Voices of Islam (270 page)

By introducing a new genre of worship, the ‘‘Dances of Universal Peace,’’ Lewis was a herald of the New Age Movement. Inspired by Sufi
dhikr,
he cre- ated an American
dhikr
that also incorporated Hindu, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Native American, and Goddess Worship songs. As Lewis wrote in 1970, ‘‘My friends, it is a New Age.’’ As ‘‘spiritual teacher to the hippies,’’ he was a founder of the New Age Movement.

Bawa’s teachings offer a bridge between Islam and the Interspiritual Age, especially as outlined in his book on world peace and Barks’ and Green’s book on the
Salat
prayer. This is the only book on
Salat
I have ever seen featuring illustrations from Buddhist, Christian, and other traditions to describe, interpret, and give instruction in the Muslim prayer. Bawa’s pre- sentation of Islam as a religion of peace and nonviolence makes Islam more accessible and harmonious with the Interspritual Age. As a vegetarian who taught farming and cooking, Bawa was in harmony with the health-food movement. His yogic life-style, gentleness and charisma, were appreciated by people with New Age tastes in teachers.

In an era when many Muslims and Jews have struggled with their collective relationship in the world, it is instructive and encouraging that Pir Vilayat had

Sufism in the West
193

a deep spiritual friendship and teaching relationship with the Hasidic Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi of the Havera (‘‘friendship’’) movement. Both Pir Vilayat and Murshid Sam had deep relationships with the Rabbi and singer Schlomo Carlbach. It is also interesting that many members of the Sufi Order, the Ruhaniat, the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship, and many other American Sufi Orders have come from Jewish backgrounds—so much so that some people describe them as ‘‘Jew-fis.’’
91
This in itself is a force for bringing about an Interspiritual Age. The following appreciation of Murshid Sam by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi illustrates the potential for these move- ments to offer healing influences:

Although the sages have said that since the destruction of the Temple, prophecy has been taken from the prophets and given to the children and fools, the door to prophecy has remained open to those who were prepared to be God-fools in a child-like fashion. Murshid S.A.M. entered that door by his ‘‘foolish’’ faith, his child-like simplicity and has drawn from Revelation life giving elixirs to sustain us through the chaos we must pass in order to enter the New Age.
92

In short, the New Age Movement and Islam have intersected whenever Sufi has been introduced to the Euro-American baby-boomer, hippie, and yuppie generations. Most of these Sufis who hold New Age and Inter- spiritual values and ideals are well into their 30s, 40s, and beyond. Although many young people followed Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, Murshid Sam, and Meher Baba in the 1960s as well as Bawa Muhayyiddeen, in recent decades newly entering community members have tended to be older.

If we have entered a New Age, an Interspiritual Age, or a second Axial Age, then its ideals of kindness, nonviolence, and ‘‘interspirituality’’ are clearly reflected in the lives and work of Inayat Khan, Lewis, Meher Baba and Bawa. These four teachers built a bridge between Islam and the Interspiritual Age and encouraged people of many backgrounds to venture across it.

NOTES

1. Jameh al-Asrar; Rasa’il-e Nimatullahi
   (vol. 1, p. 177) in
   Traditions of the Prophet,
   ed. Javad Nurbakhsh, vol. 1 (London and New York: Khaniqahi- Nimatullahi Publications, 1981), 45.
   

2. Mesbah al-hedayah,
   Nurbakhsh,
   Traditions of the Prophet,
   80; Nurbakhsh, vol. 2, 28.
   

3. Divan ST XXXI, in
   Selected Poems of Rumi,
   ed. Reynold A. Nicholson (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 2000).
   

4. Wayne Teasdale,
   The Mystic Heart
   (Novato, California: New World Library, 1999, 2001), 5.
   

   194
   Voices of Change
   

5. Russill Paul,
   The Yoga of Sound
   (Novato, California: New World Library, 2003), 36; Karen Armstrong, ‘‘A New Axial Age,’’
   What is Enlightenment
   31 (Dec. 2005–Feb. 2006): 34–36.
   

6. Marilyn Ferguson,
   The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transforma- tion in Our Time
   (Los Angeles, California: J. P. Tarcher, 1980, 1987); J. Gordon Melton, ‘‘Whither the New Age?’’ in
   America’s Alternative Religions,
   ed. Timothy Miller (Albany, New York: SUNY, 1995), 347–352.
   

7. Ferguson,
   The Aquarian Conspiracy,
   8.
   

8. Steve Bruce,
   Religion in the Modern World: From Cathedral to Cults
   (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1996), 204–212.
   

9. Teasdale,
   The Mystic Heart
   .
   

10. Armstrong, ‘‘A New Axial Age,’’ 35–36.
    

11. Karen Armstrong,
    Buddha
    (New York: Penguin, 2000) 10.
    

12. Clifford Geertz,
    The Religion of Java
    (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1965.)
    

13. Teasdale,
    The Mystic Heart.
    

14. Omid Safi ‘‘The Sufi Path of Love in Iran and India,’’ in
    A Pearl in Wine: Essays on the Life, Music, and Sufism of Hazrat Inayat Khan,
    ed. Pirzade Zia Inayat Khan (New Lebanon, New York: Omega Publications, 2001), 265.
    

15. Pir Zia Inayat Khan. 2005 ‘‘Welcome Note.’’ (Hejirat Day September 13, 2005) received and accessed at Anjumani Moderator (Anjumjani- [email protected]) on November 8, 2005.
    

16. Hazrat Inayat Khan,
    A Sufi Message of Spiritual Liberty
    (London, U.K.: The Theosophical Publishing Society, 1914), 17.
    

17. Ibid., 38.

18. Hazrat Inayat Khan,
The Unity of Religious Ideals,
vol. 9,
The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan
(Geneva: Sufi Movement, 1927, 1979), 194.

19. Ibid., 196.

1. Inayat Khan,
   A Sufi Message of Spiritual Liberty.
   

2. Samuel L. Lewis,
   Sufi Vision and Initiation: Meetings with Remarkable Beings,
   (San Francisco, California: Sufi Islamia/Prophecy Publications, 1986), 219.
   

3. Inayat Khan,
   The Unity of Religious Ideals,
   199. 23. Ibid., 200.
   

24. Ibid., 199.

1. Donald A. Sharif Graham. ‘‘Spreading the Wisdom of Sufism: The Career of Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan in the West,’’ in
   A Pearl in Wine: Essays on the Life, Music, and Sufism of Hazrat Inayat Khan,
   ed. Pirzade Zia Inayat Khan (New Lebanon, N.Y.: Omega Publications, 2001), 144, n. 33.
   

2. Gerhard Bowering,
   The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam: The Qur’anic Hermeneutics of the Sufi Sahl At-Tustari (d. 283/896),
   (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1980).
   

3. Hazrat Inayat Khan,
   The Heart of Sufism: Essential Writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan,
   ed. H.J. Witteveen (Boston, Massachusetts: Shambhala, 1999), 80.
   

   Sufism in the West
   195
   

4. Andrew Rawlinson,
   The Book of Enlightened Masters: Western Teachers in Eastern Traditions
   (Chicago, Illinois: Open Court, 1997), 550.
   

5. Shams Kairys, ‘‘Invincible Spirit: Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan,’’
   Elixir
   1 (Autumn 2005): 33.
   

30. Ibid., 33.

1. Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan,
   Awakening: A Sufi Experience
   (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher Putnam, 1999), 67.
   

2. Rawlinson,
   The Book of Enlightened Masters,
   543–553.
   

3. Ibid.
   

4. Kairys,
   Elixir,
   37. 35. Ibid., 175.
   

36. Ibid., 90.

37. Ibid., 16–17.

1. The term Pirzade means the expected successor to the Pir.
   

2. Rawlinson,
   The Book of Enlightened Masters,
   569.
   

3. ‘‘Suluk: A Journey Toward the One.’’ Brochure. New Lebanon, New York: Suluk Academy of Sufi Studies.
   

4. www.sulukacademy.org (Accessed January 14, 2006).
   

5. Qur’an Sura al-Kahf (18:60–82). See my ‘‘Traveling with Khidr,’’
   Elixir
   II (Winter 2006). A comprehensive treatment of the signifi of Khidr appears in my ‘‘Where Two Seas Meet: How the Story of al-Khidr and Moses is Interpreted by Sufi Qur’an Commentators as a Model for Spiritual Guidance,’’ Dissertation, Duke University, 2000.
   

6. Wali Ali Meyer, ‘‘Preface,’’ in
   The Jerusalem Trilogy: Song of the Prophets,
   ed. Samuel L. Lewis (Novato, California: Prophecy Pressworks, 1975), 11.
   

7. Lewis,
   Sufi Vision,
   52. 45. Ibid., 119.
   

46. Ibid., 334.

47. Ibid., 45, 359.

48. Ali Meyer,
The Jerusalem Trilogy,
12. 49. Ibid., 336.

50. Ibid., 338.

51. Ibid., 340.

52. Ibid., 333.

53. Ibid., 220.

54. Ibid., 19.

1. Neil Douglas-Klotz,
   Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus
   (HarperSanFrancisco, 1990).
   

2. Neil Douglas-Klotz,
   The Sufi Book of Life: 99 Pathways of the Heart
   (Penguin Compass, 2005), 3.
   

3. Meher Baba,
   God Speaks,
   2 ed. (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1973), xxxvi.
   

4. Meher Baba, in
   Silent Master, Meher Baba,
   ed. Irwin Luck (Myrtle Beach, South Carolina: Irwin Luck, 1967), 15.
   

59. Ibid., 22–23.

196
Voices of Change

1. Charles Haynes,
   Meher Baba: The Awakener
   (North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina: The Avatar Foundation, 1993), 22.
   

2. Rumi,
   Mathnawi,
   vol. III, 3901 in Nicholson, 43.
   

3. Meher Baba,
   The Path of Love
   (Myrtle Beach, South Carolina: Sheriar Press, 2000), 81.
   

4. Meher Baba,
   The Everything and the Nothing,
   (Myrtle Beach, South Carolina: Sheriar Foundation, 1995), 24–25.
   

5. Ibid., 8.
   

6. Quoted in Adi K. Irani
   Messages of Meher Baba
   (Ahmadnagar: Meher Baba Trust, n.d.), 83–84.
   

7. Meher Baba, in
   The Beloved: The Life and Work of Meher Baba,
   ed. Naosherwan Anzar (North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina: Sheriar Press, 1974,1983), 66.
   

8. Ibid.
   

9. Luck,
   Silent Master, Meher Baba,
   16.
   

10. Haynes,
    Meher Baba,
    65–66.
    

70. Ibid., 35.

1. Meher Baba quoted in Purdom, 5.
   

2. Charles Haynes,
   Meher Baba: The Awakener
   (North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, 1993), 111.
   

3. The claims of Bawa’s birth year are advanced by Sharon Marcus in her Intro- duction to Bawa’s book
   The Triple Flame: The Inner Secrets of Sufi
   (Philadelphia Press, 2001) as reported in Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, ‘‘Are We Up To The Challenge? The Need for a Radical Reordering of the Islamic Discourse on Women,’’ in
   Progressive Muslims: on Justice, Gender, and Pluralism,
   ed. Omid Safi (Oxford, U.K.: One World, 2003), 245, n. 14. I have also personally heard claims of Bawa’s longevity from many of his students.
   

4. Coleman Barks and Michael Green,
   The Illuminated Prayer: The Five-Times Prayer of the Sufi as Revealed by Jellaludin Rumi and Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
   (New York: Ballentine Wellspring, 2000), 144.
   

75. Ibid., 14.

76. Muhammad Rahim Bawa Muhaiyaddeen,
Islam and World Peace: Explanations of a Sufi
(Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Fellowship Press, 1987), 89–90.

77. Ibid., 38.

1. Gisela Webb, ‘‘Tradition and Innovation in Contemporary American Islamic Spirituality: The Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship,’’ in
   Muslim Communities in North America
   (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1994), 75–86.
   

2. Muhaiyaddeen,
   Islam and World Peace,
   51.
   

80. Ibid., 34.

81. Barks and Green,
The Illuminated Prayer,
48.

82. Ibid., 50.

83. Ibid., 52, 54, 56.

1. Webb,
   Muslim Communities,
   96.
   

   Sufism in the West
   197
   

2. The New Illumination Band: Devastation Song and Other Timely Ballads, Hymns and Harmonies Discovered in the Poetry of Rumi (Accessed March 13, 2006 at http://www.sing4life.com/listings/6.html).
   

3. Inayat Khan, quoted in Hazrat Inayat Khan and Coleman Barks,
   The Hand of Poetry
   (New Lebanon, New York: Omega Publications, 1993), viii.
   

4. Inayat Khan,
   Unity of Religious Ideals,
   199.
   

5. Henry Corbin,
   The Man of Light in Iranian Sufi m
   (New Lebanon, New York: Omega Press, 1994), rpt.
   

6. Charles Purdom and Malcolm Schloss,
   Three Incredible Weeks with Meher Baba: September 11 to September 30, 1954
   (North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina: Sheriar Press, 1979), 37–39.
   

7. Muhammad Rahim Bawa Muhaiyaddeen,
   Morning Dhikr at the Mosque of Shaikh M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
   (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship, 1996).
   

8. This is not unprecedented. For example Maimonides’ grandson Obadiah practiced Sufism. (Personal Communication from Prof. Jacob Adler of the University of Arkansas, July 2001).
   

9. Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi quoted on jacket of Samuel L. Lewis,
   

Jerusalem Trilogy
.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barks, Coleman.
The Essential Rumi.
San Francisco, California: HarperCollins, 1995. Bawa Muahaiyaddeen Fellowship website.
www.bmf.org. (accessed 4 October 2004). Birge, John Kingsley.
The Bektashi Order of Dervishes.
London, U.K.: Luzac Oriental,