Please join us for the first gathering of our new series, Inner History, with Pir Zia Inayat Khan, Prof. Marcia Hermansen, and Prof. Omid Safi. 

The inner life is a birth of the soul. — Hazrat Inayat Khan

If history is the sentence of our imprisonment, then history, recoded, can become the password of our release. — William Irwin Thompson

In his teachings in The Inner Life, Hazrat Inayat Khan describes the process that leads from spiritual exile to homecoming. The inner life is attained when the body, mind, and soul become consciously conjoined. To realize this entelechy, or perfection of nature, the mystic must make common cause with the animal, vegetal, mineral, jinnic, angelic, and universal dimensions of the Earth, step by step.

The inner life has frequently been viewed as a personal pursuit. In reality, however, no one exists in isolation. History is a caravan. To study the inner story of the Earth is to discover how, down the ages, angels, prophets, and sages have traced the contours of the entelechy by teaching humanity the sacred knowledge of animals, plants, stones, jinns, angels, and the Logos-Sophia. In each age, a particular wisdom was revealed.

The inner arc of sacred history and the personal quest for the wholeness mirror each other. If we can discern the code, the former has the potential to illuminate and energize the latter. This is the meaning of the Sufi injunction to find “the prophets of your being.”

Viewed panoramically, the ages of planetary time disclose the unfurling of a mystery: the animal consciousness of the Archaic, the vegetal consciousness of the Agricultural Revolution, the mineral consciousness of the Metal Age, the jinnic consciousness of the Axial shift, the angelic consciousness of Antiquity, and the universal consciousness of Late Antiquity. These ages are then followed by seven ensuing epochs that recapitulate the cycle on a new level and in swifter succession. 

Each age harbors a body of wisdom as well as a panoply of veils. There is loss and gain at every juncture, both dismal forgetting and “every day a new splendor.” As the wheel of time turns, earthlings move in a spagyric gyre through the sophic whorl of the planet.

Our autumn gathering marks the beginning of our contemplative investigation of the spiritual history of the world. In this initial convening we will survey the vast tract of time from Earth’s inception to the Copper Age (5th-4th millennium B.C.E.). Subjects will include the primordial elementals of the Earth, the advent of humans, nascent prophecy and primal religion, ancient upheavals, forgotten migrations, and the ecstasy of shaman and animal. 

Our primary sources will consist of Genesis and the Qur’an, the Tales of the Prophets (qisas al-anbiya’), the mystical historical writings of Shaykh al-Akbar Ibn ‘Arabi, Mawlana Rumi, Shah Wali Allah, Hazrat Inayat Khan, Pirzadi-Shahida Noor, and Pir Vilayat, as well as prehistoric art. 

Pir Zia Inayat Khan, Prof. Marcia Hermansen, and Prof. Omid Safi comprise the faculty of the course. Please find the teachers’ biographies below. Pir Zia will delineate the broad outlines of spagyric history, while Prof. Safi  and Prof. Hermansen will ground the narrative in the prophetological visions of Ibn ‘Arabi, Mawlana Rumi, and Shah Wali Allah.

This will be the first in a series of gatherings exploring our esoteric origins, with this initial one focused on the period between the Garden of Eden to the Tower of Babel. This unique and expansive study is open to all interested seekers. Translation will be offered in French, German and Turkish. There is no need to register for the complete series; participants are welcome to register for any or all sessions as they are scheduled.

9:00 am Opening 

9:15 am Pir Zia

10:30 am Break

11:00 am Pir Zia 

12:15 pm Break

2:00 pm Guest Faculty

3:15 pm Closing

3:00 pm Opening 

3:15 pm Pir Zia

4:30 pm Break

5:00 pm Pir Zia 

6:15 pm Break

8:00 pm Guest Faculty

9:15 pm Closing

General tuition is $230 for the three-day program, including video and audio recordings. There is also a limited income/student rate of $150. Please see the sidebar to register.

Our program is offered in English, Francais, Deutsch, and Turkish. Discounts are available for those from particular nations due to currency valuation. These nations include Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Turkey. If your nation is listed, or if you feel your nation should be listed, please contact us for details. 

If you have any questions or needs related to the Inner History Series, please email us at astana@inayatiyya.org.

Future Sessions

The next session for Inner History will take part November 15-17, 2024—The Bronze & Iron Ages.

As shared above, please register for any or all sessions. They are open to any and every one with advance registration.

Core Faculty

Pir Zia Inayat Khan, Ph.D., is a scholar of religion and teacher of Sufism in the universalist Sufi lineage of his grandfather, Hazrat Inayat Khan. Pir Zia is president of the Inayatiyya and founder of Sulūk Academy, a school of Sufi contemplative study and practice. He is author of Immortality: A Traveler’s Guide; Dream Flowers: The Collected Works of Noor Inayat Khan with a Critical Commentary by Pir Zia Inayat Khan; Mingled Waters: Sufism and the Mystical Unity of Religions; and Saracen Chivalry: Counsels on Valor, Generosity and the Mystical Quest. He is editor of Caravan of Souls: An Introduction to the Sufi Path of Hazrat Inayat Khan and A Pearl in Wine: Essays in the Life, Music and Sufism of Hazrat Inayat Khan. Pir Zia divides his time between Richmond, Virginia and Suresnes, France.

Prof. Marcia Hermansen is Professor of Religious Studies and Director of Islamic World Studies at Loyola University Chicago. Her areas of research include Sufism, classical and contemporary Islamic thought, Muslims in America, Islam and Muslims in South Asia, Shah Wali Allah studies, and women and gender in Islam. Her writings include several translations from Persian and Arabic of the works of Shah Wali Allah of Delhi (d. 1762) whose analysis of sacred history and spiritual development is especially germane to the topics that will be covered here. Her approach combines practical experience and study of Sufism in the Chishti lineage with the academic study of the classical Sufi tradition and she has recently co-edited the volumes Varieties of American Sufism and Sufism in Western Contexts.

Prof. Omid Safi is a teacher in the Sufi tradition of Radical Love & Founder of Illuminated Courses & Tours. His online, video-based courses range from Sufi approaches to the Qur’an to Rumi. The Illuminated Tours offer spiritually oriented tours to Turkey and Morocco. He is a professor at Duke University specializing in Islamic spirituality and contemporary thought. His Memories of Muhammad is an award-winning biography of the Prophet Muhammad. His most recent book is Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition. Omid is also deeply committed to liberationist prophetic traditions in the legacy of Martin Luther King, Rabbi Heschel, and Malcolm X. He has been invited by the family of Dr. King to speak at Ebenezer Church on the relevance of Dr. King for today’s America, and has delivered the Martin Luther King keynote in the annual national MLK service.