Pir Zia Inayat Khan

On Sundays, for six weeks in the spring, and six in the fall, Pir Zia illuminates the teachings found within the Sufi Message Volumes of Hazrat Inayat Khan. This series of twelve books make up the core philosophy of our lineage of Sufism—called the Inayatiyya. All students drawn to this path, at every level from brand new to longtime practitioner, are encouraged to prioritize this essential series. 

After a general review last fall, this spring we will take a more in depth look at themes in Sufi Message Volume V: Spiritual Liberty. We will explore what it means to “Be in the World.” Here are our topics:

April 14th—Enjoying the World

How do we find the cosmos in the worldly life?

April 21st—Living with the Dead

How do we keep good relations with the deceased?

April 28th—Incarnation

How do we reclaim our soul’s mission?

May 5th—Romance

How do we know if romance is alive or dead?

May 12th—Balance

How do we walk life’s tightrope? 

May 19th—The Flame of Pain

How do we cook, and not burn, the heart?

Please join us in real time, via Zoom, the day of each class, or watch the video after. Pre-registration is required to receive the video. If you missed our Spiritual Liberty Fall 2023 series, the precursor to this one, you may purchase the video at Inayatiyya Multimedia Courses.

REGISTRATION DETAILS

General tuition is $60 ($12/class) with a limited income rate of $48 ($8/class) for the six-part series. Donations of any amount are also welcome.

As part of your registration, you will receive the course video which will be posted within 24 hours of each class via Dropbox. The course is designed to be attended in its entirety. If you begin with us after the course starts, video from past classes will be made available to you.

If you have questions about the Spiritual Liberty series, please reach out to us at astana@inayatiyya.org.

COURSE READING

Spiritual Liberty 

This volume comprises six books from Hazrat Inayat Khan’s London period that include A Sufi Message of Spiritual Liberty, Hazrat Inayat Khan’s first book, and the only didactic work he would ever personally write. The subsequent books are lecture compilations of the London period assembled by two prominent early disciples, Sherifa Goodenough and Zohra Williams: Aqibat: Life after Death; The Phenomenon of the Soul; Love, Human and Divine; Pearls from the Ocean Unseen; Metaphysics. This volume contains early works by Hazrat Inayat Khan and feature his distinctive mystical vision of life, a numinous music that quickens attuned minds with the gentle vigor of its ethereal harmonies.

Spiritual Liberty is available from Suluk Press.

This summer we return to Omega Institute for a five-day retreat with Pir Zia and many friends, including Omid Safi, Nizam un Nisa Husain, Tarana Jobin, Shams al Haqq, and Julianna Takacs. Please join us for teachings, practices, music, whirling, conversation, and friendship!  

The Sufi seeks the presence in this world of the One from whom the world has come and remembers that we are not here for ourselves, but for the One to whom we belong. To remember this is to lay down one’s worries and grudges, and uplift one’s gaze to the One who has always been, will ever be, and is, here and now, at the center of everything. Flowing endlessly from this One, the Sufi discovers a force, an emotion, which will not fit into the narrow boxes of human language. The closest we can come to naming it is to speak of “love.”

There is no higher calling than to make one’s life a pure channel for this primal force, the compassion and yearning that has given rise to all that is. Sufism is the path of purification and remembrance by which the heart is made its vessel.

Join Pir Zia and guest teachers Nizam un Nisa Husain and Omid Safi, accompanied by Shams al Haqq Farzad Attar Jafari, Sara Tarana Jobin, and Julianna Takacs in this five-day retreat as they guide us in the Sufi forms of spiritual discourse (suhbat), contemplation (muraqaba), meditation (mushahada), inner listening (sama), and ritual remembrance (zikr). Together we grow this primal force of love, further crafting our own hearts and collective vessel.

Please visit Omega Institute online for registration and housing details. They will take good care of you!

BIOGRAPHY

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 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. Pir Zia divides his time between Richmond, Virginia and Suresnes, France. inayatiyya.org

Nizam un Nisa Ayeda Husain is a senior teacher and guide in the Inayatiyya. A long-time journalist specializing in Sufism with a double masters in Journalism and Near Eastern Studies from NYU, she now teaches Sufi meditation, chanting and philosophy with a special emphasis on Rumi’s poetry as a means of healing and evolving. She has run Sufi centers in her hometown of Lahore, Pakistan, in Dubai, where she once lived, and in Oakville, Ontario where she now lives and works. She has led spiritual retreats worldwide, taught Sufi meditation to Buddhist monks in Tokyo, and been invited to the UN as part of an international delegation of spiritual leaders. thesufitarot.com

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. illuminatedcourses.com

Shams al Haqq is classically trained in sama and has extensively studied the turn, meditation, mysticism, and Persian mystical poetry of Sufism and Irfan. He curated and has taken part in many spiritual music ceremonies and sama presentations. He serves the Sufi communities in Canada, presenting some of their work through Rumi Canada. He is also a student within the Inayatiyya and graduate of Sulūk Academy. He currently lives in Vancouver, Canada and holds monthly sessions for sama/inner listening meditation. rumicanada.ca

Sara Tarana Jobin is the Inayatiyya’s Music Director and Emeritus Vice President of its Music Activity. Professionally, she has a long career as an opera conductor and continues to freelance professionally. As a student of Sufism since 2010, and graduate of Sulūk Academy, she is dedicated to reviving and sharing the musical legacy of Hazrat Inayat Khan with all who find a home in his teachings. inayatiyya.org/music

Julianna Takacs has been a student and teacher of yoga and meditation for over 20 years, originally based out of New York City where she was featured in Time Out NY several years in a row as a top yoga instructor. In addition to serving for two years as faculty at Long Island University’s accredited course in Yoga for Wellness, Julianna has been a student of Sufism in the tradition of Hazrat Inayat Khan since 2002. After moving to New Mexico in 2018 to help open a retreat center north of Santa Fe, Julianna now lives in Peterborough, NH where she continues to teach yoga and serve as Director of Programs for the Inayatiyya. juliannayoga.com

In late March, Pir Zia returns to Germany for an annual spring retreat, corresponding with the Easter holiday. He will teach on, and lead practices related to, “The Song of the Pleiades.” 

The soul’s unfoldment, the legacy of all of the world’s prophets, the kinship of all beings, the greening of inner and outer worlds, the healing of wounds, the honing of integrity, and the music of the spheres: these are the Seven Sisters whose time has come to lead ourselves and our world into a present moment alive with Divine resplendence. In this spring retreat, through discourse, meditation, music, and prayer, we will explore how the rays of these seven stars illuminate the path that leads, step by step, to the fulfillment of life’s purpose. 

This program is in-person and via Zoom, with registration for both through Inayatiyya Deutschland. Please see their website for all details.

All friends, new and returning, are invited to join us as we explore the terminology of the Sufis as set out in A Glossary of Sufi Technical Terms by Abd Al Razzaq Qashani, a key textbook in Sufi circles for the last six and a half centuries. 

During each class, Pir Zia reviews the terms in alphabetical order, according to the original Arabic. Then he may also add terms unique to the lexicon of the Inayatiyya. 

Lexicon of the Sufis classes meet monthly, on the 2nd Mondays September to December and February to May, until we completely go through the glossary! We will keep classes to one hour so that they may easily fit into your busy life. Please join us!

Lexicon dates for Spring 2024 are:

• Monday, March 11th
• Monday, April 8th
• Monday, May 13th

Global class times are 9 am San Francisco, 12 Noon New York, 5 pm London, 6 pm Paris, 7 pm Istanbul, 9 pm Lahore, 9:30 pm New Delhi, 12 midnight (next day) Perth, 1 am (next day) Tokyo, 2 am (next day) Sydney, and 4 am (next day) Auckland. If you live in another part of the world, please check timeanddate.com for the class time in your region.

REGISTRATION DETAILS

General tuition is $36 ($12/class). There is also a limited income/student tuition rate of $24 ($8/class). We ask that participants sign up for the entire series. If you join us once the class has already begun, you can catch up by watching the video. Video is included for all who register for the program—watch in real time or any time. 

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 Lexicon of the Sufis series, please email us at astana@inayatiyya.org. 

BIOGRAPHY

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 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. Pir Zia divides his time between Richmond, Virginia and Suresnes, France. inayatiyya.org

Please note that Pir Zia’s Sunday class series begins at 2 pm ET/8 pm CET, an hour earlier than in previous years. Also, there is now an opportunity to join us at the Astana in Richmond, Virginia, as well as online via Zoom!

After a two-year hiatus, this fall we will return to the study of the Sufi Message Volumes of Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan. Spiritual Liberty, Volume V, of the Centennial Edition is almost ready from Suluk Press. 

Spiritual Liberty comprises several early works, including the only book of teachings ever written by Hazrat Inayat Khan, namely A Sufi Message of Spiritual Liberty, published in his first year in London, 1914. Also included are Aqibat: Life After Death; The Phenomenon of the Soul; Love, Human and Divine; Pearls from the Ocean Unseen; and Metaphysics.

From Pir Zia Inayat Khan’s introduction to the volume: “To read volume five is to be transported to the salon of the London khankah. Outside, air sirens shriek at intervals and the mood is bleak. Inside, however, an atmosphere of melody and luminosity is palpable. The inner world has a message for the outer world, but it is a message no ideology can express. Evocation is its allusive language.”

Pir Zia will teach on this material over six Sundays, both online via Zoom and live at the Astana in Richmond, Virginia. If you think that you would like to attend some sessions online and others in-person, we ask that you please register for the individual session(s) you intend to attend (e.g. Session I Only – Oct 8 [In-Person])instead of using the “Full Series” option. You can register for any remaining dates you wish to attend online using the “Donation Of Any Amount (Online – Includes Ticket)” option.

REGISTRATION DETAILS

General tuition is $48 ($8/class) for the six-part series. A reduced tuition price is also offered of $36 ($6 per class). Donations of any amount are also welcome, in lieu of tuition. 

As part of your registration, you will receive the course video which will be posted within 24 hours of each class via Dropbox. The course is designed to be attended in its entirety. If you begin with us after the course starts, video from past classes will be made available to you.

If you have questions about the Spiritual Liberty series, please email us at astana@inayatiyya.org.

BIOGRAPHY

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.

COURSE READING

The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan, Centennial Edition, Volume V: Spiritual Liberty (Forthcoming from Suluk Press)

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.

In response to many requests, Pir Zia’s Lexicon of the Sufis class is moving to a monthly, online format this fall. If you would like to listen to the first part of the series, live from the Astana Spring 2023, audio recordings will be made available for purchase after the summer. 

All friends, new and returning, are invited to join us as we explore the terminology of the Sufis as set out in A Glossary of Sufi Technical Terms by Abd Al Razzaq Qashani, a key textbook in Sufi circles for the last six and a half centuries. 

During each class, Pir Zia reviews the terms in alphabetical order, according to the original Arabic. Then he may also add terms unique to the lexicon of the Inayatiyya. 

Lexicon of the Sufis classes meet monthly, on the 2nd Mondays September to December and February to May, until we completely go through the glossary! We will keep classes to one hour so that they may easily fit into your busy life. Please join us!

Lexicon dates for Fall 2023 are:

• Monday, September 11th
• Monday, October 9th
• Monday, November 13th
• Monday, December 11th 

Global class times are 9 am San Francisco, 12 Noon New York, 5 pm London, 6 pm Paris, 7 pm Istanbul, 9 pm Lahore, 9:30 pm New Delhi, 12 midnight (next day) Perth, 1 am (next day) Tokyo, 2 am (next day) Sydney, and 4 am (next day) Auckland. If you live in another part of the world, please check timeanddate.com for the class time in your region.

Registration Details

Lexicon of the Sufis registration will open on Tuesday, August 1, 2023. General tuition is $48 ($12/class). There is also a limited income/student tuition rate of $32 ($8/class). We ask that participants sign up for the entire series. If you join us once the class has already begun, you can catch up by watching the video. Video is included for all who register for the program—watch in real time or any time. 

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 Lexicon of the Sufis series, please email us at astana@inayatiyya.org.

Biography

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.