Speakers

• 

  Pir Zia Inayat Khan
  

  Pir Zia Inayat Khan

  Pir Zia Inayat Khan, PhD, 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 Tears from the Mother of the Sun with visual artist Amruta Patil, Immortality: A Traveler’s Guide; Mingled Waters: Sufism and the Mystical Unity of Religions; and Saracen Chivalry: Counsels on Valor, Generosity and the Mystical Quest. Pir Zia divides his time between Richmond, Virginia and Suresnes, France.

• 

  Shaykha Fariha
  

  Shaykha Fariha

  Shaykha Fariha is the spiritual guide of the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Order in New York City. She was born in 1947 into a socially committed, eclectic Catholic family in Houston, Texas. At the age of 29, she met her teacher, Shaykh Muzaffer Ozak of Istanbul, and received direct transmission from him in 1980. Shaykh Muzaffer also gave direct transmission to Lex Hixon (Shaykh Nur al-Jerrahi), who envisioned a radical and illumined path of the heart which he called Universal Islam. After Shaykh Nur’s death, Fariha took on the guidance of the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Order, with circles around the world. This lineage offers the nectar of teachings of the Prophet Muhammed, peace be upon him, which guide the seeker to self-knowledge and immersion in God. The sacred practices of zikr, prayer, charitable living, fasting and retreat are all embraced.

• 

  Nilufar Maryam Hasnaa
  

  Nilufar Maryam Hasnaa

  Nilufar Maryam Hasnaa is an intuitive, channel, energy healer and a lover of all things that create a feeling of being connected to something bigger than ourselves. Nilufar is the founder of New Earth Mystery School where she trains students in the work of energy healing, plant spirit medicine, earth stewardship and the intuitive arts. In her free time, she loves to garden, commune with nature spirits and lead ceremonies. Nilufar uses her own highly sensitive gifts to remind others of the subtle energetic nature of this universe. Through her work of returning to nature she has learned the importance of living in alignment with one’s most authentic self. Nilufar was born in the Sufi tradition and initiated into the Inayatiyya in 2022. She is a graduate of the Suluk class of Lulu Wa Marjan (2025).

• 

  Humera Afridi
  

  Humera Afridi

  Humera Afridi’s stories and essays have appeared in Granta, Guernica, The Kenyon Review, and The New York Times among other publications. She is a recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Nonfiction Literature. Humera is currently writing a biography of World War II heroine Noor Inayat Khan, a project that draws on extensive archival research conducted across Europe. On a 2022 visit to The Hague, Humera discovered in the archives, one of Noor’s most powerful and imaginative stories thought to have been lost during the war. Humera’s work inhabits the intersections of cultural history, spirituality, and literary nonfiction. A student of both Shaykha Fariha and Pir Zia, Humera is deeply engaged in questions of spiritual lineage, inner life, and the transmission of sacred stories—threads that inform both her writing and her conversation today.

• 

  Kythe Heller
  

  Kythe Heller

  Kythe Heller is a poet, scholar, and interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the transmission of knowledge across spiritual traditions and the arts, with a particular grounding in Sufi thought and practice. She holds a ThD / PhD from Harvard University in the Study of Religion, with a focus on comparative mysticism, philosophy and theology, and the arts, alongside training in poetry and contemplative practice. Her research and creative work engage the metaphysics of sound, the phenomenology of perception, and the ways artistic practice can become a mode of knowing and cultural transformation. Her books include Firebird and The Soul Conveys Itself in Shadow / El alma se mueve en la sombra, alongside collaborative works that bring poetry into relation with image, sound, film, and ritual. She is the founder and creative director of Vision Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory founded at Harvard Divinity School that convenes artists, scholars, and spiritual practitioners in sustained dialogue, integrating artistic practice, contemplative inquiry, and critical research to cultivate attentive, relational, and ethically responsive forms of knowing and making.