Mureeds' Corner
Murid in the Inayatiyya
Farzana Moon
- Murid in the Inayatiyya and Author
Many thanks to Murshida for this opportunity to share our experiences on Inayatiya Southasia. As Murshida very kindly commented that I have written books about Murshid and his wife titled Amina Begum, I want to share a few words. I feel I didn’t write those books but compiled what previous authors had written about the venerable lives of Murshid and his family.
Also greatly indebted to Murshida for her spiritual guidance and inspiration, for sharing links to Murshid’s works. Can’t thank enough Murshida Amat-un-Nur and Pir Zia for generously giving me permission to use the works of Murshid in the books which I compiled. Since I didn’t find a single book exclusively written about Murshid’s wife, I took the challenge of writing one.
It’s published under the title, American Queen, simply because Hazrat Inayat Khan told Amina Begum that God was the King of his soul and she—Pirani, the Queen of his heart.
Book Cover: The American Queen
Hazrat Inayat Khan with Wife
Briefly, after it was published, I was talking to my friends about Murshid’s family in presence of my daughter and she commented. Mom, you are talking about them as if they are your family. I said: precisely, that’s how I feel. So, writing American Queen was not a challenge but a journey of love in spiritual realms of joys and sorrows along with Pirani which she suffered after the early death of her young husband.
Our spiritual sister Nyla Daud a freelance journalist wrote a glowing review of American Queen published in Dawn, for which I remain eternally grateful. Most humbly and gratefully, my special thanks to Qahira Wirgman of Nekbakht Foundation in France. Qahira is an archivist and editor of The Complete Works of Pir-O-Murshid Inayat Khan. She very graciously sent me the photos of Murshid’s family, a few of those I used in the book, American Queen.
– With love and gratitude to Murshida and Spiritual Family.
Sabeena Shahid
- Ashiq in the Inayatiyya and Director
The Power of Listening
It is with heartfelt gratitude to Dear Murshida for giving us this opportunity to share our humble journeys that I would like to put to pen my changing perspective on The Power of Listening.
It is with great enthusiasm that I have opened each session of the Zikhr as I continue to seek the essence of Truth which lies within however at each point of discussion I felt an inner yearning to share my experiences rather than listen.
Listening is an art in itself which opens so many internal doors as we do not realize that by merely showing up at a gathering it will not result in any outcome unless we are listening with an open heart , a non judgemental view , with absence of egoistic opinions ,and with a realisation that The Truth needs an objective approach.
The Truth comes in many forms and is in the unseen as well as the seen hence in working at creating a strong platform of Listening I felt that my Nafs was also being reined in as I was happily moving towards being a nobody in essence , disengaging with my worldly status of being a somebody in terms of social/ financial or intellectual platforms.
Listening with empathy , with peace , with gratitude ,with love navigates the soul to a space of profound humility as you can now also listen in to your very own connection to The Realms beyond.
Aneeqa Sakina Malik
- Murid in Inayatiyya, Consultant, Author and Professor
Ustadah Aneeqa Malik has been a mureed of Murshida Amat un-Nur for 14 years. She was given her spiritual name Sakinah after her initiation into the Inayatiyya Sufi Order of Hazrat Inayat Khan. Her journey of transformation led her onto taking on the task of bringing Sufi contemplative thinking into the practical realms such as economics, community finance, and enterprise development as she felt the disconnect between these two domains, i.e., spiritual, and material/social.
Her thesis, Soulidarity with Universality was, therefore, inspired by the universal Chishti Tariqa and the teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan and Pir Zia Inayat Khan under the tutelage of Murshida Amat un-Nur.
Whereas this second stage of (re)birthing, after human emergence into self-awareness, is not to produce a new earth but to evolve human consciousness, to produce a new earth aligned with the ever-evolving planetary culture – the transcendental universality of being. Whereby, from a ‘perennial philosophical’ context, universality here implies the primordiality and prolongation of ‘universal truth’ as manifested by the diverse forms of revelation.
“A new earth is creating itself through the womb of the human heart.”
– Pir Zia Inayat Khan
The causal correlation of soulful solidarity (Soulidarity) is, thus a rhythmic transmutation – of a process for human subsistence. This impulse, here in the twenty-first century, is necessitated with the rising needs of the new cultural, technological and environmental conditions that demand a conscious shift in our focus and attention. It calls for, consciously, making meaning and unfolding the tacit nature of subtle processes and their reemergent manifestation as observed through the re-emergence of the spirit of Mawakhat (spiritual brotherhood), in Pakistan.
Essentially, the cyclical Soulidarity continuum is an existential emergence; at a time, in need for the human race’s subsistence on earth, thereby, participating as active agents in cosmic relationality between God (the creator) and (wo)man (the creation).
Her thesis, thus, aims to decode the arcane philosophy and perennial wisdom acquired through a deeper spiritual contemplation, thereby, making meaning of its emergence, in a time in history, where the human race is striving to make sense of their role in evolutionary creativity, whilst actively exploring their spirituality, in an age of machine (artificial) intelligence.
On a more personal level, for her, the impulse of Soulidarity was necessitated as an integral calling to act as a unifier between– the inner (implicit) / spiritual, and the outer (explicit) physical realms of social knowledge and practice. Thereby, positing an integral (universal) methodology postulated through the 4E’s (Ethics, Epistemology, Erudition & Economics/Enterprise) of the Soulidarity Economy.
Soulidarity Economy as postulated by Aneeqa Sakina is, thus, a regenerative pilgrimium to patch the gap between the spiritual and the physical realms of knowledge in communal relationality, economics & enterprise building.
1- It was at a time of my own spiritual quest which essentially transformed the way I will now perceive my own existence and purpose, I realised – submerging from an entrepreneurial backdrop, the reticence to openly acknowledge one’s spiritual allegiance and inclination and to promulgate one’s enterprise or business having a spiritual rather sacred purpose, instead of only having ‘social’ as the reason for being.
The quest started with looking for any such enterprises or organisations that promulgate such spiritual (sacred) philosophy albeit operating in the world of materiality, particularly in this case, finance or economics, to be studied or eventually replicated. The result was, to my excitement, not only finding one such enterprise but to then working with them to document and present a phenomenal model and manifestation of an economy of solidarity and reciprocity which gave birth to my own consciousness of the perennial wisdom in the emergent philosophy of Mawakhat – a Prophetic tradition from Arabia – which named itself as Soulidarity.
My first book which mainly frames, Akhuwat’s[1] work and its philosophy, principles and practices – borrowed from the spirit and philosophy of Mawakhat-e-Madina[2] – the call, now, is to articulate the spirit of Soulidarity as it transpired through the course of writing the first book.
Whence in an age of machine-consciousness, how does this integration of the human soul with a universal cosmic reality/soul reciprocates, and to what avail, forms the basis of the Hikmah (wisdom) of a soul-full unification –
2. the So(u)lidarity praxis. Origination – Integral So(u)lidarity – An Ontological Genealogy Everything emerges in context Thus wrote, Schieffer and Lessem, co-founders of Trans4m, Centre for Integral Development, Geneva, and visionaries of Integral Worlds approach, in their Integral Development bible (1) which provides an integral perspective on holistically renewing development. In 2014, they heralded an emergent era of integral thinking and practice, specifically in the realms of organisational management, economics and enterprise – gradually rising on humanity’s horizon. For Lessem & Schieffer; The voices that demand integrated, holistic, whole-systems perspectives are on the rise all over the world, throughout all disciplines and fields, in theory and practice. There are a number of highly respectable integral approaches that have indeed helped shift our global perspective towards a more integral viewpoint over the past 200 years.
For the cyclical Soulidarity rhythm, my inspiration came, primarily, through the integral GENE rhythm (Ground,Emergence, Navigation & Effect) as postulated by Lessem and Schieffer (2). Furthermore, the rhythmic transmutation of my Soulidarity impulse, borrows resemblance and further contemplation from Ibn Khaldun’s[3] postulation of ‘Asabiyah’; the rise and fall of nations. Ultimately and in more practical terms, it was borne out of Akhuwat’s 5I’s (Iman, Ikhlas, Ihsan, Infaaq & Ikhuwah) principles drawing from the Prophetic philosophy of Mawakhat, virtually applying all this to a financial model based on Qard-e-Hasan/Benevolent Loans (interest-free) and further reinforced by Dr Amjad Saqib’s[4] philosophy of ‘virtuous circles’ for eradicating social injustices and societal regeneration.
Prospectively, the universality of my Soulidarity postulation, thus, takes inspiration from some of the giants of integraltheory and approach, Jean Gebser for ‘an ever-present origin’ and to some extent Spiral Dynamics theory of Worldview codes and levels of human consciousness by Don Beck & Christopher Cowan. Along with renowned contemporary Muslim thinkers and philosophers; Ziauddin Sardar, Dr Sayyed Naser Hossein, Tariq Ramadan – with an overall Sufi way of thinking/feeling and intuiting, inspired by the teachings of my spiritual guide Pir Zia Inayat Khan and spiritual teacher, Shaykha Amat-un-Nur. Over and above, drawing on the primordiality of universal truth manifestation from Mulla Sadra’s transcendental philosophy of the Four Journeys of the Intellect.
My thesis accentuates a new ‘spirit’ of integral solidarity patching the gap between the spiritual and the material in an age of Integrality, albeit from an Islamic philosophical worldview. Forasmuch as, the Islamic mystic philosophers and Sufi saints of the past, largely contributed to evolving the ontological Muslim metaphysics e.g. Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi’s[5] theory of “Quantum Gravity”, Shahab al-Din Yahya Suhrawardi’s[6] “Philosophy of Illumination“, Avicenna’s[7] “Alchemy of Healing”. The decline in Islamic philosophical thought ending by the 16th century preceded the era of fundamentally religious thought by the nineteen century. The sheer paucity of creative thinking amongst contemporary Muslim thinkers and academicians necessitates a new age integral approach to revive the perennial wisdom and tradition of practically implying Islamic spiritual knowledge in areas of human development.
Notwithstanding, Integralism, albeit undoubtedly another form of idealism, having its roots in 19th Century Transcendentalism and in Perennial Philosophy. Lessem & Schieffer’s integral GENE rhythm (Grounding, Emergence, Navigation and Effect), is embedded in the diverse reality views and knowledge realms of the Integral Worlds (South, East, North & West), bringing them all together in transformative interaction.