whether through this or that initiator. Following this, you pushed
aside the Sacred W ords of The M aster, declaring: I have not crossed
the Ocean to read to you from a paper, but to give you a solid
teaching! W hat could be the effect upon your listeners? ... As our
Revered M aster says: life is self revealing, truth is self revealing, it is
therefore a waste of time and of energy to try to prove to be what one
is not.6
The obvious alternative to Rabia M artin was Inayat K hans elder younger
brother, M aheboob Khan. According to M aheboob K hans son M ahm ood Khan, In
1927, among Sufi rank and file the general assumption appears to have been that the
Brothers were to be in charge of continuing [the] Sufi work, along with numbers of
prom inent leading followers.7 It was generally well known that Inayat Khan had
characterized M aheboob Khan as the wise m an.8 M aheboob Khan, in turn,
6 Ibid.
7 Sh. M ahm ood Khan, personal com m unication, 21 M arch 2 0 0 5 .
8 Ibid.
197
considered it a moral obligation (wajib), in the context of kinship dharma, to
continue his brothers spiritual heritage.
The matter was put to a vote in a meeting of the International Executive
Comm ittee convened at the Headquarters in Geneva on 16 Septem ber 1927. Present
were Zanetti, Dussaq, Countess Pieri, and Ronald M umtaz Armstrong. Votes in
absentia were received from Goodenough and Van Stolk. It was first proposed that
M aheboob Khan be elected Representative General for the period of one year, but
the motion was narrowly lost. It was then proposed that he be elected for an
indefinite period of time, and the motion was carried unanimously.9
Immediately after the election of M aheboob Khan to the position of
Representative General, the authority of the position was eroded. In the presence of
M aheboob Khan, a resolution was proposed in the Executive Com m ittee on 20
September stating that, the consent of the National Representative of the country is
indispensable for any work to be undertaken therein. After discussion a milder
version was proposed and passed: That the advice of the National Representative
must be taken into consideration by the Representative General before sending any
person to work in their country. Though in practical terms the significance o f the
9 The Sufi M ovem ent, M inutes o f the International E xecu tive C om m ittee, 16 Septem ber 1927,
N ekbakht Foundation A rchive (cop y), 1-3.
198
resolution was negligible, in rhetorical terms it clearly marked the rising fortunes of
the episcopal model over the courtly one.10
M aheboob K hans authority as Representative General was still more
directly challenged by the attitude and actions of M umtaz Armstrong, editor of The
Sufi Quarterly. Established in 1925 under the auspices of a newly created Sufi
Publishing A ssociation11, The Sufi Quarterly succeeded The Sufi as the house organ
of the Sufi M ovement, carrying unpublished texts by Inayat Khan in each issue.
According to Dussaq, in 1926 Inayat Khan reminded Armstrong that materials
published in the Quarterly were subject to the esoteric control of Headquarters. In
September 1927, Armstrong contested this control, provoking M aheboob Khan to
remove him from the Executive Comm ittee in 1928. In a move that would have
been unthinkable during Inayat K hans tenure, Armstrong then challenged the
Representative G enerals right to remove com mittee members. A rm strongs
objection was overruled by unanimous vote and an amendment was passed
specifying the Representative G enerals right to remove m em bers.12 An attem pt was
then made to bring the Quarterly back into the fold of the M ovem ent by the
10 The Sufi M ovem ent, M inutes o f the International E xecu tive C om m ittee, 2 0 Septem ber 1927,
Nekbakht Foundation A rchive (cop y), 2-4.
11 The Sufi Publication S ociety derived its funding from its President, the w ealthy S w iss mureed
M m e. M eyer de Reutercrona.
12 The Sufi M ovem ent, M inutes o f the International E xecu tive C om m ittee, 11 June 1928, N ekbakht
Foundation A rchive (cop y), 1-4.
199
appointm ent of a M anaging C om m ittee.13 The Sufi Publishing Association,
however, continued to conduct its business as a private enterprise, causing
Headquarters to officially announce in 1930: [The Sufi Quarterly] has no
connection with the Sufi M ovem ent established by Inayat K han. 14 The Sufi
Quarterly continued to be published until 1933.
The conflict over the The Sufi Quarterly was symptomatic of the weakened
status of the Representative General. Inayat K hans status as Representative General
had been enhanced by his unquestioned prestige as Esoteric Head of the Sufi Order.
Between 1927 and 1929 M aheboob Khan served in the function of Representative
General but not that of Esoteric Head. The implications of the absence of a
recognized Esoteric Head were very soon felt, and a vigorous debate was inevitable.
In June 1928 the Jamiat Am (Advisory Esoteric Council) convened at
Headquarters. Present were Birbal Zanetti, Talwar Dussaq, Sirdar van Tuyll, Dr. A.
B. Scott, Sarfaraz M eyer de Reutercrona, Susanna Kjosterud, Angela Alt, Barkarar
Sydney, M um taz Armstrong, and Khushi Cushing. The meeting began with a
discussion of the problem of maintaining the initiatic protocols of the Esoteric
School in the absence of the Pir-o-M urshid. According to the rules, initiations 7-12
13 The Sufi M ovem ent, Report on the Status o f the Sufi Q u arterly, Nekbakht Foundation A rchive
(cop y), 4.
14 Ibid., 9-10.
200
are given exclusively by the Pir-o-M urshid.15 Only appropriate initiations qualify
mureeds to receive corresponding papers. Shaikha Kjosterud reported that already
twenty mureeds in Germany were awaiting higher initiations in order to receive
further teachings.16 W ho was authorized to give the necessary initiations? W hen
Zanetti asked rhetorically, Is there not the possibility that the m om ent will come
when the teaching would be arrested because of the situation? Dussaq replied
pointedly, The mom ent has com e. 17 Clearly the question of the esoteric
succession of Inayat Khan could no longer be deferred.
As originally defined in the London Sufi Order Constitution, the position of
the Pir-o-M urshid was to be bequeathed either by hereditary succession or by
designation. The document states:
Sajadah [sajjada], the seat of authority of the Sufi Order, is the seat
of Pir-o-M urshid. It has been established by Inayat Khan, the
founder o f this Order, and will be held by him for life, and will be
bequeathed by him, according to the custom among Sufis, either in
hereditary succession, or to any person whom he may designate with
I8
the consent of Jemiat [the Jamiat].
15 The rules governing the authority to initiate are not sp ecified in the C onstitution o f the Sufi Order,
but are stated in Sangitha I and II (The sixth initiation is called THE initiation. T he rem aining
initiations are given by the Pir-o-M urshid, from Talib upward.).
16 The Sufi M ovem ent, M inutes o f the International Jamiat A m , 11 June 1928, A san M anzil A rchive
(cop y), 3.
17 Ibid., 5.
18 The Sufi Order, C onstitution and R ules, Fazal M anzil A rchive (cop y), 15.
201
In the bylaws of the Sufi Order as reconstituted within the Sufi M ovement, this is
reduced to the simple statement that follows: [The Pir-o-M ushids / Shaik-ul-
M ashaiks] successor is designated by him . 19
The problem now was to determine whether a designation had been made,
and if not, to decide whether the position should be kept vacant, or alternatively
recourse should be had to an unconstitutional m ethod of selection. The members of
the Jam iat A m were unaware of the existence any written testament. In the absence
of such, they found themselves in a situation fully outside the provisions o f the
Constitution. Inevitably, a vigorous debate ensued.
In the 1928 meeting of the Jam iat Am, two general lines of argument
emerged. For convenience, these may be referred to as the revolutionary
argument and the hierarchical argument (using terms borrowed from the speakers
themselves). All members agreed that a clear, long-term solution was not yet in
sight. The revolutionary argument called for decisive action to be taken on a
provisional basis as a m atter of pragmatism. The hierarchical argument called for
deliberate non-action as a matter of esoteric authenticity.
Zanetti outlined the revolutionary argument in its starkest terms:
There will be a mom ent when the thing would be spiritually solved, but in
the meantim e it should be kept going. ... W hat we m ust seek to do is to
find a person available and sufficiently remote so that the M urshidas w ould
19 The Sufi M ovem ent, T he Sufi Order, Fazal M anzil A rchive (cop y), 2.
202
agree. ... W hatever action we take is a revolutionary action; the

circumstances are forcing us to do something we have the right to do under
the law of self-defense. ... There are times in life where a revolutionary act
is necessary to preserve life. ... It is temporary; it will give time and
20
opportunity to calm the fears of those who think that affairs are sinking.
Specifically, what Zanetti proposed, together with Dussaq and Scott, was that the
Jamiat A m recom mend that the four M urshidas ask M aheboob Khan to act as
Esoteric Head of the Order on a provisional basis or as Scott said, until such time
21
as it may be more clear to us or to him what line to follow.
The hierarchical argument was directly opposed to this proposal. According
to this latter argument, advanced primarily by Armstrong and Tuyll, a provisional
arrangement that did not meet definite criteria of legitimacy (the hierarchical
22
law ) was worse than the suspension of activities. In Tuylls words, You would
be doing worse than stop it, you would break it.
Armstrong, who had just been removed from the Executive Com m ittee by
M aheboob Khan in his capacity as Representative General, expressed the conviction
that M aheboob Khan lacked the necessary esoteric power to be Esoteric H ead.24
20 M inutes o f the Jamiat A m , 11 June 1928, 5-6.

21 Ibid., 5.
22 Ibid., 6.
23 Ibid., 7.
24 a
203
25
Tuyll offered, W hen the real person comes there will be no difficulty.
M eanwhile, as the highest-ranking initiates, the four M urshidas should collectively
oversee the work of the Esoteric School.26 Sarfaraz Meyer suggested, Are there no
Pir-o-M urshids in the East that we can have recognized as Pir-o-M urshid? a
proposition that won im mediate support from Armstrong. Otherwise, M eyer argued,
W e must wait that our Representative General will prove him self to be [of] such a
97
high degree of spirituality that we feel it.
The 1928 meeting ended on an inconclusive note, both sides agreeing, for the
moment, to disagree. In the Sum m er School, according to Sharifa Goodenough,
M aheboob Khan represented her at her request while she was indisposed.28 The
following autumn, a number of leaders, including Tuyll, signed a paper recognizing
M aheboob Khan as Esoteric Head. The phraseology of the declaration was less than
unequivocal: Realizing that any further delay in the recognition of an esoteric head
for the Sufi Order is most detrimental for the work, the undersigned recognize
M aheboob Khan as the Esoteric Head of the Sufi Order, and respectfully ask him to
act in that capacity in the future.29 Zanetti later described the statement as
representing the lowest label of acknowledgement. Tuyll explained that he had
25 Ibid., 4.
26 Ibid., 2.
27 Ibid., 7.
28 The Sufi M ovem ent, M inutes o f the International Jamiat A m , 14-15 June 1930, E xhibit A:
D eclaration by M urshida Sharifa G oodenough, A san M anzil A rchive (copy).
204
signed on the understanding that the term Esoteric H ead m eant adm inistrator
rather than Pir-o-M urshid.30 He believed it to mean, in effect, that Sharifa
G oodenoughs position was transferred to M aheboob Khan.
In advance of the Jamiat A m meeting of the summer of 1929, D ussaq wrote
to Rabia M artin asking her to vote on the question of recognizing M aheboob Khan
as Esoteric Head or Pir-o-M urshid of the Sufi Order, and inform ing her that the
other three M urshidas had already recognized him as Pir-o-M urshid. In response,
M artin replied directly to M aheboob Khan, challenging his claim and asserting her
own. Her letter bears quoting at length:
The Pir-o-M urshid in his Esoteric rules says: Pir-o-M urshid makes rules,
his successor is designated by him . This you must adm it is definite. It is
not a m atter to be voted upon. And the spiritual reason why it cannot be
voted upon is that it is a M ystical degree, and it is only the Pir-o-M urshid
who can recognize and confirm this M ystical degree of attainment. This
state o f Hal [hal], as you must know, comes only by the divine favor of
A lla h ....
In 1923 when Holy M urshid came to America after an absence of eleven
years, he remained as my guest in my home for more than six weeks.
During that blessed and holy time he conferred an Initiation upon me as a
preparation for the one he com pleted when he was with us again in 1926.
On M arch 16th, 1926, he conferred another, m ost holy Initiation, his last,
and that Initiation made me his Esoteric successor. I have in my
29 The Sufi M ovem ent, M inutes o f the International Jamiat A m , 15 June 1929, A san M anzil A rchive
(copy), 9.
205
possession the sacred directions of that Initiation written by his own blessed
hand. And with the help of Allah and our Holy M urshids in chain, I will
one day, before I leave this plane, confer it upon my Esoteric Successor.
A nd thus the line of tradition that he originated in the W estern W orld, with
the help of Allah, will be preserved and perpetuated. ...

If the Esoteric tradition and law of Succession is violated you establish a
dangerous precedent, which will usher in untold sorrows for all, yourself
included, now and in the future. ... Can you refer to a single M essenger
whose Successor was chosen by vo tel ... Either we draw our authority
from God or from man it is one or the other.31
M artins letter was not read to the Jamiat Am, nor did she receive a reply
from M aheboob Khan. In 1930, Headquarters requested from her tangible proof,
and in turn received a letter containing, in D ussaqs judgm ent, slanderous
allegations. In reply, Dussaq explained in detail H eadquarters objections to her
claim. The esoteric directions in the practice of Amal, which she called the last
initiation, were not in fact given exclusively to her. The same directions, written in
Inayat K hans hand, had been in the possession of Dussaq, and were now in the
possession of M aheboob Khan. Prior to receiving the document from Dussaq,
M aheboob Khan described the directions in minute detail and recited the formulae
30 Ibid.
31 Rabia Martin to M aheboob Khan, 29 M ay 1929 (cop ied by the Recorder at International
Headquarters, January 1930), 1-5, Fazal M anzil A rchive (copy).
206
from memory before him. These directions had been im parted to him as well as to
M uham m ad Ali Khan, and had been practiced by both for more than sixteen years.
M oreover, Dussaq argued, secret esoteric directions could not constitute a
designation for the reason that a designation is by definition something that can be
shown. Referring to a letter meanwhile received from Samuel Lewis, Dussaq
dismissed the suggestion that a turban bestowed on M artin by Inayat Khan was
proof of designation, answering that Inayat had given his own turban to his son
Vilayat. He also challenged Samuel Lew is more substantial assertion that in Los
Angeles in 1926 Inayat Khan had intimated to Lewis that M artin was his successor.
D ussaqs comments here bear quoting in full:
This statement seems to me m ost extraordinary for is it not strange that Pir-
o-M urshid kept all the M urshidas (yourself included) and Khalifs and
Shaiks of the Sufi Order ignorant that you were to be his Successor, but
made the disclosure of it to Mr. Samuel Lewis, who has no standing in the
Sufi Order, for whatever be the value, in your eyes, to be a K halif by
spiritual degree. However let us admit that Mr. Lew is statement was true
and that he did not m isinterpret the M asters words, or that he did not
imagine it, which is likely for is it not well known that certain visionaries
are subject to strange delusions and hallucinations, and you have declared,
as well as Mr. Lewis himself, that he has visions even supposing his
statement to be correct, we cannot take it into consideration, for we happen
to have in this office written instructions from Our Blessed M aster urging
207
us never to act upon anyones saying, M urshid has told m e, but only to
act upon what M urshid him self had told us.32
Samuel Lewis asserted that, in the above-m entioned private interviews,
Inayat Khan had repeatedly told him that he intended Rabia M artin to be his
successor, and that Lewis was to stand by her and protect her, but see to it that she
never defended herself.33 Inayat Khan, Lewis said, expected trouble, and asked
him to write to Zanetti in Geneva confirm ing what he had told him. Lewis later
com mented on the course of events that subsequently unfolded:
In Europe ... the vast majority of disciples refused to accept M urshida

M artin as successor to Pir-o-M urshid Inayat Khan. But they surely felt the
nafs.34 It is to ones great regret that M urshida M artin always insisted on
defending her nafs in public, and this led to her downfall.
True, when she visited Pir-o-M urshid Hasan Nizami in New Delhi, he
proclaim ed her as his successor. There were deliberations and newspaper
notices, and she was accepted or at least respected in undivided India.
But none of this had the slightest effect in Europe.35
The proclamation of Khwaja Hasan N izam i to which Lewis refers is in the
form of a certificate written in Urdu, below which is a sim ilar text in English. The
relevant section of the English text reads: I give this letter of authority because Sufi
32 D ussaq to Martin, 12 M ay 1930, Fazal M anzil A rchive (copy).

33 L ew is, Sufi Vision, 46.
34 N afs (Arabic/Persian/Urdu): e g o .
Inayat Khan, Pir-o-M urshid of Rabia Martin, told me in 1927 seven days before his
death, when he came from the W est to visit me in Delhi, that he found Rabia M artin
capable o f teaching Sufism in the highest degree and that he had allowed Rabia
M artin to give the spiritual education to the W estern W orld and that she was his
Khalifa (Spiritual Successor).36 A translation of the corresponding Urdu text by
Prof. M arcia Hermansen, however, gives a substantially different meaning: This
certificate o f permission (ijazat-nama) is given on the basis that Rabia M artins
murshid, Sufi Inayat Khan, came from Europe and America to meet me in Delhi in
1927, and seven days before his death he had told me about Rabia Martin. He
inform ed me that he had found Rabia M artin capable of being given every type of
spiritual teaching and that for this reason he had given Rabia M artin perm ission to
T7
give spiritual instruction. As Khwaja Hasan Nizam i did not speak English, he
was unlikely to have been aware of the distinct im port of the English text written on
the certificate.
Perhaps the most direct evidence Rabia M artin possessed in support of her
claim o f pre-em inence was a letter Inayat Khan had written to her in 1915. In it he
wrote: Sorry to give you this trouble but you are always chosen to w ork on my
behalf. W hen I will go for the life of absolute retirem ent you will have to attend to

36 Khwaja Hasan N iza m i, Ija za t n a m a -yi silsila -y i C h ish tiyya -yi N iza m iy y a , Sufi Ruhaniat
International A rchive (copy).
37 M eyer, A Sunrise in the W est, 412.
209
2Q
all my affairs in the W est [;] also sometimes in the East.' M artin did not cite these
lines in her letter to M aheboob Khan, where she instead em phasized the directions
Inayat Khan gave her in 1926, which she interpreted as designating her as his
successor, not yet knowing that M aheboob Khan already possessed these directions.
An annotated copy of the above-cited paragraph in the papers o f Samuel Lewis
contains the following note: Read and meditate on the first four lines most
carefully. ... This shows that as early as this date39 the Holy M urshid had designated
his successor that he did this in accordance with the Chishti Schools traditional
m ethod is noteworthy.40 This note suggests that at an unknown later date, M artin
revised her argument, or Lewis did so on her behalf, to em phasize the testim ony of
Inayats 1915 letter rather than his 1926 directions in the practice of Amal.
In 1929, the annual meeting of the Jam iat Am was attended by M uham m ad
Ali Khan, Zanetti, Dussaq, Tuyll, Alt, Meyer, and Lloyd W illiams (for Sophia
Green). The meeting opened with a m essage from Sharifa Goodenough: M aheboob
Khan is acknowledged as Pir-o-M urshid of the Sufi Order.41 In response, M eyer
immediately declared, W ho gave her the right to pronounce that? ... M urshida
38 Inayat to Martin, 8 February 1915, Sufism R eoriented A rchive.

39 The note giv es the incorrect date 17 D ecem ber 1914.
40 N ote, n.d., Sufi Ruhaniat International A rchive. T he author o f the annotations appears to be
Sam uel L ew is. The authors invocation o f the traditional m ethod o f the C hishti Order in this
context is puzzling. S u ccession is traditionally docum ented in the C hishti Order by means o f formal
testam ent (kh.ilafat-na.ma).
41 M inutes o f the Jamiat A m , 15 June 1929, 1.
210
Goodenough has not been sane in the last years.42 The lines of battle were then
once again drawn between the revolutionary and hierarchical arguments. On the
revolutionary side, Dussaq suggested with guarded optimism, W e m ight have a
leader who is not a success, but the M ovem ent m ight still live through a bad
interregnum and come out trium phant.43 On the hierarchical side, Tuyll asserted
that it would be preferable to lie low until proper force com es.44 Tuyll thought
it presumptuous on M aheboob K hans part to claim the title of Pir-o-M urshid.
M uham m ad Ali Khan rejoined that by reserving the title of Pir-o-M urshid for Inayat
Khan, we are pulling him down. Rather, he is Rassoul now .45
At the close of the meeting two resolutions were passed. The first was to
request M urshida Goodenough to supply proof substantiating her statement
acknowledging M aheboob Khan as the Pir-o-M urshid of the Sufi Order. The second
was to acknowledge M aheboob Khan as the head of the Sufi Order. The m eaning of
head was left conveniently undefined.
The 1930 Jam iat Khas meeting was the largest to date. In attendance were
Green, Zanetti, Dussaq, Tuyll, Armstrong, Meyer, Kjosterud, Lloyd, Cushing,
Sydney, M usharaff Khan, Salima van Braam, Ulm a Haglund, and Shabaz Best. The
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid., 6.
44 Ibid.
45 Ibid., 7.
211
meeting opened with a message from Goodenough in response for the councils
request for proof the previous year. Goodenough wrote:
It must not be supposed that the M aster left his work unfinished. On the
contrary, before passing from this place he gave it an organization com plete
in every particular, and appointed the way of working. The Constitution of
the Sufi Order provides that Pir-o-M urshid designates his successor. In the
autumn of 1925 Pir-o-M urshid Hazrat Inayat Khan gave to M urshida
Sharifa Goodenough a seal on which he had inscribed, with her name, the
words: SILSILI SUFIAN, meaning the chain of the Sufis. ... [The Sufi
Order] traces its descent through bayat, initiation, each M urshid, head of
the Order, having been initiated by his predecessor. ... The International
Headquarters and members of Pir-o-M urshids family have recognized the
designation of K halif M aheboob Khan, Shaik. ... In June, 1929, K halif

M aheboob Khan, Shaik, was designated as M urshid by M urshida Sharifa
Goodenough, who then sent to the International Headquarters an

an n o u n cem en t... that: M aheboob Khan is acknowledged Pir-o-M urshid
of the Sufi O rder.46
In short, Goodenough contended that she was authorized to designate Inayat
K hans successor in the capacity of Pir-o-M urshid of the Sufi Order by virtue o f the
significance of the seal Inayat Khan had given her in 1925. Goodenough quoted just
two words from the seal, silsili sufian {silsila [-yi] sufiyan), implying thereby that
she was the [link in the] chain of the Sufis. A copy of the seal was meanwhile
46 M inutes o f the Jamiat Am , 14-15 June 1930, Exhibit A.
212
obtained, however, and submitted to two experts for translation. The seal read, in
Arabic script: Sharifa m adar al-mahamm [-i] silsila [-yi] sufiyan. Sir E. Denison
Ross, Director of the London School of Oriental Languages, provided the first
translation: Sharif Charge d Affaires of the Chain of the Sufis.47 O. C. Grtiner
provided the second: His Honor, the Centre of the Affairs, (in the) (unbroken) chain
of the Sufis.48 Ross, and Gruner after him, disregarded the fem inine ending
following Sharif, on the assumption that the holder of the office described on the
seal could only be a man.
The implications of the seal were a subject of protracted discussion in the
Jam iat Am. On the basis of the translations it was unanimously agreed that
Goodenough was not the link in the chain of Sufis, and therefore not Inayat
K hans authorized successor as Pir-o-M urshid, as her statement seemed to imply.49
Rather she was the Charge d Affaires or at most, Prime Minister'0 of the chain
of Sufis (i.e. of the Esoteric School). Therefore she could not claim the title of Pir-
47 Ibid., E xhibit B.
48 Ibid., E xhibit C.
49 G oodenough later wrote: P ir-o-M urshid said three things to m e concerning the person to be the
head o f the Sufi M ovem en t after him, viz.: 1) In 1917 Pir-o-M urshid said that in the event o f his
passing, M aheboob Khan w as to carry on the work as head o f the Sufi Order, and that he had given a
letter to Zohra W illiam s, then Secretary o f the S ociety in England, saying so. B oth things w ere not in
my recollection in 1927, nor afterwards. 2) In 1924 Pir-o-M urshid said to m e, I do not see the sign
o f Pir-o-M urshid in any o f my m ureeds, only in my ow n fam ily. M y im pression at the tim e and
subsequently w as that he was referring to his son; perhaps it can be understood as referring to
M aheboon Khan. 3) Pir-o-M urshid said to me in the summer o f 1926: Y ou w ill represent m e in
every part o f the work, and M aheboob Khan w ill represent m y fam ily. Pir-o-M urshid added, It is
good that som eon e should represent them in C ouncils and C onferences. That is why he was made
K halif. Sharifa G oodenough, N ote, 12 O ctober 1934, Fazal M anzil A rchive (copy).
213
o-M urshid or the right to transfer it. An announcement that had been printed in the
newsletter The Sufi Record, stating that M urshida Goodenough had automatically
become Pir-o-M urshid and had then passed the title on to M aheboob Khan, was
unanim ously deemed incorrect.51
The claim of Rabia M artin was raised again. The National Representative of
South A m erica (holding appointments from both M artin and M aheboob Khan),
Shabaz Best, contended that her claim should take priority over that o f M aheboob
Khan, who had only received from Inayat Khan the initiation of K halif.52 After
M artins letter to Dussaq was read, Best acknowledged that her language was
forcible. In her defense, he said: I would, however, suggest that we should, as it
were, exonerate her, because that I understand that one of her race employs
traditional language, and if we would understand that it is not necessarily personal,
but an individual method of expression, we would be less m oved by those w ords.53
Though in this instance offered in M artins defense, B ests identification of M artins
shortcomings as symptomatic of her Jewish identity evoke the conviction of M artin
and Samuel Lewis, apparently never com m itted to writing but com m unicated orally,
that racism was a significant factor in the rejection of M artins claim in Europe.54
50 Ali Khan asserted that Inayat Khan used the term m a d a r al-m ah am m in the sen se o f Prime
M inister. M inutes o f the Jamiat A m , 15 June 1930, 16.
51 Ibid., 15.
52 Ibid., 9.
53 Ibid., 12.
214
As no one but Best expressed interest in M artins claim (and Best him self
reported that M artin wishes to desist from m aking claims55), the conversation
returned to M aheboob Khan. If Inayat Khan had not left a testam ent56, and the title
of Pir-o-M urshid was not in Sharifa G oodenoughs gift, on what basis was
M aheboob K hans accession to the esoteric headship of the Order to be legitimated?
Sophia Green, who chaired the meeting, suggested that it was not necessary to
interpret the word designates restrictively. There is no m ethod stated [in the
Constitution], whether he should write it, or proclaim it, or whisper it into a reed in
the woods, or proclaim it on the housetops.57 Green now ventured to make explicit
her personal intuition that Inayat Khan had in fact, subtly, designated M aheboob
Khan. She recalled the rehearsal for the ritual of consecration that was Inayat
K hans final public act. In the course of the rehearsal, which she had overseen, it
had suddenly occurred to her that someone would need to stand in for Inayat Khan,
55 Ibid., 8.
56 The Jamiat A m debate presum ed the absence o f a written testament. M aheboob Khan and
M uhammad A li Khan are reported to have said, how ever, that before his departure for India, Inayat
Khan had called them into the oriental room in Fazal M anzil and said: A fter m y passing there w ill
be no difficu lties for I have left a sealed letter. M aheboob Khan, N ote, A san M anzil A rchive, 3.
D ussaq is reported to have said that G oodenough later orally con fessed to having burnt Inayat K hans
testam ent in the fire she started in 1927, but that she refused to confirm this in writing. (Sh.
M ahm ood Khan, personal com m unication, 31 D ecem ber 2 0 0 5 .) In a letter to D ussaq on 12 O ctober
1934, she gave a different explanation: In 1922, at G eneva, Pir-o-M urshid gave me an en v elo p e to
k eep , the contents o f w hich he did not com m unicate to me. D uring m ost probably a rem oval
from the Salle Centrale, G eneva, this en velop e disappeared. ... It is a matter o f infinite regret on my
part, with resultant troubles in the Sufi M ovem en t. N ote, Fazal M anzil A rch ive (copy).
57 M inutes o f the Jamiat A m , 15 June 1930, 8. G reens reference to w hispering to a reed in the w oods
seem s to be an oblique allusion to a story about M uhammad and A ll in the M a n a q ib a l- a rifin o f
Sham s a l-D in AflakI (published in the E nglish translation o f R edhouse in 1881). A flakI, L eg en d s o f
the Sufis, 84-86.
215
and she had therefore prevailed on M aheboob Khan to do it. That evening, Inayat
Khan had said to her, You have done well. I will bless you. Though she had
been, metaphorically, asleep at the time, she later realized (she im plied) that this
was an affirm ation of her selection of M aheboob Khan to stand in for Inayat Khan in
the rehearsal. A second, more direct, indication had come soon thereafter:
It was the last evening at 7:15 that M usharaff Khan came and said,
M urshid wishes to see you. I had had my official leave taking. I went
into M urshids presence. He was far away; he hardly knew me first of all.
He m otioned to me to sit on the divan. Presently he said to me, You
scarcely know M aheboob Khan. I replied, No, M urshid, I know the
others much better. Then he looked far out of the window; for a long time
we were silent. Then he again said, You scarcely know M aheboob K han,
and I said, No, M urshid. And he again looked out o f the window, and
then he arose, and I arose too, and he said, You will find him very deep.
And that, and his blessing, were the last earthly words he spoke to me.58
As her speech continued, Green went on to stress that M essenger (or
Rassoul) and Pir-o-M urshid were two different capacities, and that M aheboob
Khan could succeed Inayat Khan in the latter capacity without having the super
human qualities that characterize the former. She also invoked the principle of
heredity, a subject that had never until then been broached in the debate in the Jam iat
Am, despite the fact that the London Constitution specifically refers to hereditary
216
succession. But Green mentioned it only in passing: Have we thought to feel
whether the M aster uses him, whether with the same blood running through their
veins, with years and years of suffering behind them, they are not linked more
closely than any of us could be?59
Follow ing G reens climactic speech, a vote was taken on w hether to revoke
the resolution of the previous year, acknowledging M aheboob Khan as Esoteric
Head of the Sufi Order. Only five voted in favor, and the m otion was lost. Hence
the five who voted to revoke the councils recognition of M aheboob Khan Meyer,
Armstrong, Tuyll, Kjosterud, and Best found themselves, in a position of being
unable to cooperate with a council whose head they did not recognize.60 As a
result, all five severed ties with the Sufi M ovement. Armstrong left the M ovem ent
but continued to edit The Sufi Quarterly until it was discontinued in 1933. K josterud
and B est discretely withdrew. M eyer immediately transferred her affiliation to the
Sufi M ovem ent (Sufi Society) as established by law in the U .S.A .61 In A m erica, on
receiving the news of the Jamiat A m meeting, Rabia M artin announced that she no
longer recognized the authority of Headquarters and declared herself the
Representative General of the Sufi M ovement. M eyer and M artin were then, in turn,
58 Ibid., 22.
59 Ibid.
60 M inutes o f the Jamiat A m , Summary, 14-15 June 1930.
61 The Sufi R e c o rd 2 (July 1930): 23. In 1935, M eyer and the mureeds attached to her returned to the
fold o f the Sufi M ovem ent under the leadership o f M aheboob Khan. The Sufi R e c o rd 5 (M arch
1936): 9.
217
officially expelled respectively from the Sufi M ovement.62 So were, allegedly, Dr.
Scott (the principle man of the M ovement in England), Barkarar Sydney, M adame
Poletty, Baroness von Hogendorp, and an unspecified number of mureeds allied with
them.63
Following the events of June, Headquarters wrote to Fatha Engle, the leader
of the New York Center, explaining its position. In August a meeting of the Center
was held, and the members unanimously decided to adhere to the Sufi M ovem ent
based in Geneva. In October, according to Headquarters newsletter The Sufi Record,
Rabia M artin and Samuel Lewis made repeated efforts to persuade the leader and
other workers and mureeds to their point of view, but their efforts proved
unavailing.64 Likewise, the centers in Chicago and Santa Barbara remained
affiliated with Geneva.
After Martin, the most conspicuous defection was that of Sirdar van Tuyll,
the National Representative of Holland. In the June Jamiat A m meeting, and in the
meetings in previous years, Tuyll had refrained from outlining a com prehensive
position, but repeatedly stressed the need to wait, rather than to acknowledge
62 The Sufi R e co rd 2 (July 1930): 23.

63 Tuyll to Mr. T hofte, 2 O ctober 1930, A san M anzil A rchive (cop y), 2. T u y lls assertion that he and
others were exp elled is contradicted by The Sufi R e co rd 2 January 1930: 8, w hich refers instead to
T u y lls voluntary inactivity. In a later issue (3 January-March 1931: 2 ), H eadquarters p osition is
further clarified: T he E xecu tive C om m ittee has not withdrawn the right o f m em bership from a sin gle
individual; those w ho have not, individually and separately, resigned are still m em bers o f the Sufi
M ovem ent. T o those w ho w rongly consider them selves outside the Sufi M ovem en t w e can only say,
that their separation is only in their ow n co n scio u sn ess.
64 The Sufi R e co rd 3 (O ctober-D ecem ber 1930): 3.
218
M aheboob Khan as anything more than the adm inistrator of the Esoteric School.
Now, following his departure from the M ovement, he expressed his opinions more
systematically. In July he wrote:
The organization which M urshid made for the time he was here, was totally
hierarchic. It depended upon and was focused upon the Pir-o-M urshid.
This being so everything was well while he was there, but as he did not
leave us a Pir-o-M urshid as his successor, and made it im possible that ever
a Pir-o-M urshid would succeed, there is now some difficulty, at least some
problem, left for us to solve. That this problem is not only an outer
problem, but a very far reaching inner problem, on which the life of the
M essage depends, is obvious. ... The adherents of one part say that Pir-o-
M urshid not having designated his successor, undoubtedly means that he
did and does not want one and that there is no one to take that place; that as
a consequence of this the work therefore is not left into one central head,
but into the hands of all those, who [he] him self has placed at the head of
the different countries. That the organization after his passing is not meant
to be, yea, impossible can be [sic], exactly the same as during his lifetime.
... The adherents of the other part say: If Pir-o-M urshid has not left a
successor and designated a Pir-o-M urshid, let us do so and make one.
Because the organization as he left it, needs one. ... This controversy
always arises after the M essenger has left. The one tries to keep the
M essage pure, the other tries to build a form, in which the message is
buried.
219
The point of view outlined here represents a distinct shift from Tuylls
orientation in the earlier meetings of the Jamiat Am. There he had said, in an
apparent exam ple of the same messianic expectancy that initially brought him to
Inayat Khan, W hen the real person comes there will be no difficulty.65 Tuylls
evolving theorization of the post-charism atic fate o f the Sufi M ovem ent reached its
most com plete articulation two years later, in an essay that bears quoting at length:
One becomes a m em ber of the Sufi brotherhood by accession, of the Sufi

Church by confirmation, and of the Sufi School by initiation. Nevertheless,
and this speaks for itself, one becomes a pupil of the Sufi M essage only
through ones heart, which is beyond these three forms of external
accession, which may be a strengthening of the direction of realization, but
which do not make out or touch the bond between the soul and God. ...
G ods M essage never comes to form a sect or breathe a temporary life into
a lim ited form; it comes to liberate humanity from the same lim itations it
creates for itself. It comes to open a way to freedom and beauty. The
M essage has an inner task as its real purpose; and is m eant to serve
humanity as a whole. If the Sufi M ovem ent will ever becom e a sect Pir-
o-M urshid has said repeatedly then it will cease to answer the purpose for
which it was called to life. ... W hen in the spring [of] 1927 Pir-o-M urshid
left us, he left the organization in such circumstances that it was clear that it
was his will that the Sufi M ovement should not continue in the same form
which had existed during his lifetime. ... The Sufi M ovem ent is the
collective name of all those, being followers o f Pir-o-M urshid Inayat Khan,
who have united for the spreading of the Sufi M essage. Only one law has
65 M inutes o f the Jamiat A m , 11 June 1928, 4.
220
been left to them by Pir-o-M urshid for the organizing of the Sufi
M ovem ent the law o f harmony. ... Sufism as it has been preached by Pir-
o-M urshid can never fall to pieces in different directions brought forward
by special ways of thinking, nor can it recognize some special person as its
outer head, nor can it compel another to do so. Sufism is antisectarian and
it will break sectarianism and its purpose is to bring harmony to the world
through the realization of harmony with God.
Tuyll had earlier argued that in the absence of a clearly designated successor,
the four M urshidas should collectively assume the highest level of authority in the
Esoteric School. Subsequently three of the M urshidas had recognized M aheboob
Khan as Esoteric Head, and the fourth had advanced her own claim. Now Tuyll
proposed a more radical solution: the absence of a designated successor, he argued,
im plied the com plete abrogation of the hierarchical structure of the Sufi M ovement.
W hereas certain other prominent form er Theosophists, such as Sophia Saintsbury-
Green, contended that although Inayat Khan could not be succeeded as Prophet of
the Sufi M essage, he could be succeeded as Pir-o-M urshid, Tuyll went much further,
denying the possibility of any authentic succession, and instead declaring the advent
of a post-prophetic age defined by freedom from the outm oded constraints of
sectarianism. If the position of Headquarters represented a pragmatic if ambiguous
com prom ise between the initiatic demands of the Sufi Order and the bureaucratic
demands of the Sufi M ovement, by contrast Tuylls position envisioned, in clear and
221
precise terms, the unequivocal victory of the messianic universalism (the
M essage) of the Sufi M ovement over the esoteric traditionalism (Sufism) of the
Sufi Order.
In W eberian terms, it could be said that already in Inayat K hans lifetime, the
founders charism a was traditionalized in the role of the Pir-o-M urshid and
rationalized in the role of the Representative General. The three m ajor interpretative
moves that followed his death i.e., those of Martin, Headquarters, and Tuyll
respectively represent three distinct attempts to come to terms with these roles in
the absence of the pure charism a that had until then rendered legitimation largely
unnecessary (as Tuyll noted when he said, Pir-o-M urshid, when he was here, he
was his own rule.66). These three moves correspond closely with three categories
of post-charism atic authority introduced by the Islam icist Ham id Dabashi, building
on W eber. These are categories are: routinization, perpetuation, and dissemination.
Dabashi derives routinization directly from Weber. D abashis exam ple of
the routinization of charism atic authority in Islam is the Sunni sect. In accordance
with pre-Islamic tribal custom, the first caliph (khalifa) of the Sunni sect, Abu Bakr,
was selected by election (shura) and installed by oath of allegiance {baya). Abu
Bakr and the caliphs who succeeded him inherited M uham m ads political, but not
66 Ibid., 2.
222
his spiritual, status. The qualifications for succession were association, affiliation,
or com panionship, rather than inherent qualities of personality.67
In the context of the Sufi M ovement, this category of charism atic authority
applies to M aheboob Khan. Like Abu Bakr, M aheboob Khan was acclaim ed by a
process of deliberation and election conducted by a council of senior leaders.
Although M aheboob Khan later proved him self to be a remarkable spiritual leader in
his own right, it was not on the basis of his personal qualities, but on the basis of his
proxim ity to Inayat Khan, that he was elected. In his speeches, M aheboob Khan
em phasized that Inayat Khan could not possibly be succeeded in his unique
capacities of D ivine Ideal, Prophet, and M essenger68, but that his w ork had to be
continued in the specific form of the Sufi M ovement, which in itself constituted the
way and m anner in which his work is to be carried on after him .69 Thus, in
W eberian terms, M aheboob Khan attributed his own authority to the office he held
in the institution that was seen as the privileged repository of the founders
charism atic authority.
67 Hamid D abashi, A u th o rity in Islam : From the R ise o f M u h am m ad to the E sta b lish m en t o f the
U m a yya d s (N ew Brunsw ick, N .J., and London: Transaction Publishers, 1993), 90.
68 Certainly no one could replace the M aster as the D iv in e Ideal, as the Prophet, and as the
M essen ger. T he D ivin e Ideal, the Prophet, and the M essenger are three o f the five aspects o f the
M essenger enumerated by Inayat Khan (in U nity o f R elig io u s Ideals, 2 8 2 -3 ). The rem aining tw o
aspects are the M essage-bearer and the Teacher. Inayat Khan maintained that all aspects but that o f
Teacher had been terminated with the prophecy o f M uhammad (S e e Chapter Four). Here, how ever,
M aheboob Khan evidently attributes all fiv e aspects to Inayat Khan.
69 The Sufi R e c o rd 3 (July 1930): 13. C .f. 2 (January 1930): 21: the b lessin g lies in fo llo w in g the
w ay Pir-o-M urshid has made for us.
223
D abashis second category of charismatic authority, perpetuation, represents
a deliberate departure from W ebers theoretical model. W eber insisted that the
routinization o f charism atic authority is inevitable: in its pure form, charism atic
authority may be said to exist only in the process of originating.70 Dabashi
contends, however, that the S h iIte sect in Islam exem plifies an alternative process,
one in which the founders charism a is carried over to his successors in a form
which, though hierarchically inferior, is nonetheless functionally and socially
similar.71 A ll was acclaimed by his followers not only as the possessor of a sacred
office, but more importantly, as one personally endowed with divine inspiration
(ilham).
In the Sufi M ovement, the category of perpetuation applies to Rabia Martin.
W hereas M aheboob Khan consistently addressed groups of mureeds as beloved
ones of G od, Rabia M artin addressed the mureeds at the Sum m er School of 1927 as
my dear m ureeds (i.e., as her own personal disciples). Just as A lls claim was
based on the event of Ghadir Khum, where M uhamm ad is reported to have declared
the w ilayat (guardianship) of Ali [has been] achieved,73 M artins claim was based
on a designation allegedly made by Inayat Khan in private on 16 M arch 1926. Thus
70 W eber, On C h arism a a n d Institution B uilding, 54.

71 D abashi, A u th o rity in Islam , 112. In my v iew D abashi overstates the inapplicability o f
routinization to S h iism. A lthough invested with a greater sanctity than the Sunni caliphs, as a
heredity line the S h ii im ams were recipients o f an inherited, and therefore routinized, charisma.
D ab ash is perpetuation o f charism a is useful as the designation o f a subset o f the routinization o f
charisma in w hich the qualities o f the founder are ascribed to a considerable degree to the successors.
224
she considered herself as the first of a chain of M urshids mystically inaugurated by
our Holy Pir-o-M urshid in the W estern W orld.74 For Martin, the spiritual authority
o f this divinely favored lineage of M urshids outstripped the derivative institutional
authority of the Sufi Movement: . there was nothing the organization of the Sufi
M ovem ent could possibly bestow upon me that had not already been conferred by
our Holy M urshid.75
D abashis third category of charism atic authority, dissemination, defines the
course of charism a in the absence of either a sacred office (W ebers routinization) or
sacred figure (D abashis perpetuation). Since for Dabashi, following W eber, the
successful continuation of charismatic authority requires a specific institutional or
personal channel, dissemination amounts to the negation of charisma: In the
absence of [routinization or perpetuation], the momentous force of charism a is
dissem inated into history and, despite sporadic revolts, lost forever.76 In Islam, the
Kharijite sect represents the category of dissemination. Kharijism was a diverse
movem ent of disparate groups characterized by puritanical, anti-authoritarian
tendencies. Due to the inherent lack of political stability and cohesion in these
volatile groups, Kharijism proved to be a transitory phenom enon in Islamic history.
72 Ibid., 116.
73 Ibid., 98.
74 Martin to M aheboob Khan, 29 M ay 1929, 2.
75 Ibid., 5.
76 D abashi, A u th o rity in Isla m , 125.
225
In the context of the Sufi M ovement, the category of dissem ination aptly
describes the messianic universalism of Sirdar van Tuyll. N ot only did Tuyll deny
the specific claims of M artin and M aheboob Khan; more fundamentally, he denied
the possibility of any legitimate authority after Inayat Khan, whether personal or
institutional. By recognizing M aheboob Khan in the spiritually authoritative
position of Pir-o-M urshid (or Shaikh ul-M ashaikh, the officially equivalent title
M aheboob used in practice) in Tuylls view the Headquarters of the Sufi M ovem ent
had lost its legitimacy and even its legality: this group makes itself known in
publications, advertisements and by the spoken word, as the Sufi M ovement, which
in reality it is not by law, but in its own eyes.77 Instead, according to Tuyll, the Sufi
M ovem ent is properly defined as the collective name of all those, being followers
of Pir-o-M urshid Inayat Khan, who have united for the spreading of the Sufi
78
M essage. As already indicated, Tuylls position represents the apotheosis of the
egalitarian universalism of the M essage.
Headquarters dismissed the em barrassing departures of M artin, Tuyll, and
the others as an unavoidable but temporary setback in the inevitable forward march
of the M ovement. To make the point, a prophecy attributed to Inayat Khan was
circulated:
77 Sirdar van T uyll, History o f the Sufi M ovem en t, Asan M anzil A rchive, 3-4.
78 Ibid., 4.
226
The M aster ... has made the authentic statement that the time will come
when many, many will leave. But to this prophecy he also added that
thereafter would com e the great expansion of the M essage, when many
79
souls would be drawn to it.
W hether or not this pronouncem ent attributed to Inayat Khan was authentic,
it served the rhetorical needs of Headquarters in 1931, and to some extent it
accurately, if hyperbolically, described the resilience of the M ovem ent in the decade
that followed. W hereas M artins and Tuylls Sufi activities proceeded almost
exclusively on a local basis M artins at Kaaba Allah in Fairfax, Tuylls at his Sufi
Church in The Hague the Geneva-based Sufi M ovement survived, and indeed
flourished, as an international organization. Throughout the 1930s the Sufi
M ovem ent conducted activities in Switzerland, France, England, Holland, Norway,
Sweden, Germany, Italy, Brazil, and the United States.
In 1928 a partial reporting of membership rolls showed 236 mureeds in the
U.S., 141 mureeds in Switzerland, 139 mureeds in Holland, 81 mureeds in Florence,
Italy, 76 members in Norway, 50 members in Berlin, Germany, and 21 members in
80
Sweden. In the U.S., following the secession of Rabia Martin, m em bership dipped
down to 141, but then increased again in 1936. Despite the econom ic turm oil of the
Great Depression, which was then at its height, the U.S. section reported splendid
79 The Sufi R e c o rd 3 (January-March 1931): 1.

80 The Sufi R e c o rd 1 (O ctober 1928): 23 -2 8 .
227
growth in Indianapolis, Cleveland, and especially New York City.81 Overall,
throughout the M ovement, natural attrition was balanced by a steady influx of new
members, resulting in an essentially stable m embership base.
As Shaikh ul-M ashaikh of the Sufi Order, M aheboob Khan visited the
various Sufi centers in Europe at intervals, though considerably less frequently than
his peripatetic predecessor. Not being an orator like Inayat Khan, he spoke
exclusively to private, Sufi audiences. His musical genius, which encom passed
European as well as Indian classical music, expressed itself in a series of songs that
82
he com posed for poems selected from the Gayan, Vadan, and Nirtan. As a Sufi
leader, M aheboob K hans particular strength was a quality of m editative inwardness
83
that was ultimately recognized and respected widely within the M ovement. '
H eadquarters versus Heartquarters
Each summer, the Summer School continued to be held in Suresnes. But
Suresnes increasingly became a point of contention. A decade earlier, in 1924, when
Sirkar van Stolk had begun using contributions from mureeds to acquire plots of
land opposite Fazal M anzil it had becom e necessary to create a legal em bodim ent
for the Sufi activities in Suresnes. Thus, in consultation with a Parisian lawyer,
81 The Sufi R e c o rd 5 (M arch 1936): 13.

82 Sh. M aheboob Khan, Sufi S on gs (Rotterdam: Faiz & C o, 1931).
83 T his quality is frequently referenced in a collection o f tributes published in the w ake o f M aheboob
Khans death: The Sufi R e c o rd (Septem ber 1948): 37-61.
228
Inayat Khan founded an institute nam ed the Institut Universel Soufi (Sufi Universal
Institute). Inayat Khan appointed the Executive Committee: M adame Touzet,
Sharifa Goodenough, and Sirkar van Stolk. Simultaneously a limited liability
company named the Societe Anonyme Soufi was established to hold the land (7,500
square meters) and buildings (M ureeds House with 29 bedrooms, and Lecture Hall)
and manage all business matters. The International Headquarters soon deem ed it
unsatisfactory, however, that the property in Suresnes should belong to an
independent society. Thus in 1928 the International Council of the Sufi M ovem ent
formally expressed the desire to bring the property in Suresnes under the im m ediate
jurisdiction of Headquarters. It was resolved that the Representative General be
requested to bring about a greater activity in the process of incorporating the Societe
Anonyme Soufi with and into the International Headquarters.84 In the years that
followed, however, no progress was made. M eanwhile, Headquarters became
suspicious that Van Stolk was running the Summer School at a deficit and covering
the losses with his own funds, in order, it was assumed, to thereby gain personal
control of the property. A com mission was established to investigate, and in 1934 it
was concluded that the deficit was insubstantial and the m atter was of little concern.
Nonetheless, Van Stolk resigned from the Societe Anonyme Soufi in protest,
declaring so much noise to bake one om elet!85 Tensions continued to quietly
84 The Sufi R e c o rd l(O ctob er 1928- Januaryl929): 28-29.

85 Sh. M ahm ood Khan, personal com m unication, 21 January 2006.
229
simmer between Geneva and Suresnes the Headquarters and H eartquarters of the
Sufi M ovem ent respectively86 and Van Stolk, in his position as National
Representative of Holland, continued to play the role of loyal opposition.
M eanwhile in Germany trouble was brewing. Immediately after Adolph
Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in January 1933, the National Socialist Party
prohibited the furtherance of the work of Sufi M ovement. Two reasons were given:
the M ovem ent did not stand on the basis of the party program, and it granted equal
rights to Jews. The members quickly disbanded and in M arch of the same year the
87
National Representative, Baron von Barany, dissolved the society. No official
statements from Headquarters in response to the situation are traceable. The house
organ The Sufi Record was at the same time discontinued, owing to unspecified
circum stances.88 W hen publication was resumed in 1936, no m ention was made
of the dissolution of the German branch, or more generally, of the rise of Nazism. In
glossing over the matter, Headquarters appears to have been anxious to maintain
political neutrality, even in such adverse circumstances, in accordance with the

on
provisions of the Constitution of the Sufi M ovement.
86 The Sufi R e c o rd 4 (July-Septem ber 1932): 109.

87 Sh. M ahm ood Khan, personal com m unication, 2 4 January 2 0 0 6 . Petra-Beate Schildbach reported
this inform ation to Sh. M ahm ood Khan on the basis o f fam ily oral history and d eclassified official
files in Germany.
88 The Sufi R e co rd 5 (M arch 1936): 1.
89 The association ... denies itself all interference in politics, internal or foreign . T he Sufi
M ovem ent, A rticles o f Incorporation, article 5, line 2.
230
Nonetheless, the M ovement could not but be profoundly affected by the
events that would soon unfold. In the spring of 1940, German blitzkriegs
overwhelm ed Holland and France. Fearing the possibility of a German invasion of
Switzerland, Headquarters sent a com plete set of the Esoteric Papers to New York
for safekeeping.
In occupied Holland, a debate quickly ensued concerning how to proceed
under the new circumstances. Some leaders were initially attracted by the
Rom anticist undercurrents of Nazi rhetoric, and contemplated the possibility of a
modus vivendi. But before long it became apparent that the anti-Sem itism of
N azism was inherently incompatible with the universalism of the Sufi W orld
Brotherhood. Recognizing this, a num ber of leaders, including Van Stolk, proposed
carrying on with public activities regardless, in defiance of the Nazi authorities. As
a British subject, in 1941 M aheboob Khan was interned and then exiled, with his
family, from The Hague to Hilversum. In exile, M aheboob Khan ordered the Dutch
leaders to halt all activities. The Universal W orship, which included in its service a
candle representing Judaism, was considered particularly dangerous. Several of the
leaders, however, criticized M aheboob Khan for his quietism, and ignored the order.
As a result, the Sufi M ovem ent soon came under official scrutiny. Suddenly all of
the M ovem ents assets in Holland were seized by the Secret Police. Lost forever
were M aheboob K hans private papers and a cherished sculpture of Inayat Khan.
231
Henceforth, for the remainder of the Second W orld W ar, Van Stolk and the other
90
leaders conducted their activities in secret.
M eanwhile, Amina Begum and the children had abandoned Fazal M anzil and
taken refuge in London. In their absence Fazal M anzil was occupied by the
Germans. In England Noor-un-nisa and Vilayat, the two eldest of the four siblings,
signed up for m ilitary service. Vilayat served in the Royal Navy as an officer on a
m inesweeping vessel. Noor-un-nisa enlisted in the W om ens Auxiliary A ir Force
but was transferred to Intelligence (Special Operations Executive). Trained in
wireless radio operation, in the summer of 1943 she was covertly flown into
occupied France where she joined a cell of agents in the Resistance, known as the
Physician network. Soon after her arrival several members of the Physician network
were arrested by the Gestapo. Though it was suggested that she return to England,
Noor-un-nisa refused to abandon what had becom e the principal and most
dangerous post in France91 and continued to communicate inform ation to London
until she was betrayed and arrested in October of the same year. After a m onth-long
period of interrogation at the Gestapo Headquarters in Paris, during which she
consistently refused to reveal information and twice attempted to escape, she was
sent to Pforzheim prison in Germany. For nine months she remained in solitary
confinement, in chains. On 11 September 1944 she was taken to Dachau
90 Sh. M ahm ood Khan, personal com m unication, 21 January 2 0 0 6 .

91 Fuller, N o or-u n -n isa In a ya t K han, 250.
232
Concentration Camp. The following day she was subjected to blow s and shot
* 92
through the back of the head. A witness reported that her final word was liberte.
Noor-un-nisa was posthum ously awarded the French Croix de Guerre with
Gold Star in 1946 and the British George Cross in 1949. W ithin ten days of the
latter award, emotionally devastated by her daughters fate, Am ina Begum died. For
the remaining members of Inayat K hans family, the Allied victory was com pletely
overshadowed by the double loss of Noor-un-nisa and Am ina Begum. Vilayat, who
had been closest to Noor-un-nisa, took refuge in music, listening to the B M inor
Mass of Bach daily as a therapeutic regimen.
Later, as a Sufi leader, Vilayat then Pir Vilayat spoke frequently, and
with great pathos, of the heroism of his sister, declaring her, the first Sufi saint in
the Sufi Order in the W est.93 In the Sufi M ovem ent in the 1940s and 50s, however,
N oor-un-nisa was rarely mentioned. Though pained by her death, Inayat K hans
brothers and cousin were distinctly uncom fortable with ashamed of, even the
dissonance of her actions and persona with the patriarchal Indo-M uslim ideals with
which they resolutely identified.94 The traditional values of the M awlabakhsh
92 Ibid., 257.
93 Khan, T o w a rd the O ne, dedication (c).
94 Sh. M ahm ood Khan, personal com m unication, 2 4 January 2006.
233
khandan required the women of the family to keep out of public view, and Noor-un-
nisas heroism had put her in the lim elight.95 Thus despite the trem endous symbolic
potential of the narrative of her martyrdom for the cause of liberty, no particular
spiritual significance was attached to her story in the M ovement. It was an outsider,
Jean Overton Fuller, who told her story for the first time in 1952, in a book titled
Madeleine. Fullers book was subsequently reprinted many times, with the result
that N oor-un-nisas fame spread widely in Europe and the Indian subcontinent,
spawning numerous articles, books, and plays.96
Follow ing the Liberation, the prevailing m ood in W estern Europe was highly
optimistic, but for the Sufi M ovement circumstances initially remained chaotic in the
absence o f facilities for international com munication, travel, and currency exchange.
For logistical reasons, the Summer School was held in Holland in 1945. In Holland,
many anticipated that M aheboob Khan would take action against Van Stolk and
others who had ignored or challenged his authority during the war. Instead,
M aheboob Khan circulated a Declaration of Loyalty. All of the Dutch leaders
signed it, and were accordingly reappointed without penalty. The atmosphere of
partisanship was thus temporarily lifted. The Sum m er School, however, did not
return to Suresnes; it was held again near Utrecht in 1946 and in H ilversum in 1947.
95 Inayat K hans attitudes w ere more com p lex and am bivalent, tending toward a liberal critique o f
patriarchy. S ee Guillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y , 242 -3 .
96 N ooru n issas story was recently the subject o f an am bitious sem i-fictional n ovel, The T ig er C la w
by Shauna Singh B aldw in (N ew D elhi: Penguin, 20 0 4 ).
234
On his sixtieth birthday, M aheboob Khan received an unbelievably crude,
insensitive, and personally insulting letter from a close friend and ally of the
leading members of the opposition party.97 According to his son, this letter had the
result of opening old and deep wounds barely healed.98 Thirteen months later, on
3 July 1948, M aheboob Khan died suddenly of heart failure. The Sum m er School
was promptly cancelled. The opposition group spread rumors that Ikbal Ali Shah,
who had recently come over to propose renewed cooperation, was responsible for
M aheboob K hans death, possibly through black magic. But many believed, on the
contrary, that it was the circle around Van Stolk that was to blame: The aching
sense that the dissent, opposition and intrigue had in fact shortened Shaikh ul-
M ashaikhs life, long continued as an uncomfortable, or indignant, all-pervasive
guilty secret throughout the M ovem ent.99 As a result, attitudes at Headquarters
hardened against m ischief-makers associated with Suresnes.
M aheboob Khan had not left a testament. Already as he lay in state, the
succession became a subject of immediate, if discreet, speculation. M aheboob
K hans wife, Shadibiy Khanim, was first to venture a proposal. She suggested a
triumvirate leadership: M urshid Ali Khan as the matchless spiritual giant, M urshid
Talewar Dussaq in charge of organizational matters, Pirzade Vilayat as jeune

98 Ibid.
99 r u m
235
prem ier. 100 Dussaq, the General Secretary, summarily rejected the idea.101 For his
part, Vilayat Khan drafted a letter of recognition that was read on his behalf on the
occasion of the meeting of the Jamiat Am at Geneva on 16 September 1948,
following which M uhamm ad Ali Khan was unim ously recognized as the Pir-o-
M urshid and Shaikh al-M ashaikh of the Sufi Order. In the letter, Vilayat welcom ed
M uham m ad Ali Khan, but simultaneously asserted his own de jure claim to the
position:
I may say in all humility that I am profoundly certain that it was Pir-o-
M urshids wish that his son Vilayat should one day succeed him at the head
of the M ovement. I believe that there is also some evidence in
confirm ation of this wish in statements made by Pir-o-M urshid to certain
mureeds. The fact that he requested my mother to make a yellow robe to be
placed upon me as he laid the foundation-stone of the U niverselle in
Suresnes on Hijerat-Day in 1926, on the occasion when he was last with his
mureeds, bears eloquent testimony to this wish. I am deeply conscious of

the fact that it is for me to prove worthy of this privilege, such has been my
feeling since early childhood. ... It is fortunate, therefore, that at this time
when the M ovem ent mourns the passing of its beloved Leader of the past
twenty-one years, one whose devotion to the Cause and whose association
with Sheikh-ul-M asheikh, both as a brother (for he was in the family a
brother and to me is an uncle) and a partner in the work, has endeared him
to all of us I mean M urshid Ali Khan should be here am ongst us to
100 Ibid. A ccord in g to V ilayat Khan, during a m eeting at his hotel in H olland, D ussaq confirm ed to
him that Inayat Khan had intended him, V ilayat, as his successor.
101 Ibid.
236
guide us and that I may look to him for a continuance of the line followed
by Sheikh-ul-M asheikh. As a tribute to his beautiful sacrifice, his spiritual
strength, loveable countenance, and inspiring personality, I subm it that I
personally should be pleased to welcome him as our Esoteric Head and to
have the opportunity for further training under his aegis and assist him in
l(P
the Administrative and Executive work for the Movement.
On account of his kinship and companionship with Inayat Khan, as well as
his im pressive personality, M uhamm ad Ali Khan was a highly popular and respected
figure in the Sufi Movement. Like M aheboob Khan, he was not an orator. In the
few lectures that he gave, always in Sufi circles, he limited him self to brief glosses
on Inayat K hans teachings. M uhamm ad Ali K hans particular talent was spiritual
healing, an art he had originally learned as a young man in Baroda from a certain
Ustad Bhiya-ji (from whom he also learned wrestling). In the course of a Sum m er
School he would typically perform hundreds of personal healings, many of which
were reported to produce significantly beneficial results.
W ith respect to leadership style, M uham m ad Ali Khan differed in
temperam ent from his predecessor. W hereas M aheboob Khan had been soft-spoken
and conciliatory by nature, M uhamm ad Ali Khan was habitually terse,
uncom prom ising, and imperious. The courtly model was now given a powerful
102 Statement o f Pirzade V ilayat Inayat Khan to the Jamiat A m , 16 Septem ber 1948. Cited in The
Sufi M ovem ent, C om m ittee o f Investigation, M em orandum to the W orkers and C andidates for
A ppointm ent in the Sufi M ovem ent and its A ctivities (n.d.), 6-7.
237
renewed emphasis: to Pir-o-M urshid Ali Khan all mureeds of H azrat Inayat K hans
Sufism, whether initiates or initiators, were, so to speak, on equal footings before the
Pir-o-M urshid. 103
Soon after M uhamm ad Ali K hans accession the question arose of bringing
the Sum m er School back to Suresnes. Like much of Paris, in the aftermath of the
war the property required large-scale renovation. Before approving new
investments, Headquarters insisted that all prior debts should be cancelled. As in the
1930s, Dussaq and others at Headquarters were concerned that by deliberately
running a deficit, and meeting the loss with personal funds, Van Stolk intended to
tighten his hold on Suresnes. The members of the opposition group, in turn, argued
that, if M urshid (i.e. Pir-o-M urshid Inayat Khan) had wished to make the Societe
Anonyme Soufi bound by Headquarters he would have established its financial
relationship on a legal basis. 104 They saw it as their personal responsibility to
protect Suresnes from the policies of a Headquarters whose secret agenda, they
believed, was to transfer the assets of Suresnes to The Hague, the seat of
M uhamm ad Ali Khan. Thus when Headquarters demanded the property shares that
had belonged to M aheboob Khan, the Societe Anonyme Soufi refused to comply.

104 V ilayat Khan, E lise G uillaum e Schamhart, M ich el G uillaum e, and J.C.L. Sm it to Kadir van
L ohuizen, 5 Septem ber 1955, cited in T he Sufi M ovem ent, W hite Paper on Suresnes, A san M anzil
A rchive, 148.
238
A fter the war, following a brief career in diplomacy at the Pakistan High
Com m ission in London, Vilayat Khan re-established him self at Fazal M anzil. Fazal
M ai Egeling had died at the end of 1939, leaving her fortune in a Dutch trust
specifying Vilayat as the beneficiary in his capacity as Leader of the Sufi
M ovem ent. 105 Egelings expectation that Pir Vilayat would becom e the Esoteric
Head of the Sufi Order, and therefore also the Representative General of the Sufi
M ovement, was fully in accord with sentiments prevailing throughout the
M ovement. As M ahm ood Khan, the son of M aheboob Khan, recalls, Among all
Sufi members it always had been idealistically assumed that Pirzade [Vilayat] in
time would succeed in M urshids Sufism and M urshidzade Hidayat in his m usic. 106
The presumed inevitability of his accession to the rank of Pir-o-M urshid put
Vilayat in an ambiguous position vis-a-vis the de facto Pir-o-M urshid, M uham m ad
Ali Khan. Since Inayat K hans death, the relationship of his widow and children to
his brothers and cousin had frequently been marred by cultural dissonance resulting
in feelings of mutual alienation. Once, for example, when the four children, now in
their twenties, were seen sitting in a cafe in Paris, the uncles were indignant,
M uhamm ad Ali Khan even shedding tears of sham e.107 Am ina Begum and the
105 Statutes o f the Fazal M ai E gelin g Stichting, article 2. A rticle 3 clarifies: The title Leader o f the
Sufi M o v em en t ... shall refer first to V ilayat Inayat Khan, even if he is not yet or no longer acting in
said capacity.
107 Sh. M ahm ood Khan, personal com m unication, 21 January 2 0 0 6 . An original mureed o fln a y a t
Khan, Sham cher B eorse, stated: T he w hole fam ily was to them a disgrace, to A li and M usheraff.
239
children dismissed such reactions as symptoms of the outm oded prejudices of the
Brown Brothers.
Com pounding the problem of generational and cultural differences were two
other factors. The first, and less important, was M uhamm ad Ali K hans perception
that Vilayat had m ixed in politics. 108 This was said to refer to V ilayats wartime
service, but it m ight have equally referred to his employment, first at the Pakistan
High Comm ission, and subsequently as a journalist for the Pakistani newspaper
Dawn, reporting on French atrocities during the Algerian civil w ar.109
But the more serious was V ilayats involvement in Sufi politics: his
association with the dissident Tuyll, the intriguer Van Stolk, and related
opposition figures. After the war M aheboob Khan is reported to have told Vilayat
that he had no intention of withholding the Sufi succession from him , and that
meanwhile he was keeping the position of Executive Supervisor vacant until Vilayat
would be able to take it u p .110 However, M aheboob Khan was also dismayed, it is
There was a com p lete clash betw een tw o entirely different tem peram ents. B eorse, interview by
M eyer.
108 B eorse interview by M eyer.
109 The French governm ents disapproval o f V ilayats articles w as raised by Headquarters in the
context o f the debate over Suresnes: It is our sacred duty to protect the Sufi Institutions from any
p o ssib le blam e o f taking part in political matters, and ... your name has been seriously in volved on
this question through the articles published by you, to w hich the French G overnm ent m ade the
greatest o b jection s. Talew ar D ussaq to V ilayat Inayat Khan, 3 March 1953, W hite B o o k on
Suresnes, 104.
110 Ibid., 4., and Pir V ilayat to E lizabeth von M adarasz, 13 January 2 0 0 4 , Fazal M anzil A rchive.
A ccording to Sh. M ahm ood Khan these were tw o distinct conversations, the former having occurred
in the thirties.
240
said, by V ilayats alignment to the m ischief-m aking opposition and [his] attitude
towards his uncles. 111
Initially, Vilayat was content to provisionally acknowledge M uham m ad Ali
K hans leadership while building up his own base of support centered in Suresnes.
Contact with M uham m ad Ali Khan was sporadic. Once, in a meeting in Geneva,
M uham m ad Ali Khan offered spiritual instruction to Vilayat on one condition: no
claim . According to M ahm ood Khan, [This meant] no mystical training fo r
ulterior m otives nothing to do with renunciation, legal or otherwise, of any form al
or policy kind. 112 Vilayat, however, regarded M uhamm ad Ali K hans words as
indicative of an unjustified arrogation of authority. He later wrote:
Since I had been given the task of succeeding him, the transm ission of Pir-
o-M urshids spiritual legacy accruing directly from my own father, I could
not subject it to M urshid Ali K hans pleasure. That charge conferred on me
by my father was not mine to give. Shaikh al-M ashaikh had never placed
i i ^
that condition upon his training, rather the contrary. '
In 1951, following a formal appeal from a group of mureeds in Suresnes,
Vilayat Khan was recognized by Headquarters as Leader of the Suresnes branch of
the Sufi M ovement. Soon thereafter Vilayat began organizing annual Pilgrim ages
to Suresnes. Seeing these Pilgrimages as a rival to the Summer School,

112 Ibid.
241
Headquarters took exception.114 A t the same time, Vilayat decisively sided with the
Societe Anonyme Soufi in their confrontation with Headquarters over the issue of
re-investm ent in Suresnes. M ahm ood Khan recalls, Pirzade Vilayat, as from his
own interests, considered that Pir-o-M urshid Ali Khan and International
Headquarters were merely dragging their feet because of his presence there and the
hold he m ight gain over Sufi m ureeds. 115 This was precisely the view later
expressed by Shamcher Beorse, a mureed who was sympathetic to Vilayat, though
not a m em ber o f the Suresnes oppostion group: Ali Khan tried to belittle Suresnes
and and m ove the whole thing to Holland, because in Suresnes was Vilayat, and he
couldnt unseat Vilayat from that house. 116
The Executive Comm ittee of the Societe Anonyme Soufi warned that if plans
for the building of the Universel Tem ple did not proceed promptly, the land w ould
be expropriated by the M unicipality and lost forever. Dism issing the threat, initially,
as a bluff, Headquarters held fast to its position, demanding the cancellation o f debts
and the transference of M aheboob K hans shares as preconditions for cooperation.
The result was a stalemate: the M ovem ent continued to hold its Sum m er Schools in
Holland, Vilayat continued to hold Pilgrimages in Suresnes, and despite the
113 Pir V ilayat, open letter, 27 A ugust 1997.

114 V ilayat later explained: I renew ed m y request to Pir o M urshid A li Khan every year to lead it or if
M urshid M usheraff Khan could do so. N o, he said, it is your role as host in Fazal M anzil to do so,
but you must apply for Headquarters perm ission, w hich I did each year w ithout receivin g a reply.
Report m ade by som e m ureeds on the question o f su ccessio n , Fazal M anzil A rchive, appendix 1.
242
existence of potential donors prepared to make large contributions117, the temple
remained un-built.
By 1953 it was apparent that, in view of his involvement with the opposition
group in Suresnes, in M uham m ad Ali K hans mind, Vilayat no longer was on
succession course. 118 Yet he remained a force to be reckoned with. In 1953, and
again in 1955, the Pirzade and Pir-o-M urshid met to negotiate terms. Vilayat Khan
proposed a two-branch leadership structure, but on both occasions, on the counsel of
M ahm ood Khan, the proposal was jettisoned. M eanwhile, Vilayat continued to
formally acknowledge M uhamm ad Ali Khan and pursue his activities under the
official aegis of Headquarters, albeit uncomfortably. In the years 1955 and 1956
Vilayat traveled and lectured in the U.S.A. (New York and Cleveland), Holland (The
Hague, Amsterdam, Hilversum, Haarlem, and Rotterdam), Germany (Darmstadt,
Frankfurt, W iesbaden, M ainz, and Heidelberg), England (Brighton), and Switzerland
(Zurich). In Germany, his lectures attracted large audiences (one hundred to two
hundred people) a phenom enon not seen in the Sufi M ovement since Inayat
K hans time. But while very favorably received in public venues, Vilayat reported
that he was not always welcom ed in Sufi centers:
It was as though there was a systematic m ovement of anti-propaganda,

spreading rumors about me, which I could easily dissipate, as they were
116 B eorse, interview by M eyer.

117 Sirkar van Stolk had thus far co llected 2.5 m illion French francs. W hite Paper on Suresnes, 103.
243
mostly unfounded. ... Some centers were quite willing to use my lecture as
propaganda for the public, but refused to allow me to address their

mureeds. W hy should they have such a fear? Truth must speak for itself.
... A particularly sad case in point: that of Mrs. Orchard, who used to make
me feel so welcome in her little group at Brighton until she visited the
Sum m er School in Holland last year. Then she wrote saying she would
only organize a lecture if I would cease working against Pir-o-M urshid Ali
Khan. I wonder who invents such ridiculous ideas! ... The result is that
when I go to lecture again, I will have to organize things myself, and it will
then be said that I am working on my own and not for the M ovem ent.119
By the beginning of 1955 it had becom e clear that the long-feared
expropriation of the Suresnes property by the Municipality, for the construction of
m uch-needed low-cost housing in the vicinity of Paris, was now an im m inent reality.
Frenzied negotiations between Headquarters and the Societe Anonyme Soufi failed
1 70
to produce cooperation. In February 1955, representing the Headquarters
Comm ittee for Suresnes, Kadir van Lohuizen entered into talks with the M ayors
office aimed at preserving the M eeting Hall. Independently, the Societe Anonyme
pursued an alternate channel of negotiation. W hen this failed, and the members of
the Societe Anonyme became aware of the terms of Van Lohuizens discussions
with the Mayor, they blam ed him for underm ining their position by secretly
119 Pirzade V ilayat Inayat Khan, R eport to International Headquarters concerning my travel lecture
tours during the year 1 9 5 5 -1 9 5 6 , Fazal M anzil A rchive.
120 The Sufi M ovem ent, W hite Paper on Suresnes, 169-170.
244
acquiescing to the expropriation. A series of indignant open letters, widely
circulated in the M ovement, had the effect of instantly enflaming sentiments.
The sacred significance of the Suresnes land was an undeniable fact of
collective memory. M any recalled Inayat K hans impassioned words in the
penultim ate Summer School in Suresnes:
Someone asked me, "But why must it be in a place like Suresnes? W e do

not like it." ... My blessed mureeds, when you look at things from a
mystical point of view, you will realize the meaning of that verse in the
scripture that says, "Not one atom moves without the com m and of God."
W hen your M urshid was brought here, destiny settled him here. Spirits
were moved to take this piece of ground, that a temple be made here. It is
not without meaning. ... N ever think that if M urshid was offered the
sultan's palace in Constantinople he would change it for his hut in Suresnes.
W here a mystic sits, he sits; where he stands, he stands. ... Things of great
121
significance are beyond what we call our practical point of view.
The expropriation was im plem ented in the summer of 1956. In addition to
the land requisitioned by the M unicipality, Headquarters sold, in this case
voluntarily, the large M ureeds House. The stress of the expropriation conflict too
great to bear, Kadir van Lohuizen died within a m atter of months.
W hen, at the Summer School in The Hague, Holland, on 27 July 1956,
Vilayat Khan attempted to enter the hall to lead the prayers of the Confraternity, as
245
he had done in previous years, his way was barred on the instructions of M uham m ad
Ali Khan. For Vilayat, this was the last straw. On 11 August 1956 he issued a
proclamation dismissing M uhamm ad Ali Khan and declaring him self esoteric Head
of the Sufi Order:
Dear Fellow M ureeds, ... At the time of Shaikh ul M ashaikhs passing I

considered it premature to assume this sacred position, and in an official
letter ... gave mandate to M urshid Ali Khan. ... From that moment, I was
systematically opposed in my activities of spreading the M essage in
lectures as my Father had asked me in my last conversation with Him. The
handicaps thrown in my way were all in the name of officialdom. The
chief accusation was always: Vilayat has no authority to do this, and this
from the very one whose own authority was based on my mandate. ... It is
necessary to clearly state here that Pir O M urshid Inayat Khan was the
successor in a chain of Sufis each of w hom designated his own successor,
descending from the very origin of Sufism. The Sufi Order which he
founded in the W est is a continuation but reshaping of the Chichtia
[Chishtiyya] Order; and His mission in giving the Sufi M essage exceeds the
narrow limits of an Order which may however be considered as its core and
support on earth, as an em bodim ent of initiates dedicated to its spreading,
and a school of their training. ... Today I solemnly declare before all the
M ureeds to withdraw the m andate that I handed to M urshid Ali Khan in
1948, because he has failed to respect and preserve the integrity of the
Order entrusted to him. Nevertheless, I thank him for his efforts, because I
still try to believe that he meant well. I solemnly declare to assume from
121 Inayat Khan, T he M essage Papers, Fazal M anzil A rchive (copy), 25.
246
this day the position handed to me, according to the customs of the Sufis
(Silsil Sufian [silsila-yi sufiyan]) of the Chichti [ChishtI] Order from India
and as Esoteric Head of the Sufi Order, founded in the W est by Pir O
M urshid Inayat Khan in 1910. ... I solemnly declare that from henceforth
any organisation other than the one whose leadership I now assume,
pretending to act as a Sufi Order founded by Hazrat Pir O M urshid Inayat
Khan is illegal as such, but will be considered as a branch which we will
122
respect as such in keeping with our ideal.
Headquarters replied with a 24-page M emorandum, which was sent to all
representatives of the M ovement. The M em orandum begins on a note of
confidence, stating that although V ilayats proclamation has caused incalculable
confusion, nonetheless the inner foundations of the M ovement ... have rem ained
unaffected. Faithful adherence to leadership of M aheboob Khan and M uham m ad
Ali Khan is posited as the sine qua non of authentic participation in Sufism: The
hum ble attempt of following their exam ple as far as possible, is indicated by
M urshid, on almost every page of his teachings, as being the only way of becom ing
able to serve the M essage. 123 In the next section, the text goes on to em phasize the
hierarchical, rather than democratic, character of the Sufi Order. The authority of
the Pir-o-M urshid is unquestionable: In the spiritual path the idea of independence
122 Pirzade V ilayat Inayat Khan, Open Letter, 11 A ugust 1956, Fazal M anzil A rchive.
123 The Sufi M ovem ent, M em orandum to the W orkers and Candidates, 1.
247
can only be realized in surrendering to the Pir-o-M urshid face to face here on earth,
to the M aster, and then to the Almighty God. 124
The third section deals with the nomination of the Head of the Order. Here
the M em orandum argues that Inayat K hans often-cited words regarding his son
represented a w ish rather than an appointm ent. W hereas Vilayat claim ed that
Inayat Khan ritually confirm ed him as his successor on Hejirat Day, in fact, on that
occasion he only made him Head of the Confraternity. The text also challenges
V ilayats invocation of the principle of hereditary succession (the custom of the
Sufis, referenced in the London Constitution), asserting that, hereditary
succession implies succession by the eldest or most prom inent m em ber of the
family, and moreover that mention of hereditary succession was om itted from the
definitive Geneva Constitution. Finally, the M emorandum argues that possession of
the com plete set of the Esoteric Papers was not proof of succession, since, it alleges,
the papers were given for all four of the children. The M em orandum does not
respond to the additional claim, in V ilayats proclamation, that his possession of
Inayat K hans winged heart jew el em blem constituted another proof of succession.
The remaining sections treat the conflict over Suresnes, and V ilayats role in
the conflict. The problem is traced to a failure on the part o f certain mureeds to
come to terms with the hierarchical character of the M ovement, a tendency that
124 Ibid., 3.
248
continuously increased after the death of Inayat Khan. The M em orandum suggests
that the problem was related to a perception of cultural dissonance:
Sometimes such opponents liked to defend their mentality as W estern,
and the attitude of those who keenly tried to deepen themselves by learning
and working according to the precepts of the Head of the Order, as
Oriental. But one of the primary purposes of M urshids M essage to the

W estern W orld is precisely to develop in the W estern souls those qualities
which now perhaps are predom inant rather in the Oriental character, but
1
which essentially belong to the whole of mankind.
The text goes on to outline how the subversive element in the M ovem ent
seized upon Suresnes as an idependent power position, first before the war, and
then again with renewed force after the w ar.126 By means of a com pletely irregular
procedure, the M em orandum contends, the opposition group created a seemingly
127
im pregnable position. The group then spread rumors that M uham m ad Ali Khan
was against Suresnes, and organized Pilgrimages, so that [Vilayat] could prepare
198
the ground for the claim of being Head of the Order. This demagogic agitation,
which has to do nothing [sic] anymore with Sufism , ultimately culm inated in
125 Ibid., 12. T he context for this argument w as the assertion, made by V ilayats supporters, that it
was precisely because o f his synthesis o f Eastern and W estern sensibilities that V ilayat was destined
to lead the M ovem ent. Sham cher B eorse reported that Inayat Khan had told him: T he Sufi
M o v e m e n t... is not a m essage from the East to the W est, and not a m essage from the W est to the
East; its a m essage from the w h ole o f humanity. And the future leader and director o f these efforts
shall have both the W estern and Eastern blood in him . B eorse, interview by M eyer.
126 The Sufi M ovem ent, M em orandum to the W orkers and Candidates, 13.
127 Ibid., 14.
249
V ilayats proclamation, which was merely a smoke-screen ... to cover m isguided
activities. 129 It was his personal weakness and immaturity, the text asserts, that
made Vilayat succumb to the sycophancy and m anipulation of the opposition and
choose the path of disloyalty. 130 The M em orandum reaches its clim ax with a
m agisterial admonition:
W hen Vilayat wishes to receive the training which he is lacking, he will

have to return to his Fathers ways and to his Fathers organization, and
follow his Fathers instructions. That would make him a worthy son of his
Father. ... If Vilayat maintains his present attitude, Sufism will go on and
will continue to grow without him as it has from his Fathers time till now,
working along the lines which Pir-o-M urshid Hazrat Inayat Khan has
131
given.
The cover letter of the M emorandum gave advance notice that candidates for
re-appointm ent would be required to formally confirm their allegiance to
M uham m ad Ali Khan. On 31 Decem ber 1956 a Pledge of Allegiance form letter
was issued, stating: [The undersigned] ... solemnly pledge themselves upon their
honor as a Sufi to abide faithfully and in unswerving allegiance by the direction and
'Ib id ., 15.
ibid., 21.
T b id ., 23.
Ibid., 24.
250
leadership of Pir-o-M urshid M uhamm ad Ali K han. 132 Leaders were given ten days
to return it signed or face dismissal from appointments.
On the Representative G enerals instructions, the Executive Comm ittee
convened in Geneva on 30 M arch 1957. In advance o f the meeting, Vilayat Khan
consulted with M aitre Trottet, a Geneva lawyer whom Inayat Khan had consulted in
formulating the Sufi M ovem ent Constitution. M aitre Trottet advised Vilayat to
declare a question of order. Accordingly in the meeting he declared a question of
order, and attempted to read a paper in which he formally asserted his claim to the
position of Representative General and dismissed the officers of Headquarters.
Vilayat reports what ensued thus:
No sooner I started to read my paper, I was shouted down. The
Chairman asked for the taping to be interrupted. I continued to read
amidst the shouts. The Chairman asked for my intervention not to
figure in the minutes and closed the meeting. The law had been
violated.133
In July 1957 Vilayat Khan sent a letter to all leaders and conductors
clarifying his position. He appealed for civility and the cessation of vain arguments
about apparent m otive, declaring that M uhamm ad Ali Khan whom he
132 The Sufi M ovem ent, P led ge o f A llegian ce, 31 D ecem ber 1956, Fazal M anzil A rchive (cop y).
251
diplomatically called Khwaja M urshid Ali K han134 had his respect as the elder
surviving com panion of the M essenger, but that when he made it clear that he
did not wish me in the future to fulfill what my Father had asked o f me, I had to
135
reveal the Founders will. '
Attached was a dossier of testimonials supporting V ilayats claim to the
headship of the Order. These testimonials consisted of two types of statements:
statements directly reporting words of Inayat Khan, or impressions given by him;
and statements indirectly reporting the same. Of the first category, there were only
two. Kismet Stam wrote: Pir-o-M urshid Inayat has always made me consider
Vilayat as the future Pir-o-M urshid. 136 Baroness Eleanor von Romm el wrote: I
am witness that, when your Father ordained me cheraga at Park Hotel in M unich on
137
12.3.25 he told me that his young son will be one day his only successor.
Indirect reports were numerous. Kamila von Spengler reported that Zohra
W illiams, the first Secretary General of the Sufi Order, told her in 1931: Pir-o-
M urshid expressed his will that in the case of his passing, his brother M aheboob
138
Khan should succeed him until Vilayat would be able to carry on the work. ~
133 Pir V ilayat Inayat Khan, Open Letter, 27 A ugust 1997, Fazal M anzil A rchive. S ee also V ilayat
Inayat Khan to Baron van Pallandt, 8 April 1957, Fazal M anzil A rchive.
134 K h w aja (M aster ), a prestigious title in South A sian Sufism , had no official sign ifican ce in the
Sufi Order.
135 Pirzade V ilayat Inayat Khan, Open Letter, July 1957, Fazal M anzil A rchive.
136 Pirzade V ilayat Inayat Khan, M em orandum on S u ccession , 14 April 1968, Fazal M anzil A rchive,
9.
137 Ibid., 10.
138 t u :^ i c
252
Shabaz Best reported that he received a letter from W illiams in 1934 confirm ing the
sam e.139 Feizi von de Sheer, personal assistant to Sharifa Goodenough, wrote to
Dussaq: M urshid always considered Vilayat to become M urshids successor and
the Sheikh-ul-M asheikh only as regent ; Yvonne Guillaume reported that
Goodenough told her the sam e.140 M unira Bollman reported: [Dussaq] confirm ed
to me that Vilayat is the real successor of Hazrat Inayat Khan. 141 Stam disclosed a
letter from Zanetti: He [Vilayat] is not far from the Swiss legal age of 20 years,
which I use merely to set a definite date for the delivery to him of Sangithas E l to
prevent any attempt to delay the delivery by failing to recognize him as Pir-o-
M urshid. 142 Kalyani van Gool reported that Fazal M ai Egeling had repeatedly told
her: You see, it is M urshids wish, dat Vilayat hem opvolgt (that Vilayat will
succeed H im ). 143 Kafia Blaauw Robertson reported that her mother told her:
W hen Vilayat was born, M urshid had said: he is born who will be my
successor. 144 Shamcher Bryn Beorse reported that Susanna K josterud told him that
Inayat Khan told her: [Vilayat] was going to becom e a great leader of the Sufi
M ovem ent. 145
139 Ibid., 6.
140 Ibid., 7-8.
141 Ibid., 8.
142 Ibid., 9.
143 Ibid., 12.
144 Ibid., 11.
145 Ibid., 10.
Also affixed to V ilayats letter of July 1957 was a list of appointments made
by him in his newly asserted capacity as Esoteric Head. At the top of the list, before
his own name, are the names of Khwaja M urshid Ali Khan Saheba I A zam
(Companion of the M essenger), and M urshid M usheraff Khan U lem a L Bait
(Counselor for the Initiates). Below, among the appointees to the Jam iat Am, are
the names of Headquarters stalwarts such as M ahmood Khan, H. J. W itteveen, and
Baron van Pallandt; but also the names of previously expelled dissidents such as
Baron van Tuyll and M umtaz Armstrong. It is unclear how many of the appointees
on the list regarded themselves as aligned with Vilayat. A certain num ber decisively
shifted their allegiance to V ilayat146, others maintained dual appointments, and still
others disregarded V ilayats appointment and remained exclusively aligned with
Headquarters. The result was an ambiguous situation in which, in a de facto if not
de jure sense, the Sufi M ovement became a double-sided organization. For several
years, both sides of the organization continued to hold official m eetings separately.
Van Stolk em erged as Executive Supervisor of the Sufi M ovement under the
direction of Vilayat K han.147
M uham m ad Ali Khan died of ailments due to old age he was seventy-
seven on 29 September 1958, in The Hague. His testament, opened at the office of
146 T h ese included, in H olland, M urshida S. van Braam, Sheikha K. B laauw , S. v.d. L inde, and Gauri
V oute. Gauri V oute later broke away from V ilayat Khan and founded an independent group called
Sufi Contact.
254
the notary, caused great surprise. In it, M uham m ad Ali Khan nom inated M ahm ood
Khan as Head of the M ovement, Order, and Activities. As M ahm ood had still been
a minor when the testam ent was drafted (in 1953), it stipulated that M usharaff Khan
was to assume the authority in an interim capacity until M ahmood was ready to
assume it. M usharaff was furious; M ahmood amused, but also em barrassed and
loath to put him self before other, more senior family members.
At the next International Council meeting in Geneva, Pallandt, the Secretary
General, read M uhamm ad Ali K hans testament, and then a succession agreement in
which M ahm ood agreed to recognize M usharaff as Head of the M ovem ent for the
duration of his life, which both parties then signed. The same evening, in a meeting
of the Executive Committee, having legally secured the headship, an overstrained
and em otionally excited M usharaff reportedly proclaim ed that he owed his
succession to his blood and spiritual relationship with M urshid H azrat Inayat Khan
148
him self and not to any kind of agreement with this young m an [M ahmood].
Having attained his object, M usharaff Khan gradually replaced com m ittee members
who questioned his claim. Angered and insulted, M ahmood severed relations with
M usharaff and his wife Shahzadi, but declined an invitation from sympathizers to
establish his own independent leadership.
147 The Sufi M ovem ent, M inutes o f the International E xecu tive C om m ittee, 1 D ecem ber 1960, Fazal
M anzil A rchive (cop y), 1.
255
As the last of the line of brothers, M usharaff Khan generally enjoyed
goodwill and respect from all quarters of the Sufi M ovement. M ahm ood Khan notes
that, he was religiously inspired by mysticism rather than a true mystic like his
Brothers, but precisely that put him in touch with the needs and expectations of
many m ureeds. 149 M usharaff s term of leadership accordingly marks a point of
culm ination in the gradual discursive, ritual, and organizational shift, which had
begun already in the 1920s, from traditional Indo-Islamic esotericism (Sufism) to
hybrid modern religiosity (The Message). His tenure of office also marks a
dem ographic shift in membership, as the older generation of leisured class adherents
was replaced with an almost exclusively bourgeois new generation. At the same
time there was an overall decline in membership. As centers in America, England,
France, and northern Europe gradually dropped away, the M ovement became
increasing identified with its core base of mureeds in Holland.
Despite the general atmosphere of decline, M usharaff K hans term of
leadership witnessed two significant accomplishments. The first was the publication
of a series of volumes com prising all previously published works of Inayat Khan, as
well as a selection of numerous previously unpublished papers. The series, entitled
The Sufi M essage o f H azrat Inayat Khan, was published in twelve volum es between
the years 1960 and 1967. The second accomplishm ent was the planning of a temple
149 Ibid.
256
in Katwijk, in the dunes where Inayat Khan had mysteriously secluded him self in
1922. Invested in the temple, named Universel M urad Hassil, were the funds
derived from the expropriation of the land in Suresnes, as well as the sale of the
M ureeds House. M usharaff Khan oversaw the planning prevailing on the
architect, Van Essen, to add a dome but did not live to see its com pletion in 1969.
M usharaff Khan died suddenly on 30 Novem ber 1967, after receiving a
cholera vaccine injection in preparation for a visit to India. According to official
accounts, M usharaff K hans wife Shahzadi produced a testament nom inating Fazal,
the eldest son of Hidayat, then aged twenty-five. M ahmood Khan provides a more
com plex narrative:
Shahzadi pretended she had a Sufi testament. It was a lie. W henever the
voluble M usharaff had made any throwaway remark about Vilayat, Hidayat
or M ahmood, she either had hastily scribbled them down, or indeed she
only did so in Decem ber 67. These were pasted together with some more
promising remarks regarding the youngest, m ost remote hence supposedly
in his Sufic ignorance most harmless of the l o t ... i.e. Fazal. The Executive
Comm ittee at The Hague, Banstraat, called to overrule Pir-o-M urshid Ali
K hans statem ent and Pallandts agreem ent, easily has to be the most
discreditable ever held. ... In fact the whole performance amounted to a
self-reward of the two powers behind M usharaffs throne, Shahzadi and
Karimbakhsh in alliance now to wield Sufi pow er by enthroning the least-
experienced and supposedly most ignorant and pliable descendent. They
257
were to be retributed in kind but at the expense of the entire
M ovem ent.150
M ahm ood counseled young Fazal either to delegate Pallandt as his
plenipotentiary, and withdraw for a period of training, study, and spiritual
development, or else to assume full powers immediately, but invite Vilayat, Hidayat,
and M ahm ood to form a joint khandan-based leadership. Opting to assume
authority immediately, Fazal was willing to recognize Hidayat and M ahm ood in key
leadership positions, but not Vilayat, protesting: He will outshine us all! As a
result, the agreement collapsed, and M ahm ood filed suit. Despite the weakness of
Shahzadis unsigned testam ent in the face of the signed testament of M uham m ad
Ali Khan and agreement of M usharaff Khan, after the first stage of an interim
injunction, the suit was lost. According to M ahmood: its loss was an unasham ed
inside job: W itteveen at the time held the prestigious Cabinet job of M inister of
Finance, the judge entertained friendly social relations with some well-placed Sufi
mureeds. 151
Throughout the years of M usharaff s leadership, between lecture tours
drawing increasingly large audiences in Europe and the U.S., Vilayat underwent
periods of study and retreat with Hindu rishis and M uslim Sufis in India. In
Bareilly, he studied briefly with M uhamm ad TaqI NiyazI (a.k.a. A ziz M iyan, d.
150 Ibid.
258
1968), leader of the Niyaziyya branch of the Chishtiyya. In Hyderabad, he
com pleted a forty-day retreat (chilla) under the direction of Sayyid Fakhr al-Hasan
Jill K alim l, grandson of Sayyid M uham m ad Hasan Jill K alim i (d. 1890), the
initiatic predecessor of Sayyid Abu Hashim M adanl. In Ajmer, shortly after the
death of M usharraf Khan, Pirzade Vilayat was formally recognized as a p ir by the
sajjada-nishins Diwan Sayyid Saulat H usayn152 and, jointly, Sayyid Faruq Husayn
ChishtI and Sayyid M uhamm ad N aslm N iyazi.153 This recognition reinforced both
his personal sense of initiatic authority and his alignment with the ChishtI tradition,
as the source of that authority.154
151 Ibid.
152 T estim onial dated 27 January 1968, Fazal M anzil A rchive. On Saulat H usayns contested claim to
the office o f sa jjd d a -n ish in , see P. M . Currie, The Shrine a n d C u lt o f M u'in a l-d in C hishti o f A jm e r
(N ew D elhi: Oxford U niversity Press, 1989), 160-3.
153 T estim onial dated 2 February 1968, Fazal M anzil A rchive.
154 V ilayat Khan w rote, A ccording to our inform ation, the Sufi M ovem en t discards this transm ission
o f the silsila h o f our predecessors in the Chichti [C hishti] Sufi Order w hich Pir o M urshid Inayat
Khan clearly in vok es and honored. This tallies with the Sufi M o v em en ts p olicy o f reverting to
election o f the Spiritual Head rather than nom ination thus ju stifyin g ignoring the F ounders w ish for
his ow n su ccessio n ... Our credibility as a Sufi Order, or even in claim ing the authentic transm ission
sign ified by the word S u fi is carefully under scrutiny and under question by the authentic Sufi
Orders o f the E ast. V ilayat to W itteveen, 8 O ctober 1997, Fazal M anzil A rchive. V ila y a ts appeal
to the authority o f C hishti tradition corresponded to an active interest in classical Islam ic Su fism , and
a tendency to read Inayat K hans w orks in the light o f Ibn Arab!, Shihab al-DIn Y ahya SuhrawardI,
and other major Sufis o f the classical period. See, in particular, Pir V ilayat Inayat-Khan, In S ea rch o f
the H idden T reasure: A C on feren ce o f Sufis (N ew York: Jeremy P. Tarcher / Putnam, 2 0 0 3 ). The
Sufi M o v em en ts differently based claim o f authority position ed its leaders to esch ew the C hishti
lineage as a privileged source. T he stress w as instead on the originality and universality o f the Sufi
M essage: "The Sufi M essage is a universal m essage, and it is therefore the unfoldm ent o f all sources
o f transm ission, sin ce it recogn izes and respects all religious transm issions. Seen from this
perspective, all S ilsila lists o f all orders are equally precious to the cause o f spiritual liberty. The
Sufi M ovem en t, A Sufi M essage o f L ove, Harm ony and Beauty: H andbook for Initiators, Inayat
M anzil A rch ive (cop y), 106. A ccord in gly, the literature o f the Sufi M ovem en t rarely references pre-
Inayatian Sufism .
259
During M usharaff s lifetime, Vilayat had continued to organize his activities
independently of the Geneva Headquarters, but under the name of the Sufi
M ovement. As late as 1966 he held discussions with M usharaff, W itteveen, and
Shahzadi aimed at reuniting the two Sufi M ovem ents. 155 Now, following F azals
installm ent as Pir-o-M ushid in the M ovement and his own installm ent as p ir within
Chishtiyya, Vilayat took the step of establishing his own, separately constituted
organization. On 15 February 1968 he registered the Sufi Order in London, as a
revival of the original Sufi Order founded by Inayat Khan in London.
The N ew Age
Rabia M artin was deeply shaken by the rejection of her claim of succession
in 1930. Failing to bring the other U.S. centers over to her side, in the years that
followed she continued her work on a predominately regional basis, with the
exception of occasional visits to Brazil and Australia. A t Kaaba Allah in Fairfax
she conducted classes and hosted an annual Summer School. Rabia M artin is said to
have increasingly relied on Samuel Lewis, employing him as her m outhpiece in
asserting her claim of succession while utilizing his commentaries on Inayat K hans
155 Points agreed by Pirzade V ilayat Inayat Khan during his visit on Saturday 19th N ovem b er 1966 to
Pir-o-M urshid M usharaff Khan, Fazal M anzil A rchive (copy).
260
works in her classes.156 In later years, however, M artin appears to have becom e
progressively estranged from Lewis.
In 1942 Rabia M artin heard about the Parsi mystic M eher Baba (1894-1969),
and by the following year she had becom e convinced that he was the qutb (pole, axis
of the spiritual hierarchy) of the age. She initiated a correspondence, and received,
among other letters, one in which he wrote:
I am not different from your murshid ... No, M urshida, your love for Inayat
Khan is fulfilled in me ... I want you, Rabia, to explain to your Sufi pupils
that I am the highest Sufi authority on this earth ... Help your pupils to
157
know me as the M aster of the seventh plane.
M eanwhile, since 1940 M artin had been secretly training Ivy Duce (1895-
1981), the wife of a wealthy oil magnate. Following Martin, Duce cam e to regard
herself as a disciple of M eher Baba. In 1947, as she lay dying of cancer, M artin
declared Duce her successor, overturning the widely held expectation that Lewis
would succeed her.
Following M artins death, as the new M urshida, Duce is said to have found
158
herself em broiled in cross-currents of bitter opposition. Uncertain how to

157 N otes for an A utobiography o f M urshida Rabia M artin, cited in A ndrew R aw linson, The B ook
o f E n lig h ten ed M a s te rs, 4 3 8 .
158 Bodm an, W illiam , A llan C ohen, Ira D eitrick, Khalid al-Fakih, Selm a H assen, Duncan K now les,
James M ackie, Farhad Shafa, and Carol W eyland. Sufism S p ea k s Out: Sufism R eo rie n te d R ep lies to
A tta ck s fr o m India (W alnut Creek, CA: Sufism R eoriented, 1981), 7.
261
proceed, in January 1948 she traveled to India to meet M eher Baba at his base near
Ahmednagar. Over the course of four days, M eher Baba provided D uce with a
detailed program for the reorganization of the Sufi Order under his spiritual
guidance. As a sign that, under His direction ancient spiritual truths were to be
given fresh birth, and fresh expression, the Order was to be renam ed Sufism
Reoriented.159 M eher Baba promised that Sufism Reoriented w ould have an
illum inated M urshid for the next seven hundred years, when he would come
again.160
Following D uces return, Samuel Lewis initially cooperated with her in her
efforts to reorganize the Sufi school that she had inherited from Martin. Lewis lived
for a time at the center established by followers of M eher Baba in Myrtle Beach,
South Carolina, but then returned to California. On New Y ears Eve, 1949, the main
building at Kaaba Allah burned down. On the previous day Lewis had removed
many of his own writings, fuelling rumors that Lewis was responsible for the fire.
Lewis resigned from Sufism Reoriented on 7 January 1949. Duce did not blam e
Lewis for the fire, but declared: I am sure it was to free the place from [the
backbiting and fights and gossiping and performances of all sorts] that the place
159 ib id ., 8.
160 Ibid., 9.
262
burned down and through its purification we have a clean slate for B abas NEW
PHASE and the new era that is soon here. 161
M eher Baba provided Duce with a Charter for Sufism Reoriented in 1952.
Over the following decades the organization gradually grew. In 1979 James M ackie,
a form er professor of psychology, became a mureed of Duce, and was quickly
acclaimed as a Perfect M aster. In response to M ackies growing influence,
members of the inner circle of followers of M eher Baba in India issued letters
accusing him of chicanery and asserting that Sufism Reoriented had lost its w ay.162
Undeterred, Duce named M ackie her successor before dying, aged 85, in 1981.
M ackie led Sufism Reoriented until his death in 2001, when Carol W eyland
Conner a psychotherapist, like M ackie assumed the succession.
Following his departure from Sufism Reoriented, Samuel Lewis made two
extended tours of the East, the first in 1956 (Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Burma,
East Pakistan, India, Pakistan), and the second in 1960-62 (Egypt, India, Pakistan).
In September 1956, having read Vilayat K hans recent proclamation, Lewis wrote to
him, using the name Sufi Ahmed M urad, from Nasik, India:
I must com m end you from start to finish in upholding a thesis which your
father proposed and which, incidentally, he went over in detail with me. ...
It is up to you now whether you want me to continue in friendly alliance or
absolute affiliation. I have, by G ods grace, the strongest weapons in my
161 D u ce to L ew is, 1 February 1950, cited in M eyer, A Sunrise in T he W est, 4 1 9 .

162 On the controversy, see W illiam Bodm an et al Sufism S p ea k s Out.
263
hands ... hierarchy and initiatism. ... This is the Sufism in which I was
instructed and the Sufism in which I have been re-oriented, actually, in my
journeys in Pakistan and India. ... I am now a Kalendar [qalandar] and
perhaps a Buzurg.163
During Lew is second tour, at the tomb of A m ir Khusraw in Delhi, he
reportedly experienced a vision in which he was initiated as successor to
M uham m ad Iqbal in the poetic school of Rum i. 164 Subsequently, in Pakistan, Sufi
Barkat All publicly invested him with a robe.165
In June 1966 Samuel Lewis re-established the M entorgarden center
originally founded in San Francisco by Nyogen Senzaki, now at 410 Precita Park.
Earlier in the year he had met, on different occasions, M usharaff Khan and Vilayat
Khan. He concluded: M usharaff has love and Vilayat has vitality. 166 Despite
pressure from his friend Shamcher Beorse, Lewis hesitated to fully align him self
with Vilayat, whom he regarded as not yet a true initiate. 167 In the same year
Lewis participated in a conference on psychedelics attended by Richard Alpert,
Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, and Huston Sm ith.168 For the first time, Lewis
163 L ew is to V ilayat Khan, 17 Septem ber 1956, Sufi Ruhaniat International A rchive.
164 L ew is, Sufi V ision, 358.
165 Ibid., 297.
166 L ew is to Aramdarya (L ou ise Berrenberg), 28 April 1966, Sufi Ruhaniat International A rchive.
167 L ew is to Bhakti Engle, 17 January 1968, Sufi Ruhaniat International A rchive.
168 L ew is later wrote: [Richard Alpert] and his colleagu es pooh-poohed my remarks that there w as a
word in Sanskrit at least for every odd experience each one o f them had had. ... Four o f top fiv e at
the conference w ent o ff to India and learned that I was correct. L ew is to B eorse, 18 M ay 1970, Sufi
Ruhaniat International A rchive.
264
attracted a group of disciples, a few ex(ing)-hippies. 169 In January 1967 Lewis
was hospitalized. W hile in the hospital he experienced a vision in which he heard
170
God say, I make you spiritual teacher of the hippies.
In 1967, the year that San Francisco witnessed the Sum m er of Love, the
countercultural movem ent was in full flower. Already in the 1920s, Inayat K hans
mureeds had spoken of the coming of the New Age. 171 Now the expected advent
of a New or Aquarian Age was a mass cultural phenomenon, associated with a
spectrum of practices and attitudes ranging from social activism and spiritual
renewal to the notorious trinity of sex, drugs, and rock n roll. Samuel Lewis
commented: It is obvious that there is a huge integrative movement going on. 172
W hereas Samuel Lewis and Vilayat Khan had previously maintained a
certain mutual distance, a meeting that took place in June 1968 brought them into
close alignm ent and marked the beginning of a period of florescence in the w ork of
each. A t the geographic center of the countercultural upheaval, V ilayats exotic
mystique and Lew is brusque charm proved a synergetic combination capable of
attracting growing numbers of young people driven by psychedelic experiences to
seek a new epistemology. Lewis likened his encounter with Vilayat to the m eetings
of Shams Tabriz and Jalal al-DIn RumI, Gurnemanz and Parsifal, and Ibn A b il-
169 M urshid M oineddin Jablonski, H ow the D ances B ecam e Part o f the M essa g e, in The M e ssa g e 1
(M ay 1975): 4.
171 Sophia Saintsbury-G reen, H um an P erso n a lity (N.p.: T he Sufi M ovem ent, n.d.), 52.
265
Khayr and Ibn S ina.173 He commented: My w ork is intensive in time and space
and V ilayats extensive. The soul of H azrat Inayat Khan may now rest in peace. 174
17^
W ithin a m onth Lew is following had expanded from thirty to sixty mureeds.
V ilayats expositions on the Pythagorean roots of dervish dancing inspired
Lewis to develop a canon of occult dances. He declared, Pir Vilayat is the father
of these Dances. And I am the M other. 176 But he also said that the im pulse had
originally come to him in a state of mystical absorption at the tomb of Salim Chishti
in Fatehpur Sikri, the capital city founded by A kbar.177 The name he gave to this
repertory of dances, The Dances of Universal Peace, evidently derives from
A kbars motto sulh-i kull (universal peace). Beginning in the spring of 1969,
Lewis began getting less and less sleep at night due to the increasing activity of his
visionary consciousness, producing an outpouring of new dances.178 In an era in
which em bodied and nonhierarchical forms of collective religious practice were in
acute dem and within the countercultural movement, the Dances attracted an
enthusiastic and burgeoning following.

173 L ew is to [B elo v ed One o f G od], 6 July 1968, Sufi Ruhaniat International A rchive.
174 L ew is to B eorse, 25 June 1968, Sufi Ruhaniat International A rchive.
175 L ew is to B eorse, 6 A ugust 1968, Sufi Ruhaniat International A rchive.
176 Jablonski, H o w the D an ces B ecam e Part o f the M essa g e, 3.
177 Ibid. S ee also L ew is, Sufi Vision, 329.
178 Jablonski, H ow the D ances B ecam e Part o f the M essa g e, 3.
266
Following their meeting, Vilayat Khan officially recognized Samuel Lewis in
the grade o f M urshid.179 Hitherto V ilayats Sufi Order had centers only in Europe
(England, France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Belgium).
Encouraged by the sudden surge of activity in America, Vilayat Khan now set up a
180
Secretariat in North Hollywood and made plans to tour the U.S. twice a year.
Acquiescing to V ilayats wishes despite his own reservations about
institutionalizing, in January 1970 Lewis organized his school, which now
contained a hundred young mureeds, as Branch A of the Sufi Order in San
Francisco, California. 181 In the summer of 1970 Samuel Lewis and Vilayat Khan
conducted successful camps, known as Sum m er Schools, in New M exico (Lama
Foundation) and Arizona respectively.
Even as their collaboration produced remarkable synergy, points of
disagreement emerged between Vilayat Khan and Samuel Lewis. Vilayat
maintained that, according to the rules established by Inayat Khan, only the Pir in
18^
the present case, he him self was authorized to give initiations 10-12.
Nevertheless, in a meeting in Marin County in 1968, in front of Vilayat and despite
his objections, Lewis initiated two mureeds to the degree of K halif (10th level).
179 V ilayat Khan to L ew is, 31 A ugust 1968, Sufi Ruhaniat International A rchive.
180 V ilayat Khan to Leaders o f Sufi Centers in A m erica, 31 A ugust 1968, Sufi Ruhaniat International
Archive.
181 V ilayat Khan to L ew is, 14 January, 1970, Sufi Ruhaniat International A rchive.
182 V ilayat Khan to L ew is, 31 A ugust 1968, Sufi Ruhaniat International A rchive. A ccord in g to the
Sangithas, initiations 7 -1 2 are given by the Pir-o-M urshid (Pir). S ee above, note 15.
267
Later he initiated three other mureeds to the degree of Shaikh (10th level), and
announced that Carl M oineddin Jablonski was his successor. As an organizational
container for his legacy, in N ovem ber 1970 Samuel Lewis founded a non-profit
religious corporation named Sufi Islam ia Ruhaniat Society.
On 28 Decem ber 1970 Samuel Lewis slipped and fell down the stairs of his
home. For a fortnight he was in and out of com a at the hospital. On 2 January 1971
he dictated a final letter to Sufi Barkat AIL He said: For I am the first one born in
the W est to have received the Divine M essage, and believe to have representatives in
all the purity and goodness of which Allah is capable and which now will be
presum ed done forever. 183 On 15 January Samuel Lewis died, aged 75. He was
buried at Lama Foundation, near Taos, New Mexico.
Following Lew is death, his mureeds continued to maintain an ambiguous
double identity. From one perspective they constituted a branch of the Sufi Order,
and as such looked to Vilayat Khan for guidance. But from another perspective they
constituted a separate Order, the Sufi Islam ia Ruhaniat Society, and thus ultimately
derived their inspiration and authority from Samuel Lewis. To smooth over
differences Vilayat Khan offered to re-initiate the mureeds who had received higher
183 L ew is, Sufi Vision, 343. In 1979, the addressee o f this letter, S u fi Barkat A ll, later fell out with
the mureeds o f Sam uel L ew is over the question o f adherence to Islam ic law. H e w rote o f them , In
their view , w hich they continue to call Islam ic, com m union with God is attained not though
com pliance with the principles o f S h a r ia t (Islam ic Law) but by follo w in g strange and corrupt
innovations o f their ow n . Barkat A lt, The F in ality o f the D ivin e R evela tio n o f the P ro p h e th o o d on
M u h am m ad (Faisalabad, Pakistan: Dar-ul-Ehsan Publications, 1979), 14.
268
initiations, and made M oineddin Jablonski a M urshid (1 1th degree), but he was
unwilling to grant Jablonski the authority to appoint his own successor.
Over the next several years the Sufi Order expanded rapidly. Adept in
com m unicating and eliciting perceptions of non-ordinary consciousness, Vilayat
Khan soon gained wide renown as a m aster of meditation. M editation cam ps were
held at Lam a Foundation in New M exico, in W oodstock, New York, and on a
mountaintop in Chamonix, in the French Alps. The inaugural Cham onix Cam p des
Aigles (Camp of the Eagles) characteristically featured an eclectic program
consisting of: solitary retreat, intensive training in meditation, H atha Yoga, Sufi
dancing, spiritual movem ent and walk, w om ens dancing and meditation, healing,
teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan, chanting, classical and New Age choir, karma
yoga, Universal W orship, and the mysticism of sound. 184
In the spirit of the utopian idealism of the era, in 1974 the Sufi Order began
searching for a property on which to establish a spiritual community, as a model of
185
a better world to com e. The following year the Order purchased an abandoned
Shaker Village on 450 acres of wooded mountains in New Lebanon, New York.
Following the Shaker motto hands to work, hearts to God, members of the
community attempted to combine spiritual values, cultivated in three-tim es daily
group m editations and prayers, with practical vocations, pursued in the form of an
184 C ham onix 7 5 , Inayat M anzil A rchive.

185
The A b od e o f the M essa g e, Inayat M anzil A rchive.
269
assortment of entrepreneurial cottage industries. W ithin five years of its founding,
The Abode of the M essage was hom e to 100 adults and 25 children.186
In 1977 the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies was founded at the Abode of
the M essage as an alternative educational institution offering 5-day intensives in
medical and healing arts, physical fitness, music, dance, drama, fine arts, and
spirituality. In its early years, teachers included Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D.,
187
Dorothy M acLean, David Spangler, Zuleikha, and Sri Ramamurti Misra.
Subsequently the Omega Institute shifted to a new campus in Rhinebeck, New York,
and loosened its ties with the Sufi Order while emerging, in the 80s and 90s, as the
leading New Age educational center. According to its website, Om ega presently
188
attracts 30,000 participants annually.
As Vilayat K hans work expanded in the U.S., tensions with the mureeds of
Samuel Lewis deepened. Vilayat was uncom fortable with the Dances of Universal
Peace and w ished to keep them outside the official framework of the O rder.189 More
generally, having provisionally made com mon cause with the hippie movement, he
was becom ing increasingly concerned about the consequences of identifying the Sufi
Order with countercultural trends. He had never approved of intoxicants; now he
resolved to enforce his disapproval. In July 1977 he made a declaration:
186 Ibid.
187 O m ega Institute for H olistic Studies, 1980, Inayat M anzil A rchive.
188
w w w .eom ega.org.
189 W ali A li M eyer, personal com m unication, 1 February 2 0 0 6 .
270
In the names of the hierarchies of M urshids of the Sufi Order that I

represent, I have decided to require all initiates of the Sufi Order to refrain
from taking any consciousness-altering drugs. This rule is now paramount.
... Furtherm ore I request mureeds to observe a standard of respect in their
clothing, hair styles, and manner, since untidiness, slothfulness, and
uncleanness in appearance have often alienated people who are drawn by
the teaching and have consequently done harm to the cause.190
W hile V ilayats own following generally accepted the new rule, the mureeds
of Samuel Lewis responded with dismay. After a period of soul-searching, they
collectively expressed their unwillingness to comply. Wali Ali Meyer, former
personal secretary to Samuel Lewis, explained: To require a teacher, such as
myself, to break [the link of initiation] because of a rule about a persons behavior,
applied after the fact, is, in my opinion, utterly alien to the true spirit of Sufism . 191
M oineddin Jablonski went further: An even deeper issue seems to be w hether or
not certain mureeds in the Sufi Order will accept Pir V ilayats guidelines and regard
19*2
him as the spiritual teacher.
Hence, in the fall of 1977, the Sufi Islam ia Ruhaniat Society split from the
Sufi Order and went its own way under the leadership of M oineddin Jablonski. For
several years the S.I.R.S. continued on a small scale. The Dances of Universal
190 The M essa g e 3 (A ugust 1977), 8.

191 M asheikh W ali A li M eyer, From W ali A lis D esk , B ism illah: A Jou rn al o f the H eart: S p e c ia l
Issue (no vol., no no., no date): 14.
Peace, however, proved capable of outlasting the transitory countercultural milieu
that was their original environment, and over the next two decades gradually
evolved into a large-scale, worldwide phenomenon. According to Peaceworks, the
International N etw ork for the Dances of Universal Peace, over the past quarter
century more than a half-m illion people have participated in the Dances in N orth and
South America, Europe, the former Soviet Union, Japan, India, Pakistan, Australia,
and New Zealand.193 Through the increasing international popularity of the Dances,
since the 90s the S.I.R.S., now renam ed Sufi Ruhaniat International, has w itnessed a
sharp rise in membership. On 27 February 2002, M oineddin Jablonski died and was
succeeded by Shabda Kahn, an energetic leader and accomplished singer in the
Kirana tradition of Indian classical music (trained by Pandit Prannath) who
henceforth assumed the title of Pir.
M eanwhile, the Sufi M ovement too was caught up in the currents of the New
Age. In his first address as Pir-o-M urshid of the Sufi M ovement, at the 1968
Summer School Fazal Inayat-Khan announced, a new generation of Sufis is going
to emerge. 194 Over the years that followed, Fazal proceeded to generally ignore the
old, established leaders and mureeds in the M ovem ent while building up his own
base of young, countercultural followers. Rather than formally seceding, the old
192 M urshid M oineddin Jablonski, Statem ent on the Sufi Order and SIR S, B ism illa h : 28.
193 w w w .d an cesofu n iversalp eace.org.
194 Fazal Inayat-Khan, O pening A ddress to the 1968 European Summer S ch o o l, The Sufi
M essen g er 1 (O ctober 1968): 2.
272
leaders simply m aintained their routines with little reference to Fazal.195 D isturbed
by Fazals repudiation of occultism , Samuel Lewis declared after hearing him
speak: If I meet Fazal or any of his supporters anywhere, it is quite possible that
they will receive a treatment they have never had in their whole lives. 196 The
following year Fazals followers forcibly ejected Vilayat from the dargdh of Inayat
Khan in Delhi, causing him to be hospitalized with broken ribs.
Considering him self a qalandar (antinomian mystic), Fazal flouted
conventions. Rumors of destructive and irresponsible behavior followed in his
wake. Vilayat wrote to the M ovem ents Executive Supervisor, H. J. W itteveen, I
hear from bona fide people outraged by the instructions Fazal gave them (such as
getting drunk, and worse), all in the name of Sufism, and we have heard of radio
broadcasts regarding orgies at the so-called Tem ple at Katwijk, under the flag of
1Q7
the Sufi M ovem ent. As President of the International M onetary Fund, W itteveen
was then living in America. Returning to the Netherlands, W itteveen became
convinced that the status quo was unacceptable. Fazal had by then accumulated a
large personal debt. A solution was reached: W itteveen paid Fazals debt, and Fazal
appointed W itteveen to the position of Representative General and withdrew from
1QR
the M ovement. Having left the M ovement, in 1982 Fazal founded a new Order,

196 L ew is to B eorse, 15 Septem ber 1969, Sufi Ruhaniat International A rchive.
197 V ilayat Khan to H. J. W itteveen, no date, Fazal M anzil A rchive.
198 Sh. M ahm ood Khan, personal com m unication, 18 January 2 0 0 5 and 28 January 2 0 0 5 .
273
called the Sufi Way. He described its relationship with the Sufi M ovem ent and Sufi
Order as follows:
The Order, through the deeply personal and inspiring leadership of Pir
Vilayat, is a contemporary esoteric school which appeals to the spiritual
community of today and especially the North American ethic, which is
egalitarian and characterized by hope and vision of the new and dom inant
national identity of its youthful and vigorous population. The M ovem ent
is far more European in character, thus valuing spiritual tradition, cultural
appreciation, low profile, subtle depth and conflict reduction, as evident in
the contemporary W est European culture in general. The W ay began to
emerge from the Sufi M ovement in the 1970s and can be seen as culturally
and philosophically positioned to the left of the Order which is clearly the
larger and middle of the road Sufi organization. In this way of speaking,
the M ovem ent would be identified as being on the right of the O rder.199
Fazal died in 1990 and was succeeded by an elderly British woman, Sitara
Brutnell, who henceforth assumed the title Pir-o-M urshida. In 2004 Bm tnell died
and was succeeded as Pir-o-M urshid by Elias Amidon, an American
environm entalist and peace activist. U nder A m idons active leadership, though still
relatively small, the Sufi W ays activities are presently undergoing a phase of
expansion.
199 Fazal Inayat-Khan, W estern Sufism: T he Sufi M ovem ent, T he Sufi Order International, and The
Sufi W ay, T he Sufi W ay A rchive. In F azals view , Sufism R eoriented and the various North
A m erican dancing dervish groups did not merit consideration as genuine initiatic traditions.
274
After Fazals withdrawal, following a period of joint esoteric leadership,
Fazals father Hidayat, an accomplished classical composer, was elected as Pir-o-
M urshid o f the Sufi Movement. In the 90s Hidayat traveled in the U.S. and reached
out to the S.I.R.S., officially apologizing for the M ovem ents treatment of Rabia
M artin and Samuel Lewis. In 1997 the Sufi M ovem ent and S.I.R.S. together form ed
an alliance called the Federation of the Sufi M essage. The Sufi Order was invited to
join but declined, citing the Federations stipulation: All titles, initiations and
functions of [the member] organizations will be mutually recognized and respected,
including the lineages, initiatic and historical traditions of each.200 Vilayat
remained adamant in refusing to recognize the authenticity of titles not based on
initiation.201
By the late 80s the Sufi O rders expansion reached a plateau. As mureeds
who had joined as young adults now entered middle age, youthful enthusiasm
evolved into a deepening spiritual capacity or disintegrated into apathy or
disillusionm ent. As the Order gained greater cultural coherence and organizational
sophistication, a cadre of seasoned leaders increasingly filled the institutional space
between the one Pir and several thousand mureeds sometimes to the vexation of
Vilayat, who, like his father, maintained a decided preference for a courtly rather
200 T o w a rd the O ne: A J o u rn a l o f U nity 1 (Spring 2 0 0 0 ), inside cover.

201 On 25 April 2005 the mem bers o f the Federation rem oved the stipulation o f mutual recognition o f
titles from the Charter, thereby opening the w ay for the SuFi Order to join without violating V ila y a ts
objection.
275
than episcopal framework. Outside the Sufi Order, Vilayat enjoyed speaking at
large-scale inter-religious and New Age conferences, and received frequent
invitations.
In February 2000, in a large assembly at the dargah of Inayat Khan in Delhi,
Vilayat Khan performed a traditional turban-tying ceremony (dastar-bandi), thereby
initiating his son Zia Inayat-Khan as Pir and reconfirming him as his successor.
Four years later, following a stroke, Vilayat Khan died in the Oriental Room of
Fazal M anzil on 17 June 2004. His body was transferred to Delhi and buried near
the Dargah of Inayat Khan. Like Hidayat Khan, Carol W eyland Conner, Shabda
Kahn, and Elias Amidon all pursuing distinct but parallel tracks Zia Inayat-Khan
was left to chart a course into the second century of the historical elaboration of
Inayat K hans epochal hijra.
CHAPTER SIX
INAYATIAN SUFISM IN CONTEXT
Annemarie Schimmel described the twelve-volume edited collection of
Inayat K hans lectures as A modern and subjective, yet impressive interpretation. 1
Inayat K hans articulation of Sufism is modern simply by virtue of its historical
position: the works of all tw entieth-century authors are by definition modern. But to
what extent is Inayat K hans corpus m odernist, i.e., oriented by the values of
modernity, such as rationality, science, progress, and individualism? This chapter
will address this question within the framework of three major categories in Inayat
K hans work: theology, prophetology, and psychology.
Theology
M arshall Hodgson called tawhld, the assertion of G ods unity, the single
massive challenge of the Q uran.2 It was the m onotheism of M uham m ads m essage
that fundamentally differentiated it from, and put it in confrontation with, the
polytheistic religious milieu from which it emerged in sixth-century Mecca. Not
1 Annem arie Schim m el, M ystica l D im en sion s o f Islam (C hapel Hill: The U niversity o f North Carolina
Press, 1986), 9, n. 5.
2 M arshall G. S. H odgson, The Venture o f Islam : C on scien ce a n d H isto ry in a W orld C iviliza tio n
(C hicago: U niversity o f C hicago Press, 1974), 1:376.
276
277
only does the Q uran condemn pagan polytheism; from its uncom prom isingly
m onotheistic position it also rejects the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.
In the generations immediately following the advent of Islam, as M uslim
theologians (mutakallim un) proceeded to theoretically elaborate and systematize the
Q urans theological vision, in a distinct but parallel project, M uslim mystics
(m utasaww ifa, Sufis) undertook to experientially excavate the mystical depths of that
vision. For the Sufis, the Q uranic challenge of taw hld was a problem not of
syllogistic definition, but of gnostic cognition. Al-Junayd (d. 910) characterized
taw hid as, the isolation of the eternal from the originated (ifrad al-qidm min
al-hadath).3 In the wake of this influential formulation, al-Junayds erstwhile
student al-Hallaj (d. 922) was executed, ostensibly for declaring, I am the Real
(ia n a l-haqq).
Three centuries later, the itinerant Andalusian shaykh M uyhl al-DIn Ibn
ArabI produced a voluminous body of work that was to prove an incomparable
watershed in the intellectual history of Sufism. At the heart of Ibn A rabis
contribution was his mystical ontology, which subsequently acquired wide currency
under the designation the unity of existence (wahdat al-wujud). This ontological
system, which has been described as panentheistic, in essence posits that only God
3 Abd al-K arim al-Q ushayri, R isa la (Cairo: M uhammad A ll B a sih , n.d.), 5. M assignon notes,
Junayd w as the first author to em brace the problem o f m ystical union in all its fu lln ess and to explain
it correctly. L ouis M assignon, E ssa ys on the O rigin s o f the T ech n ical L a n gu age o f Islam ic
M ysticism , trans. B enjam in Clark (N otre D am e, IN: U niversity o f N otre D am e Press, 1997), 207.
278
objectively exists, and the created world is the theatre of G ods perpetual self
disclosure, motivated by divine pathos.
The founders of the South Asian branch of the ChishtI Order M uTn al-DIn
Chishti, Qutb al-DIn Bakhtiyar KakI, H am id al-DIn Sufi (d. 1273), and Farid al-DIn
Ganj-i Shakar were contemporaries of Ibn Arab!. M ore devotional than
speculative, their thought employed well-established Sufi concepts such as
annihilation (fana), nearness (qurb), and vision (ruya), but did not yet bear the
im print of Ibn A rabls com prehensive metaphysical system. W hen Ibn A rab ls
system arrived in India several decades later, it could not be ignored. Nor could it be
read w ithout reference to the work of its chief detractor, the reform ist Ibn Taymiyya
(d. 1328), which arrived in tandem.4
The recorded oral discourses of N aslr al-DIn M ahm ud Chiragh-i D ihli, who
led the central South Asian branch of the Chishti Order between 1325 and 1356, do
not refer directly to Ibn A rabls ideas, but contain several statements that may be
read as indirect critiques of them .5 Among Chiragh-i D ihlis students, Sayyid
M uham m ad Ja far M akki (d. 1486) cited Ibn Arab! approvingly, while Sayyid
4 On Ibn T aym iyyas critique o f Ibn 'Arabi, see A lexander D . Knysh, Ibn A ra b i in the L a ter Islam ic
T radition: The M aking o f a P o le m ic a l Im age in M e d ie va l Islam (Albany: State U niversity o f N ew
Y ork Press, 1999), 87 -1 0 6 .
5 T hese statem ents in the K h a yr a l-m a ja lis, recorded by H am id Qalandar, are listed in M oham m ad
N o o r N a b i, D eve lo p m e n t o f M u slim R elig io u s Thought in India fr o m 1 2 0 0 A .D . to 1450 A. D.
(Aligarh: Aligarh U niversity Press, 1962), 89-90.
279
M uham m ad G isu Daraz (d. 1422) vehemently criticized him .6 G isu D arazs position
has been described as an example of the unity of witnessing (w ahdat al-shuhud), a
counter theory to the unity of being foreshadowed by A la al-Dawla SimnanI (d.
1261) and fully formulated by Ahmad Sirhindl (d. 1564).7 Nevertheless, GIsu Daraz
could write:
Know, my dear, that in this world there are ju st three things, beyond
which nothing exists: love, lover and beloved. These three are both
m anifest and hidden. The manifest refers to the creation and the
hidden refers to the Creator. The manifest and the hidden are one at
the level of essence, though this one has innumerable forms. In the
word ahad, as in al-Ahad (the One), the a signifies love, the h
signifies lover, and the d signifies beloved. In the unified vision of
m onism (taw hid) all three are one. As ocean, wave, and foam are all
three one in reality it is all ju st ocean. Likewise, for the one who
Q
opens this door, you and I do not remain.
Already in GIsu D arazs lifetime, Ibn A rabls ideas had becom e a subject of
intense controversy in the Indian subcontinent. The m ajor Chishti proponent of the
unity of being, M asud Bakk, was put to death on charges of heresy in 1397-8. But
over the succeeding centuries the opposition of the doctors of law ( ulamd) and
6 G isu Daraz said o f Ibn Arabi: I f he were my contem porary I w ould retrieve him from, and lift him
above, v isib le phenom ena, and he w ould have a glim pse o f the beyond the b ey o n d . H is faith w ould
be renew ed and he w ould b ecom e a com p lete M uslim . G isu Daraz, K hatim a, 18-19.
7 Syed Shah Khusro H ussaini, S a yy id M u h am m ad a l-H u sa yn i-i G isu d a ra z: On Sufism (N ew D elhi:
Idarah-i A dabiyat-i D elli, 1983), 8-1 1. On the unity o f w itn essin g, see Burhan A hm ad Faruqi, The
M u ja d d id s C on ception o f T aw h id (Lahore: Institute ol'Islam ic Culture, 1989).
8 G isu Daraz, W ujud a l - a sh iq in (Muradabad: M atba-i Gulzar-i Ibrahim, 1891), 1-2.
280
nomocentric Sufis like Ahmad Sirhindi did not prevent Chishti theorists from fully
pursuing the im plications of the unity of being. In the Mughal period, Shah M uhibb
Allah Allahabad! (d. 1648) produced a large corpus consisting prim arily of
com mentaries on the Fusiis al-hikam and other works of Ibn Arabi. The defense of
Ibn Arab! was subsequently taken up by Shah K alim Allah Jahanabadi (d. 1729),
who com posed a commentary on Shah M uhibb A llahs Taswiyya in which he
countered the objections of Sirhindi.
Shah K alim A llahs meditation manual Kashkul-i Kalimi begins with a precis
of Ibn A rabis em anationist cosmology:
Before its association with shadowy phenomenal being, the Absolute

Being (wujud-i m utlaq) was hidden. There was no trace from the
traceless. As a result of its own love for itself, it resolved to descend
through a series of divine and phenom enal emanations. In every
determ ined entity, by virtue of the constraint of determinacy, it
appears as the lover, and by virtue of transcending determinacy it
reveals itself as beloved. The perfection of every determined entity
is in its return to the freedom and abstraction from which it has
emerged. I speak in particular of the human being, the com prehensive
epiphany of essence and attributes, distinguished above all other
creatures through upholding the Covenant. The perfection of the
human being is in passing away in God ( fa n a fillah) and living on in
God (baqa b illah). The first journey is the journey toward God,
281
while the second is the journey in God. The first has an end, while
the second has none.9
Inayat K hans spiritual master, Sayyid Abu Hashim M adani, was a legatee
and continuator not only of Shah K alim Allah Jahanabadis initiatic transm ission
(.silsila), but also of his intellectual com mitment to the theory of the unity of being.
The theology that Inayat Khan assimilated under Sayyid Abu H ashim s tutelage is
encapsulated in his first work on Sufism, A Sufi M essage o f Spiritual Liberty.
Inayat Khan appropriates the Theosophical terms evolution and involution to
rearticulate in English the dialectic of lover and beloved that is central to Shah K alim
A llahs account of the metaphysics of the unity of being:
W hen Ahad (the Only Being) became conscious of his Vahadat

[wahdat] (only existence) through his own consciousness, then his
predisposition of love made him project him self to establish His dual
aspect, that He m ight be able to love someone. This made Allah, the
Lover, and manifestation, the Beloved; the next inversion makes the
manifestation the Lover, and Allah the Beloved. This force of love
has been working through several evolutions and involutions, which
end in Man, who is the ultimate aim of Allah. ... This whole
Universe, internally and externally is governed by the source of Love,
which sometimes is the cause and sometimes the effect. The producer
and the product are one, and that one is nothing but L ove.10
9 Shah K alim A llah Jahanabadi, K ashkul-i K a lim i, 3.
282
The divine and phenomenal em anations (maratib-i ilahi wa kiyarii) cited
by Shah K alim Allah are nam ed in a diagram entitled, The illustration of the Plains
[sic] of Urouj [uruj] andN azoul [nuzul] (evolution and involution). 11
A st r a l ;jabarut UfUJJ N u z u l \lVahdaniat:
Iksan
The planes of being remain largely unexplained in Spiritual Liberty. But in
lectures given in the Sum m er School of 1923, later collected and published under the
title The Soul, Whence and Whither, Inayat Khan returned to the theory of the
descent of the Absolute, this time providing a more detailed treatment.
Before the manifestation what existed? Zat fdhat], the Truly Existing,
the Only Being. In what form? In no form. As what? As nothing. The
10 Inayat Khan, S p iritu a l L ib erty, 29.

11 Inayat Khan, S p iritu a l L ib erty, 43. Diagram from Inayat Khan, Sufi M essa g e, 5-26.
283
only definition that words can give is: as the Absolute. In the Sufi
terms this existence is termed ahadiat [ahadiyyat],
A Consciousness arose out of this Absolute, a consciousness of
existence. There was nothing of which the Absolute could be
conscious, only of existence. This stage is called wahdat [wahdat].
Out of this consciousness of existence a sense developed, a sense
that I exist. It was a development of the consciousness of existence.

It is this development which formed the first Ego, Logos, which is
term ed w ahdaniat [wahdciniyyat] by the Sufis. W ith the feeling of the
I-ness, the innate power of the Absolute so to speak pulled itself
together, in other words, concentrated on one point. Thus the all-
pervading radiance formed Its centre, the centre which is the Divine
Spirit or the nur [nur\. In Sufic terms called arwah [arwah], This
Central light then divided existence into two forms, light and
darkness. In point of fact, there is no such a thing as darkness; there
has never been darkness; it is only more light compared with less
light. This light and darkness formed akasha [dkasha], or asman
[cisman], an accommodation, a mould; and the phenom enon of light
and shade working through this mould, furthered the manifestation
into a great many accommodations, asmans or akashas, one within
the other.
Every step manifestation has taken has resulted in a variety of forms
made by the different substances which are produced during the
process of spirit turning into m atter Out o f these forms the
vegetable kingdom came gradually from the mineral and from the
animal came the hum an race, thus providing for the Divine Spirit the
ajsam [ajscim], the bodies, which It has needed from the tim e It
284
centred itself in one point, and from there spread its rays as various
souls. ...
Thus six definite steps towards manifestation are recognized by the
Sufis. The first three are called tanzi [tanzih], and the next three
tashbi [tashbih]\ the first three imperceptible, and the next three
distinguishable.12
Several sources may be discerned here. First, the inclusion of the term
akasha as a synonym for asman (accommodation) is notable. This Sanskrit term
appears frequently in M adame B lavatskys The Secret Doctrine, and was therefore a
fam iliar one to form er Theosophists, who com prised the greater part of the Sum m er
School audience. Inayat K hans own source, however, was likely the body of
com parative ecumenical work produced by, and under the patronage, of Dara
Shikuh. In such works as M ajma al-bahrayn and Jug bihisht, a correlation is
1T
established between asman and akash.
Second, the em phasis on light as an ontological principle in this passage, and
indeed throughout Inayat K hans work, points to the legacy of the Illum inationist
(ishraqi) school of Shihab al-DIn Yahya Suhrawardi (d. 1191), which in later
theoretical formulations of Sufism converged with the metaphysics of Ibn A rabi to
produce a fertile fusion. In the context of the Chishti Order, Bruce Lawrence has
12 Inayat Khan, C o m p lete Works, 1923 II, 7 0 6 -7 0 8 .
285
identified Illuminationist motifs in the M ir at al- ashiqin of M asud B akk.14 A still
earlier instance of apparent textual transfer can be found in the Siyar al- awliya of
A m ir Khwurd (d. 1369).15 M uch later, in the 18th century, Shah K alim Allah
Jahanabadi directly referenced Suhrawardi and his school.16 Inayat K hans
statement there is no such a thing as darkness ... it is only more light com pared
with less light restates Suhraw ardis postulate darkness is simply an expression for
the lack of light, nothing m ore. 17 In subsequent passages in The Soul, Whence and
Whither, Inayat refers to the divine Sun in a manner consistent with Suhraw ardis
cosmogonic Light of Lights (nur al-anwar).
Finally, and most significantly, the above-cited passage evidences a clear
debt to Ibn A rabi and his interpreters. W hile proponents of the unity of witnessing
18
rejected Ibn A rabis terminology of descent (nuzul, tanazzul) , interpreters of the
unity of being not only defended this terminology, but made it the basis of an
increasingly elaborate cosmological vision. By the nineteenth century, the theory of
13 Dara Shikuh, M ajm a a l-b a h ra yn , trans. M . M ahfuz-ul-H aq (Calcutta: T he A siatic S ociety, 1982),
64, 103, and Jug bih ish t ( Yoga V asisth a), ed. Tara Chand and S. A . H. A bidi (Calcutta: T he B aptist
M ission , 1968), 263.
14 Bruce Lawrence, N o tes From a D ista n t Flute: Sufi L itera tu re in P re-M u gh al India (Tehran:
Imperial Iranian A cadem y o f Philosophy, 1978), 48.
15 Com pare Kirmam, S iy a r a l - a w liy a , 4 6 6 -7 with Shihab al-D in Yahya Suhrawardi, R is a la p
h a q iq a t a l- ishq in M ajm u a -y i m asannifat, ed. Henry Corbin and S. H. Nasr (Tehran: Pazhuhishgah-i
U lum -i Insani wa M utalaat-i Farhangi, 1993), 3:287. E nglish translation: The M y stic a l a n d
V isionary T reatise o f S u h raw ardi, trans. W heeler M . Thackston Jr. (London: The O ctogon Press,
1982), 73.
16 Shah K alim A llah Jahanabadi, Tilka ash ara kam ila (D elhi: M atb a-i M ujtabai, 1912), 64.
17 Shihab al-D in Y ahya Suhrawardi, The P h ilo so p h y o f Illum ination, trans. John W albridge and
H ossein Ziai (Provo, UT: Brigham Y oung U niversity Press, 1999), 77.
18 Faruqi, C on cep tio n o f T aw hid, 54.
286
a sixfold descent of the Absolute (tanazzulat-i sitta) had become a basic constituent
of the com posite metaphysical paradigm of Indian Sufism. The 20th-century Chishti
master A ziz Miyan (d. 1968) summarized the theory in terms largely consistent with
The Soul, Whence and Whither.
Ahadiyyat
Essence is that substance that resides in itself. There was sheer
solitude, and nothing else. As it was then, so it is now and so it will
remain when nothing else remains. In this state there is no color, no
quality. No one knows it; no one can describe it. One can only
speculate.
W ahdiyyat19
The second stage is when the Essence inclined toward manifestation,
and so with the intention of manifestation, gazed at Itself and saw Its
own invisible form. This stage is called abstract love. It is also called
the great isthmus of the M uhamm adan Light. W hat was to be seen
there was seen.
Wahidiyyat
The third stage is when the foundation of love was established, and
thus beauty was necessitated in other words, it was necessary for the
invisible form to regard itself in light. Now knowledge cam e into
focus and thus agency was necessitated. Hence the fourth stage,
Arwah, manifested.
Alam -i Arwah
In the fourth stage intelligibles were completed, and with them, the
Spirit.
287
Alam -i M ithal
The fifth stage is M ithal, which means the garment of agency. As a
rehearsal, the Spirit was placed in a prototype of embodiment, which
it experienced and enjoyed.

Alam -i Husn o Shahadat
In the sixth stage, the Spirit was differentiated as individual spirits,
each residing in a separate body, such as human, animal, bird, etc.

This stage is the embodiment of fire, air, water, and earth.
H azrat-i Insan
The seventh stage is this world, where the spirit needs a body, and this
desire leads to other desires, to the point where the spirit forgets its
20
origin. No one can know his or her origin except by an act of will.
In its barest terms, the theory of the unity of being posits that the human
subject is a limited instantiation of the unlim ited being that is God. Opponents of
this position have frequently equated it with the concepts of incarnation (hulul) and
com bination (ittihad), both of which are considered serious deviations from orthodox
Islamic theology. Advocates of the unity of being reject these associations and
defend their cognizance of G ods transcendence.
The only extant w ork of Sayyid Abu Hashim M adam is an Urdu fa tw a (legal
9 I _
opinion) dealing with this question." M adam sfa tw a is in answer to a petition that
19 W ah diyyat appears to be a misprint for w ah dan iyyat.

20N iy a zi, R az-i m u h abbat, 1-4.
21 Though M adam is not known to have com posed any works o f his ow n, he edited and revised a
treatise by M akhdum Husayn Savi al-Q adin entitled M izan a l-ta w h id . (Hyderabad: M atb a-i
Burhaniyya, 1 8 94-5), in w hich Ibn Arabi is frequently invoked.
288
calls into question the orthodoxy of the proposition that the created is the essence of
the Creator (al-makhluq ayn al-khaliq).22 Though unsympathetic to the quoted but
unattributed proposition, rather than taking the bait and supporting the petitioners
argument, M adam accuses him of setting up a straw man with the intention of
discrediting Sufism. As a basis for understanding the theoretical content of Inayat
K hans training in Sufism, M adanls/htvvd bears quoting here in full:
The distinguished Sufis maintain the doctrine of the profession of
unity (tawhid) as expounded by the Leader of Sufis, Shaykh M uhyl

al-D in Ibn Arabi: You are not He, but you are He, and you see Him
in the essence of all situations, both free and constrained. In other
words, you are not the essence of the Real, for the Real is absolute
existence and you are determined and limited. For you have yet to
becom e absolute essence, though indeed you already are the essence
of the Real with respect to reality. For the Real is determined in you,
and you see the Real in the essence of created beings, free and
liberated from the limitations of determinacy as well as constrained
by the lim itations of determinacy that is, manifest within that
determinacy. The person who is able to see the Real, free from
determinacy and manifest within determinacy, is able to maintain this
inasm uch as, with respect to reality, the Creator is the essence of the
created.
The Greatest Shaykh says: The one who asserts dualities is a
polytheist and the one who asserts unities is a m onist. In other
words, the person who asserts that there are multiple beings that are
22 Another respondent to the petition was Shibli N u'm ani (d. 1914).
289
collectively distinct in such a way that the existences of the Real and
the possible are separate, that person is a secret polytheist. The
person who holds that existence is one, namely the existence of the
self of the essence of the Real, and that the plurality of manifestations
does not abolish this unity, that person is a monist.
In a word, the essence of the Real, the praised and exalted, is
the self of existence, and at the level of its own essence is free of the
blem ish of the plurality of what is other. The plurality of what is
other is called the world of things, which are the manifestations of the
Real. The Real, the praised and exalted, is pervasive and manifest in
these very things, a pervasion that is of the nature neither of
incarnation nor combination.
The Real pervades all things just as one is in all numbers. The
essence of one is manifest in plurality. And this plurality has no
existence in itself. This plurality exists and is manifest by virtue of
the existence of the essence of the Real, the praised and exalted,
which is the essence of existence. It is the existence of the Real that
is m anifest in plurality.
This pure belief does not lead to the conclusion that the
created is the essence of the Creator, and together with God, the
praised, is endowed with the attributes of worshipfulness. The person

who draws this conclusion is a thickheaded man who cannot
understand a subtle matter. Thus I deem this conclusion a
misrepresentation of the pure belief of the Sufis, and the petitioner of
this fa tw a a dunce. It was the purpose of this statement to make this
290
point, rather than to reveal the secrets of existence, for which I am not
the man. That is all.23
W hat Sayyid Abu H ashim s slender fa tw a and Inayat K hans volum inous
body of work have in common is the subtle m atter that constitutes their mutual
thematic core: You are not [God], but you are [God]. The dynamic tension of this
Akbarian paradox explicitly or implicitly informs every facet of Inayat K hans
articulation of Sufism.
In certain contexts, Inayat em phasizes G ods transcendence and criticizes
the presumption of superficial assertions of pantheism:
People [come] who have new ideas and thoughts, and who give
lessons about these. They say, You are God; I am God. In their
way their insolence becomes greater and greater. The lofty ideal of
God, the ideal which uplifted seekers of all ages, is being lost.24
It is easy to claim that, I am God! ; but what is it? ... It is like the
illusion of the bubble saying, I am the sea!25
In other contexts generally, when speaking of the higher altitudes of
authentic mystical attainm ent Inayat affirms the ultimate identity of the hum an
23 U ntitled M S, Fazal M anzil A rchive.

24 Inayat Khan, Sufi M e ssa g e , 12:18.
25 Inayat Khan, U nity o f R elig io u s Ideals, 113.
291
subject and God. This is the im port of a passage that represents a notable exam ple of
the rhetorical tradition known in Sufism as ecstatic utterances (shathiyyat)26:
I have seen all souls as my soul, and realized my soul as the soul of
all; and what bew ilderm ent it was when I realized that I alone was, if
there were anyone; that I am whatever and whoever exists; and that I
shall be whoever there will be in the future. And there was no end to
my happiness and joy. Verily, I am the seed and I am the root and I
am the fruit of this tree of life.
Elsewhere Inayat Khan seeks to com bine and reconcile the principles of
transcendence and immanence: God is God and man is man, yet God is man and
m an is God. To explain the apparent contradiction, Inayat draws on the Akbarian
concepts of determinacy and indeterminacy, which he renders in English as
lim itation and perfection. In the same vein that Sayyid Abu H ashim asserted,
the Real is determ ined in you, Inayat Khan writes, Divinity is hum an perfection
and humanity is divine limitation. In another place, alluding to the Q uranic
97
definition of the ruh (spirit) as an am r (command, state) o f God , he writes, The
soul may be considered to be a condition of God, a condition which makes the only
Being lim ited for a tim e.
26 S ee Carl Ernst, W ords o f E csta sy in Sufism.

27 Quran 17:85, cited in Shah K alim A llah Jahanabadi, Tilka a sh a ra kam ila, 53 , and Inayat Khan,
The P h enom enon o f the Sou l (London and Southampton: T he Sufi M ovem ent, n.d.), 1.
292
Thus far, Inayat K hans theology is essentially identical with that of his
Chishti predecessors. His lectures and interviews were situated, however, in an
intellectual environm ent that differed profoundly from the milieu of his predecessors.
The objections of anti-Akbarian Islamic theologians were a w orld away. The m ajor
challenge that confronted Inayat K hans Sufism was not an alternate m etaphysical
system, but rather the obsolescence of metaphysics itself.
Theosophy accommodated the concerns of scientific rationalism , to a degree,
by subordinating theology to cosmology. H induism and Buddhism proved attractive
to fin-de-siecle occultists as models of non-monotheistic religiosity. As a Sufi,
Inayat Khan was inherently predisposed against conceding the nonexistence or
irrelevance of God. Yet his position as an interlocutor between traditional and
modern discourses prevented him from treating m onotheism as axiomatic and
prom pted him to develop a psychological account of belief.
Inayat K hans account of belief is perhaps m ost succinctly form ulated in a
lecture he delivered in Chicago in the spring of 1926, titled Stages on the Path of
Self-Realization. The phrase self-realization immediately evokes the modern
W estern concept of personal fulfillm ent and expression, which will be explored in
the context of Inayat K hans work in the final section of this chapter. W hat concerns
us here is Inayats theorization of the role of belief in the attainment of self-
realization. The first paragraph summarizes the argument of the lecture:
293
The one who realizes God, in the end realizes self; but the one who
realizes self, never realizes God. And that is the difficulty to-day with
those who seek after spiritual truth intellectually. ... They think that
w hat they have to do is to come to that self-realization and they think
it is ju st as well to om it God. God in reality is the key to spiritual

perfection. God is the stepping-stone to self-realization, God is the
way which covers the knowledge of the whole being, and if G od is
28
om itted then nothing can be reached.
Inayat contends that the absence of God in contemporary occultism
represents a self-serving concession to cultural trends: owing to a com mercial
29
instinct or desire for success they have a tendency to cater to what people w ant. It
is a concession that fundamentally undermines the viability of a spiritual method: in
order to set a new fashion they m ar the m ethod that was the royal road made by the
wise and thoughtful ones of all ages.30 But rather than resting his argument on the
authority of past masters, Inayat now proceeds to explain belief, not as a dogmatic
confessional imperative, but as a progressive interior process that is intrinsic to the
natural developm ent of the human psyche.
Reference has already been made in Chapter Four to Inayats fourfold
categorization of faith: iman-i m uhmil (negligent faith : superstition), im an-i kamil
(perfect faith : religion), haqq al-iman (truth of faith : reason), and ayn al-iman
28 Inayat Khan, The A lch em y o f H a p p in ess (London: E ast-W est Publications, 1996), 220.
29 Ibid., 221.
294
(essence of faith : mystical experience). These four categories here term ed belief
of the masses, belief in an authority, belief of reason, and belief of conviction are
now invoked as rungs of a ladder:
B elief is the means and not the end. Belief leads to realization; it is
not that we come to a belief. If a m ans foot is nailed on the ladder,
that is not the object. ... Those therefore who believe in a certain
creed, in a religion, in God, in the hereafter, in the soul, in a certain
dogma, are no doubt blessed by their belief and think they have
something, but if they remain there, there is no progress.31
As a counterpoint to his preceding critique of the abandonment of belief by
secular occultists, in this passage Inayat qualifies belief as a heuristic device that,
while instrum entally necessary, is essentially of only provisional significance.
Though original with respect to its emphasis on self-realization, Inayats articulation
of belief as an incremental process is not without precedents in Islam ic and Sufi
traditions. A prophetic tradition narrated by Bukhari, popularly known as the hadith
of Gabriel, describes how Gabriel questioned M uham m ad about islam (religion),
iman (faith), and ihsan (benefaction). Sufi exegetes adopted these terms as markers
of three interrelated but distinct spiritual postures. Descriptions of these postures
30 Ibid.
31 Inayat Khan, A lch em y o f H a p p in ess, 222.
295
delineate a process of deepening specialization and interiorization: Islam is general
32
but iman is special ; Islam is external, Iman is internal.
The categories of islam, iman, and ihsan specifically prefigure the schema
that now follows. Shifting from the prior fourfold model, Inayat presently outlines
three stages towards spiritual perfection.33 The first stage is to make God as great
and as perfect as your imagination can make it. This admonition is one that
resounds throughout Inayat K hans body of w ork.34 W orship, Inayat consistently
urges, should be creative; the God-ideal is a work-in-progress, continuously crafted
35
by the active imagination, the one thing in this objective world which is lasting.
The second stage is to the love the God-ideal: to erase your self from your mind
and to think of the one you love. This culminates in the third stage, when the
beloved becomes the self ... the self becom es what it really is.36
Inayat K hans concept of the God-ideal represents a modern extension of the
distinctive contribution of Ibn A rabi to the theorization of belief in Sufism. In his
Fusus al-hikam, Ibn A rabi puts forward a critical account of the w orshippers
subjective imagination of God, the god created in the beliefs (al-ilah al-makhluq
f i 7- itiqadat). He writes:
32 Abu Bakr al-K alabadhi, A l- ta a rru f li m adh h ab a I- ta sa w w u f (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub a l-Ilm iyya,
1993), 94.
34 S ee esp ecially Inayat Khan, U nity o f R elig io u s Ideals, 53 -9 5 .
35 Ibid., 85.
296
One who believes [in the ordinary way] believes only in a deity he has
created in himself, since a deity in beliefs is a [mental] construction.
They see [in what they believe] only themselves [as relative beings]
and their own constructions within themselves. ... So, beware lest you
restrict yourself to a particular tenet [concerning the Reality] and deny
any other tenet [equally reflecting Him], for you would forfeit much
good, indeed you would forfeit the knowledge of what is [the
Reality]. Therefore, be completely and utterly receptive to all
doctrinal forms, for God, M ost High, is too All-embracing and Great
to be confined within one creed rather than another.37
For Inayat Khan, as for Ibn Arabi, the subjectivity of the w orshippers image
of God does not invalidate the objectivity of G ods existence; it is simply a
temporary station, a stepping stone, en route to the direct mystical realization of
that existence. Inayat comments sanguinely: If one could only see how
marvelously, in the diversity o f the conception of the Divine Ideal, wisdom has
played its part, guiding the souls of all grades of evolution towards the same goal,
which in the end becomes spiritual attainm ent.38
Prophetology
The Q uran identifies M uhamm ad as a prophet (nab'i) and a m essenger
37 M uhyi a l-D in Ibn A rabi, The B ezels o f W isdom , trans. R. W . J. A ustin (N ew York: Paulist Press,
1980), 137. Arabic text: Fusus al-h ikam , ed. A b u l- A la A fifi (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub a l-Arabiyya,
1980), 113.
297
(,rasul). Prophets are sent by God to reveal the Book (al-kitab), and thus to
provide good tidings, warnings, signs, guidance and mercy to hum ankind (2:213;
6:130; 16:89). Numerous Biblical figures are invoked in the Q uran as prophets:
Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Lot, Jacob, Joseph, Job, M oses, Aaron, Elisha,
Elias, David, Solomon, Zachariah, John, and Jesus. Also mentioned, as messengers,
are the non-Biblical (or quasi-Biblical) figures S huayb, Hud, and Salih. But these
lists are not exclusive. The Q uran affirms that a prophet has been sent to every
com munity (10:47; 16:36), and not every prophet has been specifically nam ed (40:
39
78). A frequently cited tradition refers to 124,000 prophets and 313 messengers.'
The relation of M uham m ad to the prophets preceding him is in some respects
ambiguous. The Q uran urges believers to make no distinction between the prophets
(2:136), but also states we have favored some [messengers/prophets] over others
(2:253; 17:55). M uhamm ad is identified as the seal of the prophets (khatam
al-nabiyin, 33: 40), a designation that is com monly interpreted to mean the final
prophet (as discussed in Chapter Four).
The Q uran states that M uhamm ad is only a messenger (3:144), but also
characterizes him a shining lamp (33:46). M ystical com mentators opted to
minim ize the im plications of the former description and m axim ize the im plications
of the latter. In the ninth century, the com m entator M uqatil identified M uham m ad as
38 Inayat Khan, U nity o f R elig io u s Id e a ls, 80.
298
the lamp depicted in the allegorical light verse (24:35-40), thus distinguishing him
as the unique instrum ent of light of the heavens and the earth. On the basis of this
identification the early Sufi Sahl Tustarl (d. 896) coined the term nur M uhammad.
Tustari envisioned the Nur M uhamm ad as a column of light created to w orship God
in pre-eternity. It was from this light, Tustarl asserts, that Adam was created.
Ibn A rabi absorbed T ustarls theory of the N ur M uhamm ad in his grand
metaphysical synthesis. The M uham m adan Reality (haqiqat muhammadiyya), as Ibn
Arabi renam es it, is the single, nonm anifest whole which, through differentiated
manifestation, becomes the cosm os.40 The special locus of the m anifestation of this
single whole is the complete human being (insan kamil). According to Ibn A rabis
com m entator Abd al-K arim al-Jili, in every age [the M uhamm adan Reality]
assumes the form of the m ost perfect m en.41
As Ibn A rabis ideas entered South Asia the M uhamm adan Reality becam e a
subject of burgeoning philosophical speculation and poetic idealization among
Indian Sufis. By the twentieth century, the M uhamm adan Reality encom passed a
richly com plex and emotionally vibrant mythic vision. A ziz M iyan provides an
indicative rendering:
39 A nnem arie Schim m el, A n d M uh am m ad is H is M essen ger: The V eneration o f the P ro p h e t in Islam ic
P iety (C hapell H ill, N .C ., and London: The U niversity o f North Carolina Press, 1985), 56.
40 W illiam Chittick, The S elf-D isclo su re o f G od: P rin cip les o f Ibn A r a b is C o sm o lo g y (Albany: State
U niversity o f N ew York Press, 1988), xxvi.
41 R eynold A lleyn e N ich olson , S tu dies in Islam ic M ysticism (N ew Delhi: Idarah-i A dabiyat-i D elli,
1976), 106.
299
G od conceived of manifestation, and to establish the world in

harmony, projected a luminous knowledge, and in its infinite light
fashioned an incorporeal form of such beauty that it m irrored the
original uncreated form. That incorporeal form, the M uham m adan
Light, by the com mand Be! (kun), by the urgency of the desire of
love, chose the material of the hum an body, and enacted: God
created Adam upon his form . It is in this way that God was drawn
into Wahdaniyyat, the first m anifestation, the M uham m adan Reality.
The name M uhamm ad means the praised one. Passing through the
praises of the world of pure intelligence, He descended into a form of
the plane of Jabarut, and passing through the urgency of the plane of
M alakiit and the restlessness of love, He descended into the planes of
A rw ah and M ithal the planes of spirits and images finally to grace
the human form.

How marvelous that with all this, it is now as it always was
and always will be. Even now it can be said, God is and with H im is
nothing. He manifested H im self in the whole of the world, but so

favored the human form that He endowed it with the totality of
qualities. He said, O M uhammad, in whichever moment I did not
manifest you, I did not manifest my divinity, for all these qualities are
manifest for the sake that you be rendered service and praise and
beheld in your glory. In the hearts of all things, love and affection for
you is brought forth, so that they will seek you and find you in
them selves.
W henever the M uhamm adan Light wishes, it adorns itself
with an outer garment. It has accustomed the eyes of the world with
successive epiphanies, manifesting as all prophets and saints, in
300
advance of its special epiphany. That light, having been the Purity of
God (Adam), the Friend of God (Abraham), the Interlocutor with God
(M oses), the Spirit of God (Jesus), its beauty having been thus
witnessed, turned in toward its original form and four subtle links,
called Gabriel, Michael, Seraphiel, and Azriel, to lighten the load of
the body, and beyond these links was the essential link: God and the
angels bless the Prophet; O believers, do you also bless him and pray
him peace.42 That is, I and the angels at every mom ent send our
peace and blessings to you and likewise Adam and all creatures salute
you, so it can never be thought that the link ceases.
Thus when the Divine Essence wished to manifest, 1000 years
before the appearance of the universe, it illuminated a light capable of
manifesting the M aster of the W orld (peace and blessings of G od be
upon him) and placed it in the court of intimacy. After dwelling at
length in the divine intimacy it was given leave from worship and
glorification, and with the urgent com m and Be! brought forth as an
epiphany in ten parts. From the first the Throne was made, from the
second the Tablet, from the third the Pen, and from the fourth, fifth,
sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth, the M oon, the Sun, Heaven, Hell, the
Angels, the Earth, and the Sky. And from the tenth part the Spirit of
the G reat M edium was created and established on the Throne. That
light brilliantly occupied the Throne for 70,000 years and the
Footstool for 5000 years. Then hearing the abstract divine com m and
com m unicated through Gabriel, M ichael and Seraphiel, it followed
the C reators com m and and descended to the Earth and sought a
portion of clay. W ith the restlessness of love the Earth split open and
42 Quran 33:56. E nglish translation from A. J. Arberry, The K o ra n In terp reted (L ondon, N ew York,
301
offered forth a portion of white clay that she had kept in trust. And
Gabriel brought another portion of white clay from the place that is
now the M asters resting place, and leavened the two with the dust of
the paradisial fountain of wine called Salsabil, prepared the m atter of

the existential body of the M aster (peace and blessings be upon him)
and, invoking the angelic hierarchies, declared the joyful tidings: In
this dust is the Beloved of the Lord of all W orlds, the M erciful
Interceder.. .peace and blessings of God be upon him; and before the
appearance of Adam his light was the sun of truth and now for the
sake of his light a receptacle has becom e needed. Then A dam (peace
be upon him) said in the language o f spirit: O desired treasure, seat
yourself in the ruins of my heart, for I have made it an empty ruin in
my longing for you.43
W hile the baroque mythological details of this narrative are largely absent in
Inayat K hans work, its basic theological and prophetological principles are fully
present. In his earliest English com position, the unpublished essay Sufism , Inayat
Khan describes the Nur M uhamm ad as the existence of God in a particular state, the
first evolution of the highest Spirit, the light of the universe, the cause and seed of
creation, the source of the heavenly bodies and of the four elements, the mind of
Holy W isdom , the treasure of love, and the beloved of God.44
and Karachi: O xford U niversity Press, 1964), 434.

43 M uhamm ad Taqi N iy a zi, R az-i takhfiq (Bareilly: Khanqah-i N iyaziyya, n.d.), 2-6.
44 Inayat Khan, S u fism , 1-2.
302
In A Sufi M essage o f Spiritual Liberty (1914) the Light of M uham m ad
becom es the Light of G uidance and the Spirit of Guidance. These terms appear
again in The Way o f Illumination (1922). The Light of Guidance is explained
allegorically as a torch:
Every traveler on foot, as a rule, lights his torch at the approach of

night. So also this heavenly traveler. Seeing darkness overwhelm ing
in the lower spheres on His path, He lights a torch, which is called in
Koranic term, Nuri M uhammed, that has carried Him to the surface,
whence he could clearly discern and find His path back. ... To the
know ers eye, this Nur, this light, is the real M uhammed. This light it
is which has beam ed forth through all the M asters of hum anity.45
The essential unity of all M asters46 is repeatedly underscored. In this,
Inayat Khan closely follows al-JIlis interpretation o f Ibn Arabi. A l-JIli writes, in
every age [the complete human being] bears a name suitable to his guise in that
age.47 Likewise Inayat argues: The M asters have been numberless, since the
creation of man; they have appeared with different names and forms; but He alone
was disguised in them who is the only M aster of destiny.48
45 Inayat Khan, The W ay o f Illum ination: A G u id e-B o o k to the Sufi M o vem en t (Southam pton: T he Sufi
M ovem ent, n.d.), 68.
46 The term M aster occu p ied a privileged p lace in the lexicon o f T heosophy.
47 N ich o lso n , Islam ic M ysticism , 105.
48
Inayat Khan, Way o f Illum ination, 74.
303
W ithin the category of M aster, Inayat includes not only the Semitic prophets
m entioned in the Q uran, but also the Indo-Aryan figures Zarathustra, Rama,
Krishna, Shiva, and Buddha:
M an refused to believe the M asters and their teachings, whether of the

past or future, if their names were not written in the particular
tradition he believed, or if he had not heard their names in the legends
handed down for ages among his people. Therefore the people of that
part of the world who have acknowledged the Hebrew prophets do not
recognize the Avatars, such as Rama, Vishnu, Shiva, and Krishna,
only because they cannot find these names in their scriptures. The
same thing occurs in the other parts of humanity, which does not
count Abraham, M oses, or Jesus among its Devatas.
In the context of Indian Sufism, the recognition of mythic Indian figures as
Islamic prophets is an atypical exegetical move, but not an unprecedented one. Dara
Shikuh endorsed the Vedas and Upanishads as celestial books, and equated the
Arabic term nabi (prophet) with the Sanskrit term siddha (perfect o n e )49
Comm enting on the Persian translation of the Bhagavad Gita by the Chishti author
Abd al-Rahman Chishti (d. 1683), Roderic Vassie writes: It is possible to detect
within the train of Sufi thought in seventeenth and eighteenth-century India a move
to accommodate Hindus, by means of an unwritten convention, within the am bit of
49 Jean F illiozat, Dara Shikuhs S a m u d rasa n g a m a , in On B ecom in g an Indian M uslim : F rench

essa ys on A sp e c ts o f S yn cretism , ed. and trans. M . W aseem (N ew Delhi: O xford U niversity Press,
2 0 0 3 ), 138.
304
the People of the B ook.50 But the convention of accommodation was not always
unwritten. In a remarkable letter, the N aqshbandi-M ujaddidi shaykh M irza M azhar
Jan-i Janan (d. 1781) em phatically appealed to M uslims to acknowledge the
prophets of India :
Understand it clearly that what we can infer from the ancient books of
the Hindus is that when the world was created, the Divine M ercy
revealed a book called Veda. ... God has not left the people of India
w ithout Prophets. ... The Holy Q uran says that there are some
Prophets about whom inform ation has been imparted to you, while
there are others about whom you have not been furnished any
particular. Thus, when the Holy Q uran has preferred to remain silent
about many, it is incumbent on us to adopt a liberal attitude with
regard to the Prophets of India.51
In view of these and other precedents, Inayat K hans recognition of Indo-
Aryan figures as prophets does not in and of itself constitute a radical innovation.
Yet the systematic com prehensiveness of Inayats prophetological ecum enism is
arguably unprecedented. The volume The Unity o f Religious Ideals which features
chapters not only on Abraham, M oses, Jesus, and M uhammad, but also on Rama,
50 R oderic V assie, Abd al-Rahman C hishti and the Bhagavadgita: Unity o f R eligion Theory in
P ractice, in The L eg a c y o f M e d ia e va l P ersia n Sufism , ed. Leonard L ew isohn (London: Khaniqahi
N im atullahi P ublications, 1992), 376.
51 M oham m ad Umar, Islam in N orth en India D u rin g the E igh teen th C entury (N ew D elhi: M unshiram
M anoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 1993), 5 2 6 -7 . Umar qualifies his rendering o f Jan-i Janans letter as
a free translation.
305
Krishna, Buddha, and Zarathustra represents a virtual manifesto of mystical
universalism for which no real prototype exists in the literature of classical Sufism .'
To properly evaluate Inayat K hans universalist prophetology it is necessary
to place it in the context of the H um anist tradition of modern European thought. The
roots o f Romantic Humanism can be traced to the revival of classical Greco-Roman
intellectual and cultural currents in the Renaissance. Renaissance thinkers like
M arcilio Ficino and Pico della M irandola attempted to achieve an objective
assessm ent of the human condition by the com parative study of heterogeneous
classical and ancient sources. Pico writes, I have wished to bring into view the
things taught not merely according to one doctrine (as some would desire), but things
taught by every sort of doctrine, that by this com parison of very many sects and by
the discussion of m anifold philosophy, that radiance of truth which Plato mentions in
his Letters m ight shine more clearly upon our minds, like the sun rising from the
53
deep. In his celebrated study of the Renaissance, the Oxford classicist W alter
Pater underscores the link between M irandolas Christian Platonism and the secular
Humanism of the nineteenth century:
A modern scholar ... m ight observe that all religions may be regarded
as natural products, that, at least in their origin, their growth, and
decay, they have common laws, and are not to be isolated from other
52 T he clo se st prem odern Islam icate analogue is the D a b ista n -i m adh ah ib, the author o f w hich, K ay-
Khusraw Isfandiyar, was a M azdean. The English translation o f the D a b ista n is quoted in B loch ,
C on fession s, 7.
306
movements of the hum an m ind in the periods in which they

respectively prevailed; that they arise spontaneously out of the hum an
mind, as expressions of the varying phases of its sentiment concerning
the unseen world; that every intellectual product must be judged from
the point of view of the age and the people in which it was produced.
He m ight go on to observe that each has contributed something to the
developm ent of the religious sense, and ranging them as so many

stages in the gradual education of the hum an mind, justify the
existence of each. The basis of the reconciliation of the religions of
the w orld would thus be the inexhaustible activity and creativeness of
the hum an m ind itself.. .54
How does this articulation of Romantic H um anism compare with traditional
formulations of Sufism? W hile the notion that religions are products of the human
m ind m anifestly conflicts with exoteric interpretations of theology, Sufism does not
deny the subjective, interior dimension of religious experience. Ibn A rabis concept
o f the god created in the beliefs has already been mentioned. In a similar vein,
com menting on M uham m ads Ascension, the Chishti author G isu Daraz asserts: the
Prophet of God saw God within him self (dar khud dTdand).55 Likewise Shah
53 P ico della M irandola, On the D ig n ity o f M an, trans. Charles G lenn W allis (Indianapolis: B ob b s-
M errill, 1965), 23.
54 W alter Pater, The R en a issa n ce (London: M acm illan & C o., 1910), 33-34.
55 G isu Daraz, W ujud a l - a sh iq in , 11.
307
M uhibb Allah maintains: Gabriel existed within the person of each prophet whose
spiritual pow er he represented.56
M ore problem atic is the suggestion that the religious insights of the hum an
mind constitute a progressive series. As Elizabeth Sirriya has aptly observed,
traditional Sufi prophetology stands in sharp contrast with the post-Enlightenm ent
conception of social evolution: [Sufis] would question the very existence of social
evolution, seeing that perfection was present in the very beginning when the Divine
Light entered into Prophet M uham m ad.57 In support of this observation one m ight
cite the influential early modern Sufi theologian Shah W all Allah (d. 1762), who
m aintained that the religions (din, adyan) of all authentic prophetic dispensations are
identical in all respects other than legal content. Theological differences, from this
viewpoint, can only be explained as instances of the corruption of scriptures that
were originally entirely mutually consistent. The touchstone of the authenticity of all
scriptures is the Q uran. Even the innovative rationalist exegete Sayyid A hm ad
Khan conformed to this view, simply adding that the differences in legal content may
reflect the general advancement of human knowledge.58
Inayat K hans theory of prophecy might be seen as a bridge between
traditional Sufi prophetology and modern secular Humanism. Inayat m aintains that
56 Shah M uhibb A llah A llahabadi, T asw iyya, cited in S. A . A . R izvi, A H isto ry o f Sufism in India
(N ew D elhi: M unshiram M anoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 1983), 2:270.
57
Elizabeth Sirriyeh, Sufis a n d A nti-Sufis: The D efence, Rethinking, a n d R ejectio n o f Sufism in the
m odern W orld (R ichm ond, Surrey: Curzon, 1999), 58.
308
each prophet has delivered the divine message in a cognitive m old com m ensurate
w ith the capacity of the particular m entality of the era. As mentalities evolve, Inayat
contends, the form of the message likewise advances. The prophet is accordingly the
measure of the evolution of the human experience:
The divine message had always been sent through those fitly
endowed. For instance, when wealth was esteemed the message was
delivered by King Solomon; when beauty was worshipped, Joseph,
the most handsome, gave the message; when music was regarded as
celestial, David gave his message in song; when there was curiosity
about miracles, M oses brought his message; when sacrifice was
highly esteemed, Abraham gave the message; when heredity was

recognized, Christ gave his message as the Son of God; and when
dem ocracy was necessary, M uhamm ed gave his message as the
servant of God, one like all and among all, which put an end to the
necessity for more prophets, because of the democratic nature of his
proclamation and message. He proclaim ed La Elaha el Allah, None
exists but God; God constitutes the whole being, singly, individually
and collectively, and every soul has the source of the divine message
within itself. This is the reason why there is no longer the need for
mediation, for a third person as a savior between man and God, as
soon as man has evolved enough to conceive the idea of God being all
and all being God, and as soon as man has becom e tolerant enough to
believe in the divine message given by one like himself, who is liable
58 Christian W . Troll, S a y y id A h m a d Khan: A R ein terp reta tio n o f M uslim T h eo lo g y (N ew D elhi: V ikas
Publishing H ouse, Pvt. Ltd., 1978), 85-94.
309
to birth, death, joy, and sorrow, and all the natural vicissitudes of
life.59
In this passage, Inayat proposes that revelation is dispensed in proportion to
the receptivity of the historical milieu to which it is addressed. The scope of
prophecy is thus limited by the constraints of cultural determination. But Inayat also
characterizes prophecy as an inherently assertive and progressive force: [M jessages
differ from one another in their outer appearance, each message being given in
accordance with the age of man's evolution, and also in order to add a particular
pa rt in the course o f divine wisdom.60
Inayats allusion to the course of divine wisdom evokes Georg H egels
Romantic historiography. Hegel, it should be noted, is the only European theorist
quoted in The Unity o f Religious Ideals.61 Inayats prophetology resembles H egels
theory o f the unfolding of Spirit (Geist) in history in several key respects. H egels
theory is concisely summarized by Richard Tarnas as follows:
Hegel conceived of the primal being of the world, the universal M ind
or Spirit, as unfolding itself through its creation, achieving its ultimate
realization in the human spirit. In H egels understanding, the
Absolute first posits itself in the im mediacy of its own inner
consciousness, then negates this initial condition by expressing itself
in the particularities o f the finite world of space and time, and finally,
59 Inayat Khan, W ay o f Illum ination, 78.

60 Ibid. 77 (em phasis added).
310
by negating the negation, recovers itself in its infinite essence. ...

All of natures processes and all of history, including m ans
intellectual, cultural, and religious development, constitute the
62
teleological plot of the A bsolutes quest for self-revelation.
The preponderance of the ideas summarized here may be equally ascribed to
Inayat Khan. The negation of the original condition of the inner consciousness of the
Absolute in Hegel is, in Inayat K hans terminology, the process of involution, in
which subtle spirit crystallizes as dense matter. H egels second negation
corresponds to the subsequent and converse process of evolution, defined by Inayat
as the unwrapping of the divine essence from the folds of enshrouding m atter. The
m ountain and trees, Inayat says, are silently awaiting the day of awakening.63 But it
is the hum an being, the pride of the U niverse (ashraf al-m akhluqat)M, who is
destined to be the essential locus of G ods self-discovery. The hum an soul fulfills
this destiny by progressively integrating its ephem eral condition with its im mortal
status: The soul manifests in the world in order that it may experience the different
phases of manifestation and yet may not lose its way and be lost, but may attain its
original freedom in addition to the experience and knowledge it has gained in this
61 Inayat Khan, S p iritu a l L ib e rty , 21; U nity o f R elig io u s Ideals, 88.

62 Richard Tarnas, The P a ssio n o f the W estern M ind: U n derstan din g the Id ea s That H ave S h a p ed O u r
W orld V iew (N ew York: Ballantine B o o k s, 1993), 38 0 -8 1 .
64 Inayat Khan, S p iritu a l L ib erty, 18.
311
world.65 In the evolution of manifestation, culminating in the inner world of the
human being, G ods own m ind evolves: the Divine M ind becom es com pleted after
manifestion. ... The experience of every soul becom es the Divine m ind.66 It is in
m ans spiritual liberation that G ods cosmogonic desire is fulfilled:
God knows H im self by His manifestation. M anifestation is the self of

God, but a self which is limited, a self which makes H im know that
He is perfect when He compares His own Being with this lim ited self
which we call nature. Therefore, the purpose of the whole of creation
is the realization that God H im self gains by discovering His own

67
perfection through His manifestation.
Yet there are significant differences between Hegel and Inayat. Hegel
defines history as the development of Spirit in Tim e, and upholds German
Protestantism as the absolute culm ination of Self-Consciousness.68 For Inayat, it
is not history itself that is teleological, but the force of prophecy operating w ithin it.
Inayat envisions history more as melodic im provisation rather than dialectic
synthesis:
There seem to be some who, seeing the com fort and convenience of
modern life together with its new inventions and wonderful
researches, admire evolution. There are others who praise the past
65 Inayat Khan, C o m p lete Works, 1923 II, 16.

66 Inayat Khan, U nity o f R elig io u s Ideals, 143. C .f. Ibn A rabi, B ezels o f W isdom , 94: Y ou are H is
nourishm ent as bestow ing the contents o f H is S elf-K n o w led g e.
67 Inayat Khan, U nity o f R elig io u s Ideals, 87.
312
saying how great were the ancestors of the past who were so high in
their morals and ideals and who had such a com fort and peace in their
natural life until gradually everything had becom e so degenerated
that all virtues became prey to the selfishness and artificiality of so-
called civilization. According to the standpoint of the Sufi both are
right yet both are wrong, for the Sufi applies the law of vibration to
his understanding of the world. Each note has its finish at the octave
and so there are an ascending and a descending s c a le .... A certain
direction of life develops for a certain period and before it has fallen
back another direction of life begins to evolve. An individuals view
is deluded because to him evolution seems to him to be a straight
evolution, and every fall seems to be a continual fall.69
Inayat is explicitly critical of triumphalist formulations of the idea of
progress. He observes: Since the tim e of the Reformation a wave has com e in the
W est causing every soul to think that he has advanced further than his forefathers
did in the past and this is so in all walks of life, and he has sufficient reasons for
70
believing it. Specifically, he critiques the use of the theory of evolution as a
justification for im perial dom ination.71
Nonetheless, Inayat was not averse to speaking of the prospect of an
im m inent collective spiritual awakening. He commented: N ot only have there
68 G eorg W ilh elm Friedrich H egel, The P h ilo so p h y o f H isto ry, trans. J. Sibree (N ew York: D over
Publications, Inc., 1956), 7 2 , 444.
69 Inayat Khan, Sufi T eachings: The Sm iling F o reh ea d (London: E ast-W est Publications, 1996), 161.
71 Ibid., 244.
313
been illum inated souls at all times, but there have been times when a wave of
illum ination has passed over humanity as a whole. W e believe that such a period is
at hand.72
Psychology
The contemporary philosopher Charles Taylor observes, W e are not selves
in the way that we are organisms ... we are only selves insofar as we m ove in a
73
certain space of questions, as we seek and find an orientation to the good. It
follows that the Sufi project of transformation of the self (nafs) cannot be
productively analyzed in isolation from the cultural constm ction of identity within
which it is embedded. In formulating his mystical psychology, we must ask, what
were the spaces of questions in which Inayat Khan moved?
Sufi psychology is grounded in Islamic eschatology. The eschatological
vision of the Q uran radically reframed notions of identity for seventh-century
Meccans. The hopes and fears the Q uran addresses are, fundamentally, the
anxieties of mortality. Pagan Arabs dreaded death and treated the grave as a place of
eternal gloom where the putrefaction of bodies gave rise to owlish apparitions.74 In
answer, the Q uran puts forth the redemptive prom ise of resurrection (qiyam a), the
72 Inayat Khan, Gatheka 4: T he W isdom o f A ll Faiths.

73 Charles Taylor, S ou rces o f the Self: The M aking o f M odern Iden tity (C am bridge, M A: Harvard
U niversity Press, 1989), 34.
314
assurance that the fragmented body will be returned to wholeness: Does man not
think we shall put his bones together? Surely W e are able to re-form even his
fingertips (75:3-4).
To the pagan Arabs, the promise of corporeal resurrection m ust have been
as attractive as it was counterintuitive. In richly evocative language, the Q uran
holds out the prospect of eternal sensual gratification in the hereafter. As L. E.
Goodman writes: The wine goblets, silk brocades, fairskinned and beautiful
attendants moving gracefully among luxuriant pleasure gardens motifs of the
M u allaqat and M ufaddaliyat shift silently into the Koranic vision of paradise. '
But in the H ellenized oikoumene into which Islam quickly expanded,
sensualism constituted only one of several com peting discursive representations of
the body. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Gnosticism and Platonism , each in
its own terms, deprecated the body and looked to death as the souls liberation.
Plato famously has Socrates say in Phaedo, So long as our souls are befouled by
this evil admixture, we shall assuredly never possess that which we desire, to wit
truth.76
74 On pre-Islam ic Arab ideas about death, see Jane I. Sm ith and Y vonne Y . Haddad, The Islam ic
U n derstan din g o f D ea th a n d R esu rrection (Albany: State U niversity o f N ew Y ork Press, 1981), 147-
155.
75 L. E. G oodm an, The Sacred and the Secular: Rival T hem es in Arabic Literature, in The L itera ry
H erita g e o f Islam : S tu dies in H o n o r o f Janies B ellam y, ed. M ustansir M ir (Princeton: Darwin Press,
1993), 310.
76 R. Hackforth, trans., P la to s P h a ed o (Cambridge: Cam bridge U niversity Press, 1972), 47.
315
Christian theologians had already been engaged in debates about the nature of
resurrection for some four centuries.77 In these debates, which focused on questions
of material continuity and the formal integrity of the body, efforts were made to
reconcile seemingly conflicting biblical descriptions, answer the objections of pagan
critics, and theologically redeem the sacrifices of martyrs. It is unclear to what
extent developments in Islamic eschatology were informed by Christian discussions.
In any case, the nature of resurrection became a subject of m ajor contention within
Islam only with what W att calls the second wave of Hellenism in the Later
Abbasid period.78
A vicennas (d. 1037) floating m an argument, which posited that self-
awareness is independent of sensation, was a watershed in the pre-modern
theorization of body and mind, effectively laying the foundation for Cartesian
dualism .79 A vicennas rejection of physical resurrection prom pted a rejoinder in al-
GhazalTs Tahafut al-falasifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers). In al-G hazall
(d. 1111), the issue of resurrection becomes a crucial index of orthodoxy; disbelief in
the physicality of resurrection is one of three heresies that al-G hazall classifies as a
capital offence.
77 C aroline W alker Bynum , The R esu rrection o f the B o d y in W estern C hristianity, 2 0 0 -1 3 3 6 (N ew

York: C olum bia U niversity Press, 1997), 19-115.
78 W . M ontgom ery W att, Islam ic P h ilo sop h y a n d T h eology (Edinburgh: Edinburgh U niversity Press,
1985), 6 9 -1 3 2 .
79 L. E. G oodm an, A vicen n a (N ew York: R outledge, 1992), 155-158.
316
Ironically, al-G hazalls own discussion of the nature of punishm ent in the
grave prefigures the theory of the W orld of the Image, a speculative trajectory that
served to seriously undermine A sharite eschatological literalism. The pivotal
contribution cam e from Suhrawardv, for whom the W orld of the Image provided a
81
rationally defensible explanation for all the promises of prophecies. The W orld
of the Image is an isthm us, an epistemological filter mediating between the
intelligible and the sensible, a placeless place (na kuja abad) where spirits are
corporealized and bodies are spiritualized.
The challenge of hikmat (theosophy) to the physicality of resurrection
reached its m ost decisive expression in M ulla Sadra (d. 1641). The doyen of the
School of Isfahan wrote in Al-hikm at al- arshiyya: The usual reply is that the
matter (specific to this body) and its original members remain (until reassem bled at
the Resurrection). But this is false, since m atter (in itself) is absolutely
indeterminate, while the essential reality of each thing is its concrete individuation
through its form, not its m atter.82 Turning the tables on exegetical literalists,
80 A l-G hazali writes: the snakes and scorpions w hich sting in the grave ... are p erceived with a quite
separate faculty. Abu Hamid M uhammad al-G hazali, The R em em bran ce o f D ea th a n d the A fterlife,
trans. T. J. W inter (Cambridge: T he Islam ic T ext S ociety, 1989), 139-140. On a la m a l-m ith a l see
Henry Corbin, S p iritu a l B ody a n d C elestia l E arth: F rom m a zd ea n Iran to S h iite Iran, trans. N ancy
Pearson (Princeton: Princeton U niversity Press, 1977) and Fazlur Rahman, D ream , Im agination, and
'Alam a l-m ith a l, in The D rea m a n d H um an S o cieties, ed. G. E. V on Grunebaum and R oger C aillois
(B erkeley and L os A ngeles: U niversity o f California Press, 1966), 4 0 9 -4 2 0 .
81 Suhrawardi, P h ilo so p h y o f Illum ination, 150.
82 Sadr al-D in Shirazi (M ulla Sadra), The W isdom o f the Throne, trans. Jam es M orris (Princeton:
Princeton U niversity Press, 1981), 172.
317
M ulla Sadra argued that the idea that physical bodies will resurrect amounts to
reincarnation (tanasukh), a heterodox if not heretical misconception.
The question of the physicality of resurrection was a recondite
eschatological problem, but it was more than that. For M uslim thinkers in the
M iddle Period, it was a basic theoretical touchstone for defining the human subject.
W as the essence of the individual (dhat al-nafs), as Suhrawardi asserted, a pure
light, qualified only by life, apparency, simplicity, indivisibility, and indefinability?
Or was it an ontological hybrid, com posed by necessity of both spirit and body?
The attitudes of the early Chishtis may be gleaned from the recorded
conversations of Nizam al-DIn A w liya. Nizam al-D Ins views on the spirit (ruh)
are adum brated in the Siyar al-aw liya. According to the Shaykh, space is
landscaped by gradations of the gross (kasif) and the subtle (la tif). Between the
claustrophobic density of material bodies and the ineffable subtlety of God are
ranged gases, luminous bodies, terrestrial angels, celestial angels, and near ones
{muqarriban). Subtler than all of these is the human spirit.
All spirits em anate from a single universal spirit.83 The individual human
spirit bears a relation to the human body that is analogous to the relation of G od
(haqq) to the universe: it is neither within nor without, neither united nor separate.
The spirit formlessly indwells in every particle of the body while transcending its
accidents.84
318
If the spirit is em boldened by ascetic exercises (riyazat), in an instant it can
pass through the elements and soar to the sphere of subtle bodies. But it can also
influence the physical body. In Fawa id al-fu 'ad the Shaykh is reported to have
observed:
W hen the spirit becom es powerful and is perfected, it attracts the

heart and the heart, too, when it becom es powerful and perfected,
attracts the body. Then, due to this union of all three, whatever
85
happens to the heart, leaves its outward m ark on the body.
The heart (qalb), which facilitates the alignment of body and spirit, has as its
antagonist the soul or self (nafs). W hereas the heart is a source of peace and
serenity, the soul produces agitation and strife.86 The souls usurpation of the body
is symbolically traced to the epochal mom ent when Adam carved up and consum ed
Khannas (the pug-nosed devil of Q uran 114:4), unwittingly fulfilling Ibliss desire
87
to im plant evil in the very flesh of humanity.
N izam al-D in A wliyas thoughts are further developed in the M ir at
al- arifin of M asud Bakk. The human being, he writes, is a com posite of body
(jasad) and spirit. The body is a vehicle (m arkab) characterized by the natural
elements of earth, water, air, and fire, while the spirit is characterized by the divine
83 Kirmam, S iy a r a l- a w liy a , 564.

84 Ibid., 569.
85 Khwaja N izam a l-D in B a d a um , M o ra ls f o r the H eart, trans. Bruce B. L aw rence (N ew York: The
Paulist Press, 1992), 170.
86 Kirm am , S iy a r a w liy a , 554.
319
qualities of life, knowledge, will, power, audition, vision, and speech. The spirit
88
exists in the body in the same way that fragrance pervades a flower.
G isu Daraz goes much further than Nizam al-DIn in em phasizing the
integration of body and spirit, and criticizes classical Sufi theorists who evince a
N eoplatonic aversion to the body. For GIsu Daraz, the spirit is a lum inous subtle
created essence. It is not a product of the body (or entelechy), and the
philosophers and doctors (i.e. Aristotelians) who assert that it is thereby forsake
orthodoxy. Heavenly in origin, its relation to the body of the lower w orld is that
of a ruler to a city, a lover to a beloved, or a rider to a vehicle.89 God is the rider of
the spirit, and the spirit is the rider of the body.90
Though separable temporarily, body and spirit share a com mon destiny: on
the Day of Judgm ent the two will reunite to receive punishment or reward. The
reality (haqiqat) o f the human being is not pure spirit, GIsu Daraz insists (contra
Ayn al-Quzat), but a composite of body (qalab), heart (qalb), and spirit (ruh).9[
This is em phatically affirmed in a couplet that reports a conversation with the
87 Ibid., 566.
88 M a sud Bakk, M ir a t a l- 'arifin, 74.
89 G isu Daraz, S harh-i risa la -y i Q u sh a yriyya , ed. Sayyid A ta Husayn (Hyderabad: Barqi Press,
1942), 372; S harh-i ta m h id a t, ed. Sayyid A ta Husayn (Hyderabad: M u in Press, 1945), 255.
90 G isu Daraz, J a w h a r a l - ushshaq (S harh-i risa la -y i G h a w s a l- A zam ), ed. Sayyid Ata Husayn
(Hyderabad: B arqi Press, 1943), 17.
91 G isu D araz, S harh-i ta m h id a t, 256.
320
archangel Gabriel in the seventh heaven: This advice the Holy Spirit offered me: A
sum of body, heart and spirit be.92
Ibn ArabI and the philosophers, G isu Daraz argues, are wrong to describe
the body-spirit relationship in terms of captivity or freedom. The spirit is not the
93
prisoner of the body, but its mover (m uharrik) and governor (m udabbir). ' The
ultimate aim of asceticism, then, is not to extract the spirit from the body, but to
sustain an equilibrious integration of body, heart, and spirit.
G isu D arazs reappraisal of the body as an integral com ponent of the fully
realized self heralds a development that m ight be described as the som atization of
the ChishtI tradition. This hermeneutic shift can be tracked with reference to three
distinct but interrelated theoretical and ritual indices: symbolic representations of
the body; em bodied disciplines of ritual practice; and the elaboration of the tomb
cult.
Symbolically, the somatization of the ChishtI tradition is reflected in the
construction of a cosmic body image. This image corresponds closely to the
grotesque body defined by M ikhail Bakhtin:
The grotesque body is cosmic and universal. It stresses elements
com m on to the entire cosmos: earth, water, fire, air; it is directly
related to the sun, to the stars. It contains the signs o f the zodiac. It
92 A b u l-Fazl M uhamm ad Husayn F ayzi, S ira t-i B a n dan aw az (Hyderabad: Sham s a l-M u tta li\ n.d.),
79.
321
reflects the cosmic hierarchy. This body can merge with various
natural phenomena, with mountains, rivers, seas, islands, and
94
continents. It can fill the entire universe.
The grotesque body makes an early appearance in M iraj a l-ashiqin, a Dakkani
treatise attributed to G isu Daraz which describes five bodies corresponding to the
five elem ents.95 The elemental symbolism of M ir aj al- ashiqin is com bined with
anatomical symbolism in various versions of a Persian treatise on yoga attributed to
M u in al-D in C hishti.96 But it is not only in apocryphal literature that the cosmic
body appears. Shah K alim Allah states succinctly: The body of the Perfect M an is
a m icrocosm .97 And we find in the oral discourses of the prom inent 19th-century
Chishti shaykh M ahm ud A hm adabadi, the following iteration:
The Throne and Footstool are the W orld of the Image ( alarn
al-m ithal), and they are the heart of the Cosmic M an (insan kabir).
The earth is the body, the mountains are bones, small and large trees
are the hairs o f the head and body, the seven continents are the head,
93 G isu Daraz, S h arh -i ta m h id a t, 245.

94 M ikhail Bakhtin, R a b ela is a n d H is W orld, trans. H elene Isw olsky (B loom ington: Indiana
U niversity Press, 1984), 318.
95 G isu Daraz (attr.), M i'ra j a l-'a sh iq in , ed. M aulana "Abd al-Haqq (Hyderabad: Taj Press, 1924-5),
11-13.
96 M u'in al-D in Chishti (attr.), R isa la -yi w u ju diyya, Fazal M anzil A rchive, fols. 4a-5a. For a full
translation o f tw o o f these texts, see Carl W . Ernst, T w o V ersions o f a Persian T ext on Y o g a and
C osm ology Attributed to Shaykh M u in al-D in C hishti, E lix ir 1, no. 2: 69 -7 6 .
97 Shah K alim A llah Jahanabadi, S a w a al-sab'il (D elhi: A stana B o o k D epot, n.d.), 144.
322
the arms, the back and front of the torso, and the legs. Earthquakes
are trembles and sneezes. Springs are veins; the spring of the ears is
bitter, the spring of the eyes is salty, the spring of the m outh is sweet,
and the spring of the nose is sour. Quicksilver is lymph, seawater is
urine and fresh water is semen. Although heaven, earth and such, are
98
unique, their likenesses are in the perfect human.
Similarly, in his Raz-i muhabbat, a w ork laden with embryological, medical, yogic,
and alchemical allusions, A ziz Miyan writes:
In everything in the world spirit is present. And a portion of

everything in the world is present in the human body. Thus the sum
of the world may be seen as a human being. At the beginning of
creation, God created a light, and gave the light of that light to all
things. The human being is its complete appearance. ... Every part of
the hum an being is precious. But most people do not know how to
make use of them. So long as a person does not know himself, he
cannot know God. And he cannot know him self so long as he does
not recognize the precious and essential parts of the hum an being and
tap the hidden power within. W hen he knows himself, all pow er will
1 , - 99
be his to use.
A hm adabadi, K ita b al-M ah m u d, 44.

99 Ibid., 7.
323
Symbolic representations of the body found their ritual counterpart in the
emergence of an increasingly com plex repertoire of em bodied practices. The
developm ent of this system of praxis reflects in part the engagement of the Chishtis
with the techniques of yoga. The Nath Siddhas, yogis of the lineage of Gorakhnath,
practiced breath retention (pranayama) and other hatha-yoga exercises with the
objective of transforming the unripe body into a ripe body, a constitution
immune to decay and death.100 Simon Digby notes that, the Jogis often propounded
the idea that there was no essential difference of belief between themselves and the
M uslim s. 101 Yogis were known to visit Farid al-DIn Ganj-i Shakars hospice in
A jhudan.102 Later writers credit Khwaja Farid al-D in with the introduction of a
Hindi dhikr.m
N asir al-D in M ahmud Chiragh-i D ihli advocated the practice of breath
retention (habs-i dam) in meditation (murciqaba), and cited the exam ple of the
perfected yogis. 104 His follower Gisu Daraz refers to the yogis in a num ber of
places in his discourses and writings. In one instance, Gisu Daraz represents him self
100 Shashibhusan D asgupta, O bscu re R elig io u s C ults (Calcutta: Firma K. L. M . Pvt. Ltd., 1995), 220.
101 Sim on D igb y, W on der T ales o f South A sia (Jersey, Channel Islands: Orient M onographs, 2 0 0 0 ),
289.
102 Khwaja N izam a l-D in B ad aum , F a w a id a l-fu a d , com p. A m ir Hasan S ijzi (Lucknow: N aval
Kishur, 1908),' 54 -5 , 245.
103 Sayyid Akbar H usaym , R isa la -y i a d h k a r-i C h ish tiyya, in G isu Daraz, M a jm u a -y i y a zd a r a s a il
(Hyderabad: Intizam i Press, n.d.), 11-13; Hasan M uham m ad C hishti, M a ja lis-i H a sa n iyya , 7; Shah
K alim A llah Jahanabadi, K ash ku T i K a lim i, 65; Shah N izam a l-D in A w rangabadi, N iza m al-q u lu b ,
32.
104 Khwaja N a sir al-D in M ahm ud Chiragh, K h a yr a l-m a ja lis, com p. H am id Qalandar, ed. K. A.
N izam i (Aligarh: Aligarh M uslim U niversity, n.d.), 59-60.
324
as equaling the tantrikas in their own forte: coitus reservatus, the retention of
sem en.105
W hereas earlier Chishti texts have little to say about meditative techniques,
G isu D arazs w ork marks the emergence of a clearly defined canon of technical
ritual practices.106 In his Khatima-yi tarjuma-yi adab al-m uridin, G isu D araz refers
frequently to such disciplines as dhikr, m uraqaba, habs-i nafs, amal, shughl,
w a z ifa .107 G isu D arazs Risala-yi muraqaba represents the earliest exam ple of a
new genre of Sufi literature concerned with the docum entation of techniques of
meditation. A second m editation manual, entitled Risala-yi adhkar-i Chishtiyya, was
com piled posthum ously from his instructions on various techniques of dhikr.
In the M ughal period Shah K alim Allah Jahanabadis Kashkul-i Kalim i
supplanted Adhkar-i Chishtiyya as the definitive manual of m editation for
C hishtls.108 In K ashkul, Shah K alim Allah acknowledges Sufism s debt to yoga with
respect to breathing practices.109 Shah K alim A llahs successor Shah N izam al-DIn
A wrangabadi expanded on the Kashkul in his Nizam al-qulub, incorporating material
D igb y, W on der Tales, 223.

106 The d efin itive work o f the foundational period o f the C hishtiyya, S iy a r a l- a w liy a , em phasizes
s a m a (ritual audition o f m usic) and an assortm ent o f conventional pious observances, including
supererogatory prayers and fasting and recitations o f Quran and other Arabic form ulae (w ird ,
w a zifa ). B rief m ention is also m ade o f meditation (m u ra q a b a ) and internal d h ik r or rem em brance
(dh ikr-i kh afi), but these are described in only very general terms.
107 G isu D araz, K h atim a, passim .
108 So h ighly w as K ash ku l-i K a lim 1 esteem ed that m anuscript co p ies were treated as the equivalent o f
robes o f su ccession . Gul M uhamm ad A hm adpuri, T akm ila-yi siy a r a l-a w liy a , K. A . N izam i
C ollection , fol. 71a.
109 Shah K alim A llah, K ash ku l-i K a lim i, 11. Shah K alim A llah also identifies the eternal sound
experienced in m editation (sa w t-i sa rm a d i) with the Sanskrit term a n a h a d [nad]. Ibid., 39.
325
from the Shattarl manual Jawahir al-khamsa and other sources.110 Shah N izam al-
D ln displays greater attention to physiological detail than his m aster.111 A brief but
notable chapter is devoted to the dhikrs of the yogis. 112 In the nineteenth century,
Nizam al-qulub was superseded by a major work by the Chishtl-Sabirl shaykh Hajji
Imdad Allah entitled Z iy a al-qulub.11:1 Z iy a al-qulub provides a detailed inventory
of the techniques of the Chishti, Qadirl, and Naqshbandi traditions, with special
reference to the theory of the seven subtle plexi (la ta i f ) derived from the Central
A sian Kubrawi tradition.114 In Z iy a al-qulub the South Asian Sufi meditation
manual reached its most complete expression.
Read as a series, Adhkar-i Chishtiyya, Kashkul-i K alim i, N izam al-qulub,
Z iy a al-qulub chronicle the Chishti O rders progressive elaboration of a repertory of
technical disciplines of em bodied meditation, a canon that was denoted by the term
suluk. The term suluk was eventually equated with yug, indicating that Chishtls saw
110 The chapter on the dh ikrs o f the anim als in N izam a l-qu lu b, 5 0 -5 1 , is largely borrowed from the
dhikrs o f the birds in the Shattarl manual J a w a h ir al-kh am sa. S ee Shaykh M uham m ad G haw s
G w aliyari, J a w a h ir al-kh am sa, trans. M irza M uhamm ad B aig N aqshbandi (D elhi: N a z Publishing
H ouse, n.d.), 36 4 -5 6 .
111 For exam ple, in glo ssin g Shah K alim A lla h s instructions in si p a y a (the three supports), Shah
N izam a l-D in adds information about the subtle plexuses. Shah N izam al-D in A w rangabadi, N izam
a l-q u lu b , 7-9.
112 Ibid., 3 1 -3 2 . Shah N izam a l-D ln s mastery o f yoga is attested in an 18,h-century d evotional
m ath n aw i that depicts a rivalry betw een the Sufi saint and a South Indian H indu yogi, ending in the
latters conversion. G hazi al-D in Khan Firuz Jang III, M a th n a w i-yi F akh riyya, Shah N izam al-D in
Dargah C ollection , 48r-59v.
113 Hajji Imdad A llah, Z iy a ' al-q u lu b (D elhi: M atba-i M ujtabaI, 1894).
114 S ee Jamal E lias, The Throne C a rrier o f G od: The Life a n d Thought o f A la a d -d a w la a s-S im n an i
(Albany: State U niversity o f N ew Y ork Press, 1995), 7 9 -1 0 0 , 157-160; and Henry Corbin, The M an o f
L igh t in Iranian Sufism, trans. N ancy Pearson (B oulder and London: Shambhala Press, 1978).
326
their own practices as an Islamic analogue of yoga.115 Like the yogis, the Chishtis
were concerned with transforming the body. The anticipated result of this
transform ation was, ultimately, physical immortality.
Here again, G isu Daraz is a pivotal figure. G isu Daraz is credited with
having undergone death voluntarily, even leading his grandson in the performance
of his own funeral p ray ers.116 A surreal satire of hum an mortality, the story evokes
a hadith that was fam iliar to G isu Daraz: The friends of God do not die but rather
move from place to place. 117 G isu D arazs eldest son Sayyid A kbar Husayni was
the first Chishti author to pursue the doctrinal m otif of incorruption. He asserted
that the bodies of some saints, like those of the prophets, remain incorrupt in the
1 18
grave. Synchronously, as a nexus of popular piety and royal patronage, the
saintly tomb (dargah) was becom ing a dom inant institution in South Asian Sufism.
Akbar Husayni m ust be recognized as a stakeholder in this trend, as the heir
apparent of G isu Daraz, whose body was a valuable commodity in the growing
symbolic econom y.119
115 N iy a zi, R a z-i m u h abbat, 13.

116 Sayyid M in A llah H usayni, T a b sira t a l-k h a w a riq a t, cited in F ayzi, S ir a t-i B a n d a n a w a z, 83.
A ccording to a h a d ith that is frequently cited in Chishti literature, the privilege o f ch oosin g the time
o f their ow n death is a dispensation enjoyed by the prophets. N izam al-D in B ad auni, F a w a id
a l-fu a d , 41.
117 G isu D araz, S h a rh -i ta m h id a t, 260.
118 Sayyid Akbar H usayni, K itab a l - a q a id , ed. Sayyid A ta Husayn (Hyderabad: M uTn Press, 1946-
7), 106-107.
119 The interests involved are highlighted in the violen t con flict over G isu D arazs su ccession betw een
Akbar H usaynis son, a governm ent officer, and his younger brother. Muhammad Sulem an Siddiqi,
The B ah m an i Sufis (N ew D elhi: Idarah-i A dabiyat-i D elli, 1989), 53.
327
As the tomb cult proliferated, instances of incorruption increasingly
appeared in hagiographic narratives. In the fifteenth century, when N asir al-Din
C hishtis remains were exhum ed for transference from Ahmadabad to Patan one
year after his death, his shroud was said to be pristine. 120 In the seventeenth
century, N asir al-D ins great grandson M uhamm ad Chishti is reputed to have
descended beneath the mausoleum of their mutual ancestor N asir al-D in M ahm ud
Chiragh, whereupon the entombed saint bequeathed to him the sacred relics
121
(tabarrukat) of his office. The transm itter of this account, Rashid al-Din
Maw dud Lala (d. 1827), was him self later credited with incorruption. W hen his
grave was opened for repairs forty days after his death, it is said that his wide-open
122
eyes were seen surveying the scene around him. N or were accounts of
incorruption confined to this particular lineage. The body of another major Chishti
saint of the same era, Shah Niyaz Ahmad (d. 1824), is reported to have produced
fragrant effluvia from the grave.123 It would not be an exaggeration to say that by
the modern period incorruption had becom e a basic feature of Chishti sainthood.
As a Chishti saint, albeit an unconventional one, Inayat Khan was no
exception to the rule. In his journal Roznamcha, Khwaja Hasan N izam i attributed
the miracle of incorruption to his erstwhile guest:
120 C hishti, M a ja lis-i H a sa n iyya , fol. 15r.

121 R ashid al-D in M awdud Lala, M u k h b ir a l-a w liy a , Shahibagh C ollection, fol. 471 v.
122 A hm adabadi, K ita b al-M ah m u d, 20.
123 M ahbub al-Rahm an N iy a z i, Q u tb -i a la m (N ew D elhi: A -l O ffset Press, 1992), 74 -5 .
328
I w ent with brother Shaykh Ihsan al-Haqq, w hom I have already
mentioned, to the Tilak Lodge and had Sufi Sahibs body brought
back to my house with me, and I had a grave prepared for him at the
very place which he had liked while drinking tea and he was buried
there. .. .Two years later ... his relatives had come from France where
Sufi Sahib had many disciples. They requested that since so many
European and American disciples had asked that Sufi Sahibs remains
be brought and buried there, they wanted to take his corpse and put it
in a casket and take it to Europe. After reflecting on this request I
agreed because I thought that there would be a lot of spiritual benefit
for Europe and America through it. Thus after two years we opened
the tomb and while I lifted the filling stone with my own hands I saw
that Sufi Sahibs corpse, even after two years, had not decayed at all
and was in the same condition. The hair of his head and beard, as well
as the skin of his face and chest, had not decayed.124
To summarize the foregoing discussion, the ontological com m itm ent to the
body inherent in the Sunni theology m otivated the Chishtis to generate an expanding
repertory of em bodied m editative disciplines modeled in part on yoga. These
124 Khwaja Hasan N izam i, R o zn a m ch a, 8 January 1933, translated by M arcia H erm ansen in
C om m on T hem es, U ncom m on Contexts: The Sufi M ovem ents o f Hazrat Inayat Khan and Khwaja
329
disciplines constituted the prescribed m ethod for attaining an incorruptible body, the
defining characteristic of the Perfect Man. W hile other traditions of Islamic
esotericism frequently em phasized transcendence, the Chishtis increasingly
postulated em bodim ent as an intrinsic and inalienable dimension of authentic
selfhood.
Inayat Khan was a legatee of these concerns. As discussed in Chapter Three,
the practices Inayat com municated to his mureeds in the U.S. and Europe are, with
occasional exceptions, traceable to the standard repertoire of em bodied m editative
disciplines docum ented in the major Chishti manuals. A positive appreciation of the
spiritual potential of the body is often reflected in his theoretical formulations of
Sufism:
M any people think that the physical has little to do with the spiritual.
W hy not, they ask, cast the idea of the physical aside in order to be
entirely spiritual? If without the physical aspect of our being the
purpose of life could be accomplished, the soul would not have taken
a physical body and the spirit would not have produced the physical
world. ... It was necessary, so to speak, that God should w alk on the
earth in the physical body. And the conception that the physical body
is made of sin, and that this is the lowest aspect of being, will very
often prove to be a mistake, for it is through this physical body that
the highest and the greatest purpose of life is to be achieved. A person
Hasan N iz a m i, in A P e a rl in W ine, ed. Z ia Inayat-Khan, 35 2 -5 3 .
330
only calls it his physical body in ignorance; once the knowledge has
12^
com e to him he begins to look upon it as the sacred temple of God.
But if G isu Daraz marks the advent of the body as a major theoretical and
ritual preoccupation for the Chishtls, Inayat Khan marks a new departure. On the
question of the physicality of the resurrection, Inayat sides with the philosophers.
The body that resurrects after death, he categorically asserts, is a product of the
dream state, Suhraw ardis W orld of the Im age.126 Inayat does not posit physical
transform ation as the object of human life. But neither does he posit spiritual
abstraction. The signature concern of Inayats post-Chishtl Sufism is a m otif that
resonated acutely in the fin-de-siecle circles in which he moved as a musician-
philosopher: character development, or the art of personality.
As has been noted, Inayat was cognizant of the tendency of apologists for
im perialism to brandish theories of social evolution. In discussions of this kind, the
question of personality was frequently invoked as a basis for asserting the
superiority of the West. The British Islamicist Reynold Nicholson in 1922 devoted
a series of lectures to the idea of personality in Sufism. He concluded:
The M oslem s conception of personality is different from ours. In
Islam God, not man, is the measure of all things. In Islam there has
125 Inayat Khan, Sufi M essa g e, 4:1 2 6 -7 .

126 Inayat Khan, A kibat: Life A fter D eath (London: T he Sufi Publishing S ociety, 1918), 7 -8 , 10-11, et
passim .
331
hitherto been no place for what we call Humanism, implying the
value and sufficiency of the individual as such. In Islam the Perfect
M an, who is identified with M ohammed, represents the idea of
Divinity revealing itself in man rather than the ideal of Humanity
127
realizing itself in the personal life of God.
N icholson cited the Sufi literary tropes of the drop lost in the ocean and the moth
consum ed by the flame of the candle as examples of what he argued was the
ultimate inconsequence of human personality in Islamic thought.
The W estern-educated M uslim philosopher and poet M uham m ad Iqbal (d.
1938) cam e to similar conclusions. In his 1928-29 lectures, published as The
Reconstruction o f Religious Thought in Islam , he criticized M uslims for
succumbing to a morally degrading fatalism and argued that the Q uran stressed
the individuality, freedom and immortality of the ego. In this context Iqbal took
issue with pantheistic Sufism , but pointed to a higher Sufism, in which unitive
experience is not the finite ego effacing its own identity by some sort o f absorption
into the infinite Ego; it is rather the Infinite passing into the loving em brace o f the
finite. 128 Though he cited Sufi mystics such as Hallaj and RumI, Iqbals
127 R eynold A . N ich olson , The Idea o f P erso n a lity in Sufism, 73.
128 A llam a M uhammad Iqbal, The R econ stru ction o f R elig io u s Thought in Islam (Lahore: Sh.
M uhammad Ashraf, 1982), 110.
332
philosophy of khudi (selfhood) owes more to Bergson, Nietzsche and the
Rom antic tradition.
The conception of selfhood explored in the Romantic tradition has been
129
analyzed by M. H. Abrams under the rubric of expressivism . The expressive
current in post-Enlightenm ent thought represents a decisive move away from
classical theories of art. Plato, and Aristotle after him, ascribed to art the function
of mimesis, or imitation. In Platos theory, the world of sense imitates the eternal
Ideas, and the fine arts in turn imitate the impressions of the senses. W ith the rise
o f Cartesian rationalism the Platonic Ideas were conclusively banished and the
ground was prepared for a new aesthetic canon in which meaning was found in the
constructions of human reason rather than in a pre-existent cosmic order. In the
early nineteenth century metaphors of mind began to shift. The mimetic m etaphor
o f the m irror was increasingly superseded by the expressive metaphors of the lamp
and the fountain. Romantic theorists such as W ordsworth and Coleridge were
concerned with the liberation of subconscious feeling, the expression of the deepest
strata of the mind. The world was not merely to be reflected, but recreated
through the creative imagination of the artist.
Beyond the confines of pure aesthetic theory, expressivism had important
implications in the making of modern identity. Charles Taylor describes the
129 M . H. A bram s, The M irro r a n d the L am p: R om an tic T heory a n d the C ritica l T radition (Oxford:
Oxford U niversity Press, 1971).
333
general message of expressivism in this way: A human life is seen as m anifesting
a potential which is also being shaped by this manifestation; it is not just a m atter
of copying an external model or carrying out an already determinate
form ulation. 130 This vision contributed significantly to modern notions of
personal expression and fulfillment.
Classical Sufism contains a pronounced mimetic dimension. The self is
frequently portrayed as a mirror that must be polished to properly reflect the Divine
Attributes. In his influential poem Gulshan-i raz, M ahmud Shabistarl envisions
nonexistence as a mirror, the world as the reflection in the mirror, and the human
being as the eye of the reflection.131 Another, more elaborate, form ulation comes
from the pen of Shah Nizam al-Din Awrangabadi:
Postulate that all existing things are mirrors, and recognize whatever
sensible and intelligible perfections appear in them as forms of the
Names of the Divine Attributes. Moreover, postulate that the

universe is a single mirror, and see God in it in all His Divine
Attributes. Thus become a w itness, for first you were an
unveiler. After this rise higher, and practice the following
contemplation. W hen you see the universe, recognize that your
essence encompasses all things and all things are depicted within it.
Thus your essence is a mirror of all things. First you witness God in
what is other than yourself and now you witness God in yourself.
After this rise still higher and contemplate that possible beings are,
130 Taylor, S o u rces o f the Self, 375.

131 Shabistari, G u lsh an -i raz, 16.
334
with respect to existence, unreal. Hence, sublimate them, seeing them

all as epiphanic forms of God, established by Him. Thus you see
them all as the Divine Perfection and Beauty, which you witness in
God. Then rise higher and sublimate your own essence and witness
God in the essence of your being. For He is the W itness and He is the
W itnessed. You will see many mirrors, until your own imaginal
countenance comes into true focus and your glance rests upon it until
your senses are voided.132
The m etaphor of the mirror occurs frequently in Inayat K hans corpus. A
collection of his lectures treating the phenom enon of reflection was posthum ously
published in 1935 under the title of The M ind-W orld. The work begins with a
com parison of the m ind to a palace of m irrors ( dyina-khdna). Inayat cites
various Persian and Urdu poets in the course of the discussion, but his argument is
more than a restatement of classical articulations of the mirror metaphor. Like
earlier Sufi theorists, Inayat advocates removing the rust from the mirror of the
heart. But unlike his predecessors, he also problem atizes the act of reflection.
Identifying reflection with conditioning, Inayat explains that the tabula rasa o f the
soul is perpetually subjected to an unremitting stream of impressions. To absorb
im pressions indiscriminately is to be a victim of ones circumstances. Freedom and
creativity require an exercise of will:
132 Shah N izam al-D in A wrangabadi, N izam a l-q u lu b , 35.
335
W hat we must first accomplish in life is to clear the reflections from
133
our own heart, reflections which hinder our path.
If our heart is clear we receive [reflection] consciously, and the
reflection is distinct. If it is not clear we receive it unconsciously, and
the reflection is not clear, but we cannot help receiving it. ... If the
heart is clear enough to receive reflections fully and clearly, one can
choose oneself which to retain and which to repel.134
To filter impressions consciously is to creatively express the uniqueness of
ones personality. In discussing of the development of personality, Inayat argues
that the individuality of each person is a consequence of the uniqueness of God:
Every person will have different qualities unlike those of others, and every person
is unique in his way; in this lies the secret of the oneness of God. N ot only is God
one, but man is one too. Individuality, when cultivated, becomes personality, and
the fruition of personality is divinity:
On the earth-plane the personality develops out of the individuality.
The soul is an individual from the moment it is born upon the earth in
the worldly sense of the word; but it becomes a person as it grows.
For personality is the development of individuality, and in
133 Inayat Khan, The Sufi M essa g e, 4:255.

134 Ibid., 4:263.
336
personality, which is form ed by character-building, is born that spirit
which is the re-birth of the soul. The first birth is the birth of man, the
135
second birth is the birth of God.
M etaphors of birth and growth, and of seed and fruit, occur repeatedly in
Inayat K hans lectures and writings. Precedents are not absent in classical Sufi
literature. G isu Daraz portrays the human being as a tree that springs from the seed
136 _
of love ( ishq) and produces seeds of unity (wahdat). Both G isu D araz and
A ziz M iyan refer to a primal seed or prim al egg (tukhm-i aw w al, bayza-yi
a w w a l)n i In the context of Islamic context discourse, however, the use of
reproductive imagery is not without problems. The Q uran declares: He has
begotten no one, and is begotten of none (112:3). As a result, metaphors of seed
and egg are generally left ambiguous and undeveloped. But in the (post-) Christian
milieu in which Inayat elaborated his teachings, the metaphorical notion of the
birth of God was one that could be pursued more freely as a description of the
fulfillm ent of the hum an condition.
Botanical reproduction is a theme that is deployed repeatedly in Inayat
K hans poetry:
135 Inayat Khan, The Soul, W hence a n d W hither (N ew Lebanon, N .Y .: O m ega Press. 2 0 0 5 ), 52.
136 G isu Daraz, W ujud a l-'a sh iq in , 4-7.
137 Ibid., 13; M uhamm ad Taqi N iy a zi, R az-i n iya z (B areilly: Khanqah-i N iyaziyya, n.d.) 276.
337
O Thou, the seed of my life's plant, Thou wert hidden so long in my
budlike soul; but now Thou hast come out, O my life's fruit, after the
blossom ing of my heart.
Let me grow quietly in Thy garden as a speechless plant, that some
138
day my flowers and fruits may sing the legend of my silent past.
Let my plant bring forth Thy flowers,
Let my fruits produce Thy seed,
Let my heart becom e Thy lute, Beloved,
139
And my body Thy flute of reed. '
W hereas the reflective m irror is static, the growing plant is dynamic. The
fruit of the plant is the result of a developmental process. Botanical imagery is
therefore well suited to expressing what Nicholson calls the ideal of Humanity
realizing itself in the personal life of God.
This doctrinal perspective, which Nicholson was unable to find in classical
Sufism, is the hallm ark of Inayat K hans modern Sufism. The Divine M ind, Inayat
138 Inayat Khan, N o tes fr o m the U nstruck M u sic fr o m the G a ya n (London and Southampton: T he Sufi
M ovem ent, n.d.), 90.
139 Inayat Khan, The D ivin e S ym ph on y o r Vadan (London and Southampton: The Sufi M ovem ent,
1926), 43.
338
contends, is com pleted after manifestation. G ods thinking evolves in the
experience of creation. Individual souls do not merely reflect G ods knowledge,
but contribute to it. Thus in the fullness of human experience is divine fulfillment:
The purpose of life is fulfilled in rising to the greatest heights and in
diving to the deepest depths of life; in widening one's horizon, in
penetrating life in all its spheres; in losing oneself, and in finding
oneself in the end. In the accomplishm ent of the purpose of life the
purpose of creation is fulfilled. Therefore in this fulfillm ent it is not
that man attained, but that God H im self has fulfilled His purpose.140
Such experience is not simply mimetic, but is expressive in the most basic sense of
the word:
M any live and few think, and among the few who think there are
few er still who can express themselves. Then their soul's im pulse is
repressed, for in the expression of the soul the divine purpose is
fulfilled, and poetry is the fulfillm ent of the divine im pulse to express
som ething.141
[T]o rise above all the opposing influence and to give the fullest
expression to the free will brings about that result of life which is the
fulfillm ent of the soul's com ing on earth.142
140 Inayat Khan, The P u rp o se o f Life, 65.

141 Inayat Khan, Sufi M essa g e, 10:208.
142 Inayat Khan, Supplem entary Papers, Fazal M anzil A rchive, 208.
339
Inayat Khan relates spiritual realization to aesthetic realization.143 In
analyzing art, he distinguishes between imitation, or copying, and production, or
improving and improvising. To imitate, he says, is to portray a selection from
nature with patience, balance, and moderation. To produce, conversely, is to
remake a selection from nature through the faculty of creative imagination. The
latter is riskier, he avers, but potentially of superior value. Nature is what God
makes as God, and art is what God makes as m an. 144 Just as individuality is
perfected in personality, so nature is perfected in art:
One may think of art as something inferior to nature, but I do not

think so. I think art finishes nature; that in art there is something
divine, that God Himself, through man, finishes this beauty which is
called art. In other words, art is not only an imitation of nature, art is
the im provement upon nature, be it painting, drawing, poetry, or
music. But the best of all arts is the art of personality.145
To summarize, Inayat K hans articulation of Sufism represents a
hybridization of Indo-Islamic (specifically Chishti) and modern W estern
(specifically Romantic) intellectual canons. The result is a spiritual psychology that
143 The S u fis interest in life is art and beauty. Inayat Khan, Gatheka 5 , Fazal M anzil A rchive. Is
this why Frau Forster N ietzsch e show ed a kindred spirit (G uillaum e-Scham hart and Van V oorst van
B eest, ed., B io g ra p h y, 160)? Her brother fam ously declared, in The B irth o f T ra g ed y, E xisten ce is
only ju stified as an aesthetic phenom enon.
144 Inayat Khan, Sufi M essa g e, 10:168.
145 Inayat Khan, The A lch em y o f H appin ess, 43.
invokes theology to valorize the freedom and creativity of the human subject, and
posits the development and expression of the personality as the summum bonum of
existence.
CONCLUSION
In the period of time during which this dissertation was in preparation many
changes have occurred on the international and domestic political landscape relative
to the mutual perceptions of the Islamic world and the W est. The fateful events of
9/11, followed by the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, have lent large-scale
popular credence to the notion of an inevitable clash of civilizations. As a result,
the study of Islam in professional as well as am ateur presentations has em erged
into the spotlight of m ainstream public discourse. A flow of books gauging the
dim ensions of the Islamic threat continues to do brisk trade. At the same time
there has been a counterflow of modernist M uslim apologetics attempting to build
the case for a postm odern convivencia.
The issue of doctrinal differences between Christianity and Islam, though
frequently cited in the popular media, represents only a minute part of the larger
problem. Vastly more relevant is the determining effect of what M arshall Hodgson
calls the great W estern Transm utation of the 17th and 18th centuries, characterized
by accelerated processes of rationalization and industrialization. It was this
unprecedented historical transformation that gave shape to the canon of cultural
attitudes custom arily identified as W estern values. It also redefined global power
relations, propelling newly consolidated European nations on maritim e com mercial
enterprises culminating in colonial conquests. Thus W estern cultural m odernity and

341
342
political hegemony reached the M uslim world as a problematic package. This is the
historical context that prefigures the contemporary debate about the com patibility of
Islam and the modern W est.
Edw ard Said initiated an important conversation by com pellingly im plicating
W estern representations of the Orient (and hence of Islam) in the exercise of im perial
domination. At the end of his life Said m oderated his position by acknowledging the
existence in W estern discourse of narratives that subvert rather than underwrite the
agenda of imperialism. Conversely theorists of Postcolonial Studies have
highlighted the ways in which colonial subjects have negotiated, m im icked and
contested the authority o f im perial regimes. These developments have clarified the
hybrid character of the colonial encounter and established an analytical fram ework
that is dialogical in the Bakhtinian sense.
The present dissertation is a contribution to this continuing conversation. As
a case study in the religious hybridity of the late colonial and early postcolonial
periods, it represents an effort to understand W estern and Indo-Islamic intellectual
and religious currents as mutually com binatory and transformative elements in the
making of m odern identity. In doing so, it calls into question the notion of pure
traditions on which the currently popular clash of civilizations thesis depends.
W hat do the Sufi Order and Sufi M ovem ent tell us about the encounter
between Islam and the W est? The m embership of these organizations was, and
remains, prim arily European and American. Inasmuch as the members assimilated
343
key aspects of Islamic theology and prophetology and generally m aintained a
positive appreciation of Islamic and Indian sacred traditions, these Occidental Sufis
could be described as personifying the tendency of affirmative O rientalism . But if
they affirmed the Indo-Islamic Other, they did so within the context of their own
cultural and intellectual proclivities. It was not Islam or Indianness that they
sought, but rather a new post-nationalist, trans-religious, and mystically interiorized
extension of modern selfhood.
The disenchantm ent that W eber posited as concom itant with secularization
had reached a critical mass in the anomie of late industrial society. Traditional forms
of faith could no longer support acceptance, but the simple sureties of positivism
were crumbling as the newly achieved autonomous subject revealed unforeseen
irrational depths. The same drive to conquer and control that motivated the colonial
project was now redirected toward the terra incognita that opened out from within
the modern psyche. At the same time, disaffection with nationalism and the
im minence of decolonization stimulated visions of a global com monwealth
transcending national and religious boundaries and holding the prom ise of a world
citizenry united in allegiance to humanistic principles.
In answer to the need for interiority, Inayat K hans Sufism offered a repertory
of m editative disciplines that was, with respect to technique, notably more
sophisticated than the occult systems then current in Europe and America. In
response to the search for a nondenom inational religious identity, it offered a
344
capacious mystical universalism that theoretically subsumed all w orld religions
within a prophetological paradigm that was constructed of principles com m on to the
religions of the book (i.e. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), but which was also
specifically adapted to the evolutionist current in modern thought. Sufism in Inayat
K hans articulation thus resonated acutely with the concerns of Europeans and
Americans at the crossroads of late modernity. Accordingly, in some measure, this
new Sufism galvanized the modern project.
But if East and W est did indeed meet in Inayat K hans Occidental
Sufism (in defiance of Rudyard K iplings famous dictum), the meeting was not an
effortless or equilibrious one. In London, differences on the question of Sufism s
relation to Islam led M uslims to increasingly distance themselves. In Suresnes,
Inayat Khan found him self in the delicate position of mediating between his
m ureeds burgeoning messianic expectations and evangelical impulses and the
traditional parameters of the Indo-Islamic Sufi heritage he represented. In the sphere
of organization, the tension manifested as a conflict between the episcopal model
favored by the leading mureeds and the courtly model that Inayat Khan expected.
Inayats departure for India in 1926 was arguably an inevitable consequence of
unresolved contradictions within the Sufi M ovement. In the decades after his death,
these contradictions played out in a series of rancorous schisms that successively
fractured the organizational legacy of Inayat K hans Sufism.
345
At the present moment, the Sufi Order International is engaged with the Sufi
M ovem ent International and the Sufi Ruhaniat International in a series of formal and
inform al bilateral talks aimed at addressing past and present grievances and
preparing the way for im proved collaboration in the future. In the context of a stated
mission to form a nucleus of the hum an brotherhood, organizational disunity
underscored by bouts of interpersonal acrimony can only be deem ed a serious
liability. The Sufi M essage is not exem pt from M arshall M cLuhans insight that
the m edium is the message. As an Inayati Sufi, I hold the hope that we will prove
capable of redefining our mutual protocols and attitudes in order to more fittingly
fulfill our founders admonitions to rise above distinctions and differences and
spread the M essage of God far and wide. As an historian of religions, I am
com pelled to acknowledge that if hybridity is an intrinsic tendency in the formation
and perpetuation of religious traditions, so too is its dialectical counterpart:
schismatic differentiation. Occidental Sufism represents a tableau in which both
tendencies are richly illustrated, and as such, it deserves further study.
346
APPENDIX I
The fourfold initiatic genealogy (silsila) of Inayat Khan.
Chishti lineage:
M uhamm ad
All ibn A bl Talib
Hasan Basrl
Abd al-W ahid ibn Zayd
M uham m ad Fuzayl ibn Ayaz
Ibrahim ibn Adham
Sadid al-DIn Hudhayfa M arashi
Am in al-DIn Hubayra Basrl
M um shad Ulu D Inwarl
Abu Ishaq Sham! Chishti
Abu Ahm ad Abdal Chishti
Abu M uham m ad Chishti
Nasr al-DIn Abu Y usuf Chishti
Qutb al-DIn M awdud Chishti
H ajjl Sharif ZindanI Chishti
Uthman HarunI Chishti
M u In al-DIn Hasan Chishti
Qutb al-DIn Bakhtiyar KakI Chishti
Farid al-DIn M asud Ganj-i Shakar Chishti
N izam al-DIn M uham m ad Chishti
N aslr al-DIn M ahm ud Chiragh-i D ihll Chishti
Kamal al-DIn A llam a Chishti
Siraj al-DIn Chishti
Ilm al-DIn Chishti
M ahm ud Raj an Chishti
Jamal al-DIn Jamm an Chishti
Hasan M uham m ad Chishti
M uham m ad Chishti
M uhyi al-DIn Y usuf Yahya MadanI Chishti
Shah K allm Allah JahanabadI Chishti
Shah N izam al-DIn AwrangabadI Chishti
Fakhr al-DIn D ihlaw l Chishti
Ghulam Qutb al-DIn Chishti
Ghulam N aslr al-DIn Chishti
347
M uham m ad Hasan Jill KalimI Chishti

Abu H ashim M adam Chishti
Inayat Khan
SuhrawardI lineage:
M uhamm ad
All ibn A bl Talib
Hasan Basrl
Abd al-W ahid ibn Zayd
M uham m ad Fuzayl ibn Ayaz
Ibrahim ibn Adham
Shaqlq BalkhI
Hatim A sam m
Abu Turab N akhshabl
Abu U m ar Istakhri
Abu M uham m ad J a far Kharraz
Abu Abd Allah ibn K haflf
A bul- Abbas Nahaw andl
AkhI Farrukh ZanjanI
M uham m ad ibn Abd Allah
W ajlh al-DIn Abu Hafs SuhrawardI
Ziya al-DIn SuhrawardI
Shihab al-DIn SuhrawardI
Lai Shahbaz Qalandar
Jalal al-DIn
Baha al-DIn Zakariyya
Sadr al-DIn M uhamm ad
Rukn al-DIn A bul-Fath
M akhdum Jahaniyan
Sadr al-DIn Raju Qattal
Ilm al-DIn ShatibI
Qazan
M ahm ud Raj an Chishti
Jamal al-DIn Jamm an Chishti
M uham m ad Chishti
M uhyl al-DIn Y usuf Yahya M adanI Chishti
348
Fakhr al-DIn D ihlawi Chishti

G hulam Qutb al-D in Chishti
G hulam N aslr al-D in Chishti
M uham m ad Hasan Jill K allm l Chishti
Abu Hashim M adani Chishti
Inayat Khan
Qadiri lineage:
M uhamm ad
A li ibn A bi Talib
Hasan Basri
H abib Ajam i
D aud T ai
M aruf Kharki
Sari Saqati
Junayd Baghdadi
Abu Bakr Shibli
Abd al-A ziz Tam im i
A bul-Faraj Tartusi
A bul-Hasan A ll Hankari
Abu Said M akhzum i
Abd al-Qadir Jilani
Ziya al-D in SuhrawardI
N ajm al-D in Kubra
M ajd al-D in Baghdadi
Razi al-D in A ll Lala
Jamal al-D in Jurfani
N ur al-D in Isfaraini
A la al-Dawla Simnani
Sharaf al-D in M ahmud
Ali H am adani
Ishaq Khuttalani
M uham m ad Nurbakhsh
M uhamm ad A ll Nurbakhsh
M uham m ad Ghiyas Nurbakhsh
M uham m ad Chishti
M uhyi al-D in Y usuf Yahya M adani Chishti
Shah K alim Allah Jahanabadi Chishti
349
Shah Nizam al-DIn AwrangabadI Chishti

Fakhr al-DIn D ihlaw i Chishti
G hulam Qutb al-DIn Chishti
Ghulam N aslr al-DIn Chishti
Abu H ashim M adani Chishti
Inayat Khan
Naqshbandl lineage:
M uhamm ad
Abu Bakr
Salman Farsi
Qasim ibn M uhamm ad
J a far Sadiq
Abu Y azld Bistam i
A bul-Hasan KharaqanI
A bul-Q asim GurganI
All FarmadI
Yusuf HamadanI
Abd al-Khaliq GhijduwanI
Arif Rivkirab
Ashhar Faghnawl
All R am tlni
M uham m ad Baba
A m ir Kulal
B aha al-DIn Naqshband
Khwaja Y aqub
Khwaja Ahrar
M uham m ad QazI
Khwajagi AmkunagI
Khwaja Kalan
M uhamm ad Hashim
M uham m ad M iskln
M ir M uhtarim Allah
Fakhr al-DIn D ihlaw i Chishti
Ghulam Qutb al-D in Chishti
G hulam N aslr al-DIn Chishti
350

Abu H ashim M adani Chishti
Inayat Khan
Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
351
APPENDIX H
Claimants to the legacy of Inayat Khan.
Inayat Khan
(d. 1927)
Rabia M artin M aheboob Vilayat Samuel

(d. 1947) Khan Inayat Khan Lewis
(d. 1948) (d. 2004) (d. 1971)
Ivy Duce M uhamm ad Zia Inayat- M oineddin

(d. 1981) Ali Khan Khan Jablonski
(d. 1958) (d. 2002)
James M usharaff M ahmood Shabda Kahn

Mackie Khan Khan
(d. 2001) (d. 1967)
Carol Fazal Khan

W eyland (d. 1990)
Conner
Hidayat Sitara
Khan Brutnell
(d. 2004)
Elias
Amadon
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BIOGRAPHY
Zia Inayat-Khan was bom in Novato, CA, in 1971. He earned his B.A. from the
London School of Oriental and African Studies, with a dual major in Persian
Literature and Religious Studies. At the turn of the m illennium he was ritually
confirm ed as the successor of his father, Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, as Head of the Sufi
Order International, an office he duly assumed in 2004. Zia Inayat-Khan founded the
esoteric school The Suluk Academy in 2003, and the magazine Elixir: Consciousness,
Conscience and Culture in 2006.

A Hybrid Sufi Order at The Crossroads of Modernity The Sufi Order and Sufi Movement of Pir - o - Murshid Inayat Khan

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A HYBRID SUFI ORDER

A T THE CROSSROADS OF M ODERNITY:

THE SUFI O RDER AND SUFI M OV EM EN T

OF PIR-O-M URSHID INAYAT KHAN

D epartm ent o f Religion

Bruce B. Lawrence, Supervisor

D issertation submitted in partial fulfillm ent o f

All rights reserved.

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