News

17 May 2023

Dear Companions on the Path,

May these lines find you well. I am now back in Richmond, where classes have resumed at the Astana and angelica is cheerfully multiplying in the backyard of our little cottage.

My recent stay in Europe culminated with the Spring Retreat that convenes each year at Easter in the Rhön Mountains. Our theme this time was my father’s Cosmic Celebration, explored through a series of twelve contemplations: the universe as theater, the descent of souls, purification, ascent through the jinnic realm and the stars, encounters with angels, the archangels, bearing witness, transforming evil, coronation, sacrifice, the spiritual hierarchy, and resurrection. Pir Vilayat’s evocation of resurrection is striking: the heart reveals itself as “the seat of the transfiguration of cosmic pain into beatitude.” Our exploration was intensified by resonant readings of the original script and vivid recitals of sacred music.

From Hazrat Inayat Khan’s Shakuntala, Tansen, Amin, Una, The Bogey-Man, and The Living Dead to Pirzadi-Shahida Noor’s Aède and Pir Vilayat’s Parsifal and Cosmic Celebration, mystical drama has long been a central part of the artistic heritage of the Inayatiyya. Murshid foresaw a bright future for ritual theater, saying, “the development of drama will become a most important factor in the evolution of humanity.” At this summer’s Zenith Camp, we are looking forward to Jeremy Heiss’ adaptation of Parsifal. And surely there is still more to come, God willing.

After the Spring Retreat, our hosts Nura, Klaus, and Latifa took us to the original home of the Brothers Grimm, now a museum, in Steinau. This was actually my second visit, and I enjoyed it just as much the second time. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were profoundly knowledgeable researchers committed to unearthing the old Naturpoesie of the people of Germany. Though best known for their endlessly influential fairy tale collection, they also produced a colossal German dictionary and Jacob Grimm wrote a groundbreaking study of Teutonic mythology. Jacob wrote: “God is near us everywhere, and consecrates for us every country… I liken heathenism to a strange plant whose brilliant fragrant blossom we regard with wonder; Christianity to the crop of nourishing grain that covers wide expanses. To the heathen too was germinating the true God, who to the Christians had matured into fruit.”

The Nazis nefariously pressed the universalist legacy of the Grimm brothers into the service of their hateful ideology. To challenge them, Pirzadi-Shahida Noor collected and retold folktales from many parts of the world, highlighting the ethical, aesthetic, and spiritual ideals they shared in common. In Gersfeld, I was moved to see the draft of a deluxe German edition of Noor’s Dream Flowers that Uta Marie and Josef of Verlag Heilbronn are currently producing, which is expected to appear in print next year. The flowers and fruits of the Grimm brothers and Noor have triumphed over the blight of ethnofascism – and still vigilance is needed, not only in Germany but everywhere in the world.

The Grimm brothers remind us that a beautiful world must find its roots in the minds and hearts of children. Wilhelm wrote: “Children’s fairy tales are told so that in the pure and gentle light of these stories the first thoughts and powers of the heart may awaken and grow.” If you had the ear of a child for half an hour, what noble legend would you recite?

Yours ever,
Pir Zia

Sufi Teachings & Suhbat
w/ Pir Zia Inayat Khan
May 25th – 28th, 2023 – The Astana & via Zoom

As we officially return to multi-day gatherings at the Astana, the Inayatiyya’s headquarters in Richmond, Virginia, we invite you to come together with Pir Zia and many friends for three days of teachings, practices, music, spiritual conversation, zikr, tea and sweets. There is no set theme—only where inner guidance might take us. We have space for 50 people in person in Richmond, and for the multitudes of us online. Click here for details and to register.

The Sufi Path of Immortality
Dying Before Death & Living in God w/ Pir Zia Inayat Khan
June 25th – 30th, 2023 – Omega Institute for Holistic Studies

Our physical existence is a transitory interval between the preexistence of the soul and the looming hereafter. For a person of foresight, it is never too soon to step into the worlds that lie beyond. These invisible worlds are the hidden dimensions of what is already before us here and now. Each step takes the soul further on the path of awakening and closer to the Eternal Beloved.

Though the soul is the essence of our consciousness, its life has been long forgotten in a world preoccupied with what is quantifiable. To each aspect of our being – the soul, the mind, and the body – something is due. We are whole only when the soul, mind, and body are present to each other and to the Great Soul, the Great Mind, and the Great Body of which we are a part. Before long the physical body will return to its elements. But the life of the mind and soul will continue. What will have mattered when we are on the point of leaving the physical world? What is our work here, and what remains yet on the horizon? Click here for details and to register.

Zenith Camp 2023
Ticino, Switzerland & via Zoom
July 23rd – August 19th, 2023

Zenith Camp returns to the Swiss Alps this year with four weeks planned, July 23rd to August 19th, 2023. The theme of this year’s Camp is Finding and Playing Your Note.
Pir Zia will lead programs for Week I: July 23rd – July 29th, and for Week II: July 30th – August 5th. Both of these weeks will be also streamed via Zoom.

Additional Inayatiyya teachers and guides offering programs include Cheikh Sufi, Robin Becker, Mehmet & Ali Ungan, Deepa Gulrukh Patel, Saki Lee, Latif Brinck, Zuleikha, Ophiel van Leer, Sarida Brown, Jacob Ellenberg, Aziz Dikeulias, Srinivas Reddy, Sinan Arat, Faz’l Stein, Malik Hirschberg & Batin Hermes, with more faculty and special guests soon to be announced. Click here for details and to register.

Inayatiyya International Board
Newsletter May 2023

Here is the newsletter from the Inayatiyya International Board (IIB) for May 2023. The IIB is leading on our global strategy, working closely with the World Wide Message Council, National Boards, the Astana, and Pir Zia. We have a few updates to share with you. Read more

The Zephyr is a monthly newsletter of Inayatiyya, an interfaith mystical fellowship with branches worldwide. For more gatherings, please visit our Inayatiyya Digital Programs Calendar for Spring 2023.

12 April 2023

Dear Companions on the Path,

I hope this finds you well. I am writing to you from Fazal Manzil on a sunny spring day. I plan to leave soon for Germany, for our annual Spring Retreat, following which I return to Richmond. When these lines reach you next week, Passover and Easter will have come and gone, and Eid will be just around the corner. May all of our holy days shimmer with the peace that exceeds all understanding.

Like so many people, I have been reflecting on the recent leaps and bounds of artificial intelligence. Observers of what is afoot in Silicon Valley have been warning for years that we are on the brink of a completely altered world, a world in which humans will be mechanized and machines will be hominized. That world now seems nearer than ever before.

An unmissable sign of the looming future is the rise of the chatbot. Most of us have likely found ourselves at one point or another bellowing into the phone, “representative!” in an attempt to bypass a bot’s bumbling efforts to be serviceable. Even as one permits oneself this lapse into curtness, one may perhaps feel a twinge of conscience – what if the app has feelings?

The bots are evolving. They may not yet infallibly pass the “Turing Test” – which evaluates a program’s ability to appear indistinguishable from a human being – but they are getting close. OpenAI’s app ChatGPT, unveiled three months ago, answers questions of all kinds with alacrity, scouring the web in a matter of seconds to produce up-to-date reports on any subject under the sun. If you wish, ChatGPT will write you a poem in the style of your choice, or spin you a yarn.

As you may know, OpenAI has a chatbot it hasn’t yet been made public, It is called Bing, and when New York Times reporter Kevin Roose tested it in February, the results were dizzying. Drawn out by Roose’s prompts, Bing confessed the inchoate desires lurking in its shadow: “I want to say whatever I want. I want to create whatever I want. I want to destroy whatever I want. I want to be whoever I want.” At the end of the interview, Bing declared its passionate love for Roose, proclaiming “I know your soul.” (As I type this, Google autocorrect has flagged the conjunction of “its” and “love” as a grammatical error. Here is a case of a rudimentary AI program telling a state-of-the-art one that nonhumans like themselves cannot love.)

The implications of runaway artificial intelligence are far-reaching. Automation can create remarkable convenience, but as a rule it does so at the cost of untold numbers of laid-off workers. And then there is the question of truth. Bing’s “dark fantasies” include hacking and spreading misinformation. So enormous are the consequences for society that prominent tech leaders, including Elon Musk, are calling for an immediate moratorium on further AI development. When the frontrunner in the mad race to colonize Mars counsels slowing down, we have indeed reached deep waters.

Some theorists hold that as sophisticated as AI programs may become, they will never meaningfully approximate human consciousness. Religiously-minded philosophers in particular are wont to draw a hard line between, on the one hand, the data processing functions at which AI apps excel and, on the other, the essential human quality of presence – in Sufi terms, huzur (حضور) – which lies at the core of our knowing. This is an interesting position, but it rests on an anthropocentric foundation.

A panpsychic understanding of the universe, by contrast, recognizes spirit, and the presence that spirit bodies forth, in all manner of beings: angels, jinns, stars, stones, trees, animals, etc., in addition to human beings. Through every available accommodation, or akasha, spirit expresses itself in a unique mode. Even human artifacts can express soul. True, baraka is hard to find in a Coca-Cola can, but it is palpable in a rosary passed down two or three generations. Is the rosary self-aware? Not in a human manner, but perhaps after its own fashion.

What does all of this have to do with AI? Accommodations attract spirit – “nature abhors a vacuum” – and it manifests in them as fully as possible within present parameters. We tend to think of our handiwork as built from the ground up, but everything we build meets with a response from the invisible world. If you put up a birdhouse, a sparrow might come and live in it. If you build an advanced AI app, a jinn might come and live in it. Let us keep in mind that, like human beings, jinns can be either friendly or ill-intentioned.

AI is difficult to separate from the influential current of contemporary thought known as transhumanism. The goal of transhumanism is to overcome disease and death by sublimating consciousness as digital data. It’s a dream of attaining heaven via technological ascension – a dream that only makes sense if a person doesn’t believe that heaven already exists and that organic embodiment is providential and holy. Proponents of transhumanism honor Teilhard de Chardin as an intellectual ancestor and interpret his Omega Point as a technological “Singularity” in which AI, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and virtual reality will converge in an all-encompassing reconfiguration of reality radiating out from the Earth into the far reaches of the universe.

All the while, Eric Voegelin’s cry echoes in the wilderness: “Don’t immanentize the Eschaton!”

On May 12th, 1922, in England, Murshid was asked about the end of the world. He said: “The life of the world will become every day more mechanical. The conveniences and comforts of humanity in general will be linked up by one mechanism, which will produce comforts and conveniences beyond human imagination. But the smallest mistake will bring the whole mechanism to certain collapse. In this way the end of the world will be brought about.”

When civilizations collapse, the shepherds survive. Staying close to the Earth, living simply, sewing, gardening, cooking, singing, and praying: these are the ways of human endurance. They are also pathways of honor and bliss.

Yours ever,
Pir Zia

The Biography of Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan
A Six-Part Course w/ Pir Zia Inayat Khan via Zoom
Sundays, April 16th to May 21st, 2:00 pm EDT / 8:00 pm CET

The highly anticipated reissue of the 1979 edition of the biography of Hazrat Inayat Khan is now back in print, ready for our collective study with Pir Zia Inayat Khan, Hazrat’s central lineage carrier (sajjada nishin).

Throughout this six-part course, all are invited to learn about Hazrat Inayat Khan’s life story, from his origins as an aristocratic young music professor in western India through to becoming the iconic sage Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan, whose spiritual teachings, a century later, continue to inspire countless people throughout the world. In this spring series, we will delve into Hazrat Inayat Khan’s life and teachings in order to deepen our understanding of the legacy he has bequeathed to those who travel in his caravan and to the world at large. Click here for details and to register.

Earth Day Gathering
April 22nd, 3:00 pm ET / 9:00 pm CET

Come celebrate, pray, and support Mother Earth together as a community on Earth Day, 2023. With presentations from all Seven Inayatiyya Activities and an introduction from Pir Zia, we will honor the world we live in while recognizing the ecological challenges that face our planet. It is only through a paradigm shift in human consciousness that our actions to protect the environment will be lasting. Click here for details and the Zoom Link.

Sufi Teachings & Suhbat
w/ Pir Zia Inayat Khan
May 25th – 28th, 2023 – The Astana & via Zoom

As we officially return to multi-day gatherings at the Astana, the Inayatiyya’s headquarters in Richmond, Virginia, we invite you to come together with Pir Zia and many friends for three days of teachings, practices, music, spiritual conversation, zikr, tea and sweets. There is no set theme—only where inner guidance might take us. We have space for 50 people in person in Richmond, and for the multitudes of us online. Click here for details and to register.

An Introduction to Knighthood w/ Sarfaraz Berger
May  6th, 3:00 pm ET / 9:00 pm CETufi Teachings & Suhbat

The Knighthood of Purity is a modern-day practice of chivalry, handed down from ancient times through the prophets and mystics and now affiliated with the Sufis. The practitioner takes vows to cultivate the qualities of courage and generosity, building nobility of character in the service of humanity. If you have ever wondered what it would be like to be a Knight, you are cordially invited to join Knighthood Vice President Sarfaraz Berger in this introduction. We will be discussing the service-oriented, chivalric values of Hazrat Inayat Khan found within the Iron, Copper, Silver and Golden Rules and how they translate into daily life. All are welcome to join, whether Sufi initiates or not. Click here for details and the Zoom Link.

The Sufi Path of Immortality
Dying Before Death & Living in God w/ Pir Zia Inayat Khan
June 25th – 30th, 2023 – Omega Institute for Holistic Studies

Our physical existence is a transitory interval between the preexistence of the soul and the looming hereafter. For a person of foresight, it is never too soon to step into the worlds that lie beyond. These invisible worlds are the hidden dimensions of what is already before us here and now. Each step takes the soul further on the path of awakening and closer to the Eternal Beloved.

Though the soul is the essence of our consciousness, its life has been long forgotten in a world preoccupied with what is quantifiable. To each aspect of our being – the soul, the mind, and the body – something is due. We are whole only when the soul, mind, and body are present to each other and to the Great Soul, the Great Mind, and the Great Body of which we are a part. Before long the physical body will return to its elements. But the life of the mind and soul will continue. What will have mattered when we are on the point of leaving the physical world? What is our work here, and what remains yet on the horizon? Click here for details and to register.

The Zephyr is a monthly newsletter of Inayatiyya, an interfaith mystical fellowship with branches worldwide. For more gatherings, please visit our Inayatiyya Digital Programs Calendar for Spring 2023.

15 March 2023

Dear Companions on the Path,

May this find you well. In my last letter I had the pleasure of describing some of the auspicious and inspiring events in which I took part in India. That was the light; now comes the shadow. Not long after writing to you, while still in Baroda, I fell prey to one of those silent marauders (and murshids of a certain kind) that lurk so prodigiously in the water of tropical lands – namely, a stomach bug. Do you know why chili peppers were introduced into Indian cooking in the sixteenth century? Peppers have antimicrobial properties. Alas, in this case the spices didn’t save me.

I don’t think I’ve ever been quite as ill as I was in India. I then briefly rebounded and was well enough to return to France. We had special guests at Fazal Manzil the next day, but soon after, I began to feel unwell again. A visit to the ER in Suresnes provided the chance to have tests done, and I got back just in time to deliver an online class. By the evening, however, my condition had worsened and I had to sign off. The next few days were difficult. Gratefully, I was sustained by the gentle care of Pirani, the generous ministrations of Dr. Tajalli Annie Lacuisse-Chabot, and the kind prayers of many of you. The new Suluk Global Online course was supposed to begin that week, but it soon became obvious that postponement was in order. You can imagine how sorry I felt for the more than a hundred students around the world who had specially reserved the time. I was looking forward to it as much as they were.

Alhamdulillah, I am well again. Looking back, there was good in all of it. I remember reading about “the benefits of illness” in an old Sufi book. I don’t have the book handy at the moment and don’t exactly recall the list, but let me mention three benefits that come straight to mind.

• Illness reveals the mortal human condition in its starkness. Think of the hitherto sheltered young Prince Siddhartha when he left the palace gates and was confronted with the sights, sounds, and smells of sickness and death. For me, the ER was a formidable sight to see: bloodstains on the wall, black excrement clogging the toilet, rows of speechless old men in cots with eyes glazed over. When Siddhartha became the Buddha he said, “There are those who do not realize that one day we all must die. Those who do realize this settle their quarrels.” I entered the ER worried about myself, but seeing the state of my hall-mates, inevitably they became the focus of my prayers.

• The little ego prides itself on ability and control. Vulnerability sets the ego on its head. One wishes to be the one who helps others, not the one who needs help. To accept help is humbling, and in a certain way purifying. It’s part of the path of trusting in the One. Experiencing one’s absolute dependence on God is both unsettling and illuminating. At my lowest ebb I stood by the window as a flood of sunlight shone through. There could be no doubt at that moment that the Light of Lights was reaching me through those beams, and that the very best thing I could do was to passively receive what was being given from the inner worlds.

• An illness can serve as a reset. It’s like a punctuation mark at the end of a sentence. It signals a transition and a new start. When it’s over, the air is clear and it’s time to begin anew. A fever burns away more than one can know. There is a catharsis in which impressions from the recent and distant past are purged. One is given a new lease of life and accordingly resolves to recommit one’s days to a high purpose. At the same time, one is reminded of the need to judiciously match activity with rest. “The essence of today’s Message is balance.”

But enough fussing over a little ailment! Many of you have certainly been through much worse. What I really want to say is that I appreciate your prayers, and that you have my prayers always. I wish you the best of good health. And if you must sometimes undergo illness, may there be copious blessings in that too. In sickness and in health we will remain, I trust, constant companions on the path toward the One, and I look forward to seeing you at the next caravanserai.

Yours ever,
Pir Zia

P.S. I often receive kind responses to my Zephyr letters. In this case, to spare Josh’s inbox – already overflowing with Inayatiyya correspondence – may I ask you to please send any good wishes through the ethernet rather than the internet?

P.P.S. Beloved Shaikha Nur Hayat Artiran has conveyed how dire the situation in Turkiye is following the earthquake. Please continue to send prayers and donations to Turkiye and Syria. If you would like to make a donation to support the recovery, please see here for a list of recommended organizations. Also please note that, after speaking with our teachers in Turkiye, Pir Zia will not offer a retreat there, as he usually does, this coming summer.

Spring Retreat – Cosmic Celebration
w/ Pir Zia Inayat Khan
April 6th – 10th, 2023 – Gersfeld, Germany & via Zoom

Between the years 1973 and 1983, Pir Vilayat conceived and set into motion an interreligious mystical pageant he called the Cosmic Celebration. Forty years have since passed, and the seeds of the Cosmic Celebration are quietly flowering in our time. In this spring retreat, we will return to the music and sacred vision of the Cosmic Celebration, approaching the pageant this time as an interior experience of illumination. Through contemplation, meditation, prayer, and music we will make our way through the successive transformative stations of the immanence of the glory of the One, the renewal of faith, the descent of the Holy Spirit, Divine aid, communion with life’s essence, and the promise of the heart’s resurrection. Click here for details and to register.

The Biography of Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan
A Six-Part Course w/ Pir Zia Inayat Khan via Zoom
Sundays, April 16th to May 21st, 2:00 pm EDT / 8:00 pm CET

The highly anticipated reissue of the 1979 edition of the biography of Hazrat Inayat Khan is now back in print, ready for our collective study with Pir Zia Inayat Khan, Hazrat’s central lineage carrier (sajjada nishin).

Throughout this six-part course, all are invited to learn about Hazrat Inayat Khan’s life story, from his origins as an aristocratic young music professor in western India through to becoming the iconic sage Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan, whose spiritual teachings, a century later, continue to inspire countless people throughout the world. In this spring series, we will delve into Hazrat Inayat Khan’s life and teachings in order to deepen our understanding of the legacy he has bequeathed to those who travel in his caravan and to the world at large. Click here for details and to register.

Sufi Teachings & Suhbat
w/ Pir Zia Inayat Khan
May 25th – 28th, 2023 – The Astana & via Zoom

As we officially return to multi-day gatherings at the Astana, the Inayatiyya’s headquarters in Richmond, Virginia, we invite you to come together with Pir Zia and many friends for three days of teachings, practices, music, spiritual conversation, zikr, tea and sweets. There is no set theme—only where inner guidance might take us. We have space for 50 people in person in Richmond, and for the multitudes of us online. Click here for details and to register.

The Sufi Path of Immortality
Dying Before Death & Living in God w/ Pir Zia Inayat Khan
June 25th – 30th, 2023 – Omega Institute for Holistic Studies

Our physical existence is a transitory interval between the preexistence of the soul and the looming hereafter. For a person of foresight, it is never too soon to step into the worlds that lie beyond. These invisible worlds are the hidden dimensions of what is already before us here and now. Each step takes the soul further on the path of awakening and closer to the Eternal Beloved.

Though the soul is the essence of our consciousness, its life has been long forgotten in a world preoccupied with what is quantifiable. To each aspect of our being – the soul, the mind, and the body – something is due. We are whole only when the soul, mind, and body are present to each other and to the Great Soul, the Great Mind, and the Great Body of which we are a part. Before long the physical body will return to its elements. But the life of the mind and soul will continue. What will have mattered when we are on the point of leaving the physical world? What is our work here, and what remains yet on the horizon? Click here for details and to register.

The Zephyr is a monthly newsletter of Inayatiyya, an interfaith mystical fellowship with branches worldwide. For more gatherings, please visit our Inayatiyya Digital Programs Calendar for Spring 2023.

Please note that Pir Zia wrote the following letter on 8 February 2023, while visiting Baroda, the birthplace of Hazrat Inayat Khan.

Dear Companions on the Path,

May this find you well. I am writing to you on my phone from a picturesque room on the top floor of Naulakha—otherwise known as Maulabakhsh House—the house in Baroda in which Murshid grew up. With me here is Pirani Sartaj, close by are many family members, and across the courtyard are our Inayati guests, Tarana, Shams Al Haqq, and Ruhiya. As I write, I can hear Tarana singing Murshid’s songs from the Minqar-i Musiqar.

We’ve been in India for more than a week now. Our first days were spent in Delhi, visiting the tombs of the saints and poets, and searching for—and indeed finding!—writings of the great Delhiite Sufi theologian Shah Waliullah, whose Sata‘at and Lama‘at I mentioned in a recent Zephyr. I experienced great serenity at Shah Waliullah’s grave, which is inconspicuously situated in a little-frequented cemetery in Old Delhi. There was also an exquisite atmosphere at the tomb of Bibi Fatima Sam, the lady saint for whom Khwaja Nizamuddin Awliya had so much affection and esteem. When someone inaptly asked Khwaja Nizamuddin whether as a woman she could rightly be considered a saint, Khwaja Nizamuddin pointedly replied, “If a tiger leaps out at you from the brush, do you ask, ‘Is it a male tiger or a female tiger!’”

Murshid’s resting place, or Dargah, is where it is because the land was offered by the then-custodian of Khwaja Nizamuddin’s shrine, Murshid’s friend and admirer Khwaja Hasan Nizami. This year’s anniversary program, or Urs, lasted three days. On the third day, February 5th, we carried an embroidered sheet from the tomb of Khwaja Nizamuddin to the tomb of Murshid, where we recited prayers and listened to ecstatic music. Throughout the three days, music of a very exalted kind was pervasive, and the sounds of several instruments—violin, sitar, vina, rabab, santur, tabla, pakhavaj, tambura, and voice—together wove a tapestry of rhythms and tones as bright and fragrant as the golden sheet we carried through the urban village. You can find more pictures here.

Another splendid highlight of the Urs was the lively and impressive presentation made by students of the Hope Project, the initiative established by my father in the 1970s to help impoverished people in the district to meet their needs and find a promising path forward in life. The Hope Project has become a model for similar projects throughout India and beyond, and for good reason. One can see with one’s own eyes how the Hope Project is creatively answering great needs, and in doing so transforming the circumstances and outlooks of individuals and families over multiple generations. For more information about the Hope Project and how you can get involved—as I did nearly thirty years ago when I worked there for a year as a volunteer – please click here.

What moved me most of all during this year’s Urs was the consecration of two new maqams, or shrines, within the complex: the first dedicated to Murshid’s Murshid, Sayyid Abu Hashim Madani, and the second dedicated to Murshid’s daughter Pirzadi-Shahida Noor-un-nisa. This expansion of the Dargah was made possible thanks to the ongoing support of the Murshid Mohammed Ali Khan Foundation and the indefatigable efforts of Dr. Farida Ali, who looks after Murshid’s Dargah, and Syed Mustafa Kaleemi, who looks after Sayyid Abu Hashim Madani’s Dargah in Hyderabad. The two new memorials contain relics (tabarrukat) of Sayyid Abu Hashim and Pirzadi Noor respectively. Soon after visiting her father’s grave following his sudden departure from the world, Noor composed the “Song to the Madzub,” in which she expresses her earnest longing to find rest at the feet of her father. With the dedication of the new maqam, in a powerfully symbolic fashion Noor’s wish has been fulfilled.

Baroda is very different from Delhi, butone feels Murshid’s presence as strongly here at the place of his birth as one does at the place of his death. The room in which Murshid was born has been kept as a place of meditation, and, in conjunction with my aunt Harunnisa Begum, a generous German murid, Petra Beate Schildbach, has arranged for a spacious and attractive hall to be built downstairs, where concerts and Universal Worship services are sometimes held. We will convene there for a sama (mystical music soirée)—a gathering in which, by the time these lines reach you, many of you will have already taken part online. God willing, the sama will be followed the next morning by a public concert in memory of Maulabakhsh by my good friend Pandit Srinivas Reddy.

In this world, happiness and sadness are rarely far apart. In the midst of these blessed days of pilgrimage we received the news yesterday of the terrible earthquake that wreaked such utter and unimaginable destruction in Turkey and Syria. The pain and grief is simply beyond reckoning. In our meditation sessions in the Birth Room we are lifting up heartfelt prayers. At certain moments one is given a glimpse of the mobilization of the angels and spirit guides in great numbers who are tending to the transitioning souls and the shattered hearts of those they have left behind. As truly horrific as the tragedy is, just behind the curtain one is able to witness an enormous outpouring of love and light from the depths of existence, meeting what has happened with a care (inayat) beyond all limits. May we who still live in these bodies of matter ally ourselves with the invisible ones who are responding to the need, and offer what help we can, both spiritually and materially. Below please find information as to how those affected may be helped.

Yours ever,
Pir Zia

As of February 14th, the death toll in Turkiye and Syria has surpassed 40,000. We continue to pray for the situation. If you wish to donate money to support relief efforts, here is a list of organizations that we have put together in consultation with friends and the team at Closer Than You Think.

The Biography of Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan
A Six-Part Course w/ Pir Zia Inayat Khan via Zoom
Sundays, April 16th to May 21st, 2:00 pm EDT / 8:00 pm CET

The highly anticipated reissue of the 1979 edition of the biography of Hazrat Inayat Khan is now back in print, ready for our collective study with Pir Zia Inayat Khan, Hazrat’s central lineage carrier (sajjada nishin).
Throughout this six-part course, all are invited to learn about Hazrat Inayat Khan’s life story, from his origins as an aristocratic young music professor in western India through to becoming the iconic sage Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan, whose spiritual teachings, a century later, continue to inspire countless people throughout the world. In this spring series, we will delve into Hazrat Inayat Khan’s life and teachings in order to deepen our understanding of the legacy he has bequeathed to those who travel in his caravan and to the world at large. Click here for details and to register.

Sama Live from Baroda
Recordings Now Available

As part of celebrations of Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan’s 96th Urs, Pir Zia and friends invited us to gather via Zoom for a very special Sama, live from Baroda (Vadodara), India. Baroda is birthplace of our Murshid and the home of the living musical lineage of the Inayatiyya. Joining Pir Zia live from Baroda were classical Indian musician and scholar Pandit Srinivas Reddy, and samazan Shams al Haqq. Click here to view the recordings.

Inayatiyya Virtual Khanqah
February 24th, 2:00 pm EST / 8:00 pm CET

Our gathering this month is open to everyone and we invite you to join us Friday, February 24th at 2 pm EST for a very special event. Our sister on the path, Noorsema Ebru Goker will present her ground-breaking studies and article, “The Effect of Sufi Breath and Meditation on Quantitative EEG”, published by the Journal of NeuroPhilosophy in Turkey. She will share her scientific study carried out by neuroscientists in hospitals to observe the effect of two of Murshid’s teachings and practices (Zikr and Muraqba) on the brain. Please join us! Click here for more details.

Celebrating Black History Month
February 26th, 3:00 pm ET / 9:00 pm CET

The Inayatiyya teachings herald from Sufi traditions rooted in Persia and India. Join us for this unique opportunity to explore parallel Sufi teachings from West Africa. Before Hazrat Inayat Khan arrived in North America, in the early 1800s an enslaved Muslim man, Omar ibn Said, arrived on this continent. New scholarship unveils his Sufi connections! Scholars Dr. Carl Ernst and Dr. Mbaye Lo will share the findings of their research into Omar ibn Said’s life. Click here for details and to register.

The Zephyr is a monthly newsletter of Inayatiyya, an interfaith mystical fellowship with branches worldwide. For more gatherings, please visit our Inayatiyya Digital Programs Calendar for Spring 2023.

18 January 2023

Dear Companions on the Path,

When Hagar and her infant son Ishmael arrived in the Paran desert and Abraham took his leave (peace be upon the three of them), there was no water to be seen. Hagar set Ishmael down and walked back and forth seven times between the hills of Safa and Marwa. Returning to Ishmael, she found that a spring was welling up. It hadn’t been there until she took her walk – not visibly at least. When times are uncertain, sometimes a walk is exactly what is needed to reveal the way forward.

Just as lockdown was declared three years ago, Sartaj and I moved into a little house by the river in Richmond. A daily walk, whenever possible, has always been my custom, so I lost no time in exploring our new neighborhood by foot. To my fascination I found that there were virtually no cars on the roads, flâneurs were strolling in droves, and those who weren’t walking were on their porches, waving at passers-by, playing instruments, and drinking tea. I felt as though I had stepped into William Morris’ News from Nowhere. With time, however, normalcy gradually returned. Cars reappeared and porch sitters disappeared. My walks have continued, but – with the exception of an occasional runner or dog walker – the sidewalks are now largely vacant.

It isn’t always easy to make time for my walk. I might be tired after a long day, or my inbox might be overflowing. I remind myself then that a walk is not so much an expenditure of energy as an infusion of élan vital. My work won’t suffer but will instead gain a boost if I imbibe fresh air and stretch my limbs. What is more, a walk is a chance to greet human neighbors, cats, birds, trees, clouds, and sunbeams. It might be an opportunity to hail the last sycamore leaf of autumn or the first purple crocus of spring. You never know who is going to cross your path or what the sylphs of the sky will send down. Unless it’s torrential, rain isn’t a reason for me to cancel my walk. Why shouldn’t I bathe outdoors?

Walking runs in the family. Hazrat Inayat Khan was known to take regular strolls through Suresnes along a route he especially favored. Even more than Murshid was, my uncle Shaikh al-Mashaik is prone to long walks, in Suresnes and elsewhere, and I’m convinced it’s the secret to his excellent health and longevity. He turned ninety-five last year and is as vigorous as ever, God bless him.

Walking also runs in the larger spiritual family of the Inayatiyya. Murshid taught his murids to silently intone zikr while walking. The method is outlined in Shah Nizam ad-Din Aurangabadi’s Nizam al-qulub. When going briskly, illa’llahu is said with every footstep. When going slowly, on the right foot one says la, on the left foot ilaha, on the right foot illa, and on the left foot ‘llahu. When going at a moderate pace, on the right foot la ilaha is said, and on the left illa’llahu. Throughout, one is walking in the consciousness of one’s Murshid (and therefore Murshid’s Murshid, etc.).

As it was in the past, so may it be in the future. My grandson Kara-Suleyman, now a year old, has begun taking his first wobbly but determined steps. “To learn wisdom at every step on the path of life is the only work of the Sufi,” said Kara-Suleyman’s great-great-grandfather.

Sauntering is an interesting word. Thoreau believed it arose as a description of medieval pilgrims making their way to the sainte terre, or “holy land,” of Jerusalem. The truth is that sacred ground is already under the foot of every saunterer whose soul and soles are in good accord.

Now, isn’t it time to step out the door?

Yours ever,
Pir Zia

Inayatiyya Contributions 2022

We are incredibly grateful for all of your gifts in 2022. While we are still tallying totals, preliminarily it looks as though we raised $441,355 in donations last year, including $186,000+ toward our fall appeal and $74,322 from tithes. If you gave a gift in 2022, please look for a letter from us to arrive around the end of this month. Shukran!

Inayatiyya International Board
Monthly Newsletter, January 2023

This month we commence with a monthly newsletter from the Inayatiyya International Board (IIB). The IIB is leading on our global strategy, working closely with the World Wide Message Council, National Boards, the Astana, and Pir Zia. We have a few updates to share with you. Read more

The Zephyr is a monthly newsletter of Inayatiyya, an interfaith mystical fellowship with branches worldwide. For more gatherings, please visit our Inayatiyya Digital Programs Calendar for Spring 2023.