21 December 2022

Dear Companions on the Path,

When Shams met Rumi he set the latter’s books on fire. How do we know? The incident is described in a book (1). Book knowledge cannot compare with real knowledge – or so the books tell us. That being said, the same Shams-i Tabriz who thought so little of Rumi’s library also inspired him to compose Divan-i Shams, one of the great books of all time.

In the human body, old cells are continuously shed as new ones take shape. Looking at my bookshelves, I see the same phenomenon at play. Books I don’t expect to open again make their way back into the great Circle of Life. Meanwhile, new (or new-to-me) books routinely take their place.

I frequently borrow books from the library. In a world where buying and selling fills every visible nook and cranny of our urban topography, libraries and parks are a saving grace. Judging by their gentle manner, the librarians at my local branch are likely some of the happiest people I know. Borges wrote, “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” These librarians seem to be moved by just such a vision, and it gives them an abiding calm.

As the solar year nears its close, I am looking back on the books I had the pleasure of reading over the last twelve months. Let me share a few highlights.

As a child I read J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, but for one reason or another never went on to The Lord of the Rings. This year I corrected the omission. Tolkien is a masterful world-builder, and I find his evocations of landscape rapturous. My friend Peter Kingsley warned me at the outset, however, that despite the obvious spagyric symbolism in the books, there is something fundamentally contra-alchemical in the notion of the Ring as a thing to be destroyed rather than reckoned with, transformed, and redeemed (2).

As I made my way through the trilogy I could very well see what Peter meant, and was also taken aback by the attribution of “slanting” eyes and “swarthy” skin to the story’s villains. And then there is the matter of the Orcs, a whole race that is ostensibly lowly and evil by genetic predisposition. In The Two Towers, the plant-man Treebeard says of the Isengarders, “Are they Men he (Sauron) has ruined, or has he blended the races of Orcs and Men? That would be a black evil!” Comments like that, raising the specter of eugenics, truly give one pause. There is some consolation, however, in learning that Tolkien was vocally opposed to aparthied in South Africa and the maniacal racism of the Nazis. And there certainly are enchanting passages in The Lord of the Rings. These are a few that I noted down:

  • Gandalf to Frodo: “Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it. And he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many – yours not least.”
  • Tom Bombadil to the traveling hobbits when asked his name: “Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless?”
  • Gandalf to Saruman: “He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.”
  • Pippin on Treebeard’s eyes: “One felt as if there was an enormous well behind them, filled up with ages of memory, and long, slow, steady thinking; but their surface was sparkling with the present; like sun shimmering on the outer leaves of a vast tree, or on the ripples of a very deep lake.”
  • Treebeard to Merry: “Hill. Yes, that was it. But it is a hasty word for a thing that has stood here ever since this part of the world was shaped.”
  • Gwaihir to Gandalf: “The Sun shines through you.”
  • Aragorn to Pippin: “One who cannot cast away a treasure in need is in fetters.”
  • Frodo’s sleeping face: “Frodo’s face was peaceful, the marks of fear and care had left it; but it looked old, old and beautiful, as if the chiseling of the shaping years was now revealed in many fine lines that had before been hidden, though the identity of the face was not changed.”
  • Faramir on the ritual of the people of Gondor before each meal: “We look towards Numenor that was, and beyond to Elvenhome that is, and to that which is beyond Elvenhome and ever will be.”
  • Frodo to Faramir: “Certainly I looked for no such friendship as you have shown. To have found it turns evil to great good.”

Turning now to Sufi books, I continue to take great delight in the collections at Fazal Manzil and the Astana (3). Specifically, I have been rediscovering some of the marvelous translations of Sufi classics issued by the once-prolific publisher Octagon Press.

Let me name three. ‘Abd ar-Razzaq Kashani’s Glossary of Sufi Technical Terms (Kitab al-istilahat as-sufiyya), translated by Nabil Safwat (with the original Arabic text included), is an extremely valuable handbook of Sufi terminology as explained by an major exponent of the school of Shaykh al-Akbar Ibn al-‘Arabi. This past spring we discussed its definitions at the Astana, and we plan to return to it in 2023. Abu Ghanim al-Maqdisi’s Revelation of the Secrets of the Birds and Flowers (Kashf al-asrar ‘an il-hikam al-muda‘a fi tuyur wa’l-azhar), translated by Irene Hoare and Darya Galy (again, with the Arabic included), is a highly refined work of spiritual belles lettres in which the author consults the animals and plants of the garden concerning the deeper meanings of life (4). As some of you may recall, we had recourse to it in The Whorl and the World.

Finally, Shah Wali Allah Dihlavi’s Sufism and the Islamic Tradition (Sata‘at and Lamahat), translated by G.N. Jalbani (alas, without the Arabic), is an extraordinary exploration of the workings of the inner planes by an Indian Sufi scholar who influentially undertook to bring contrasting schools of thought into harmony during the late Mughal period (5). These three volumes are now hard to find, but if you can track them down I highly recommend them. 

Octagon Press may be no more, but Suluk Press is thankfully as active as ever. In addition to my new book Immortality, which I’ve previously mentioned here in the Zephyr, Suluk Press plans to publish several volumes in the coming year, including an expanded and updated edition of Caravan of Souls, the long-awaited fifth volume of the Sufi Message series, Breathtaking Revelations by Carl W. Ernst and Patrick D’Silva (which includes Murshid’s “Science of Breath”), and No God Only God by Hassan Suhrawardi Gebel. A new edition of the classic Nekbakht Foundation Biography of Murshid has already come out, and we will be studying it online in the spring, God willing, thanks to our friend Jennifer Alia Wittman’s welcome suggestion.

There are many more books one could mention, but this has already become a lengthy letter, so let me close here by wishing you a luminous Solstice, a happy Hanukkah, a merry Christmas, a blessed Kwanzaa, and a splendid New Year. I appreciate all that each of you do in thought, word, and deed to support each other and our caravan as a whole. I hope to see you in the year ahead, at least online and hopefully face to face. Below are some possibilities. Meanwhile, enjoy your reading hours!

Yours ever,
Pir Zia

(1) Ibn Abi al-Wafa’s Al-Jawahir al-muzi’a. In Jami’s Nafahat al-uns, Shams is said to have thrown Rumi’s books in a well (and then restored them to him miraculously dry).

(2) On the subject of alchemy, let me recommend another friend’s artistic and scholarly work on the Royal Art: https://www.galipton.com/artblog.

(3) Qahira Wirgman recently organized the Fazal Manzil library, to great effect, and Josh Octaviani carefully curates the collection at the Astana.

(4) Speaking of consulting the green world, be sure to visit the new Ziraat website.

(5) Prof. Marcia Hermansen, whose spiritual itinerary has included Chamonix and Suluk, has produced a lucid translation of Shah Wali Allah’s Conclusive Argument from God.

New Year’s Day Attunement w/ Pir Zia
Sunday, January 1st, 12:00 pm EST / 6:00 pm CET

We invite you to join us for our annual New Year’s Day Attunement, to be united in the sacred transmission of the Sufi mystic and musician Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927). All are welcome.

*Video of the attunement will be posted to vimeo.com/inayatiyya within a day or two of January 1st.

More Details & Zoom Link

Suluk Global Online Course
March 2023 – December 2024
Applications Deadline Extension – January 18th, 2023

Due to a high volume of applications, we are expanding the size of the class, and will continue to admit applications on a rolling basis through January 18th, 2023!

Suluk is designed for initiates, called murids, within the Inayatiyya’s Inner School. Over the course of two years, students deeply explore the fundamentals of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s school of Sufism under the rubric of Concentration, Contemplation, Meditation and Realization. If you are interested in becoming a student of Suluk, please email suluk@inayatiyya.org or click on the link below for more details.

More Details & Application


The Inayatiyya’s Call of the Earth Initiative, galvanized by the climate needs of our collective moment, unites us all in spirit and action through the teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan. The final offering from this year long initiative comes from Gulrukh Patel and Tariq Al-Olaimy on behalf of the Inayatiyya International Board: “Not only human beings, but animals, birds, insects, trees, and plants all have a spiritual attainment…” Read more

Inayatiyya Fall Appeal 2022

We are in the midst of our Inayatiyya Fall Appeal 2022! Please support the monthly creation of The Zephyr newsletter, as well as hundreds of other digital, programmatic, and community projects organized and held by the Astana each year, in collaboration with our network of teachers, guides, musicians, gatherers, healers, clergy, naturalists, heralds, knights, and other friends far and wide. To give today, please visit inayatiyya.org/donate.

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.