Jaya Bakker
‘Companions of Hazrat Inayat Khan? I’ve never heard of.’ Many new mureeds hardly ever heard of the three brothers of Hazrat Inayat Khan: Shaik-ul-Mashaik Maheboob Khan, Murshid Ali Khan and Murshid Musharaff Khan. That is remarkable, for they have led the Sufi Movement from 1927 until 1968 one after the other. Which atmosphere surrounded them?
We as mureeds sang, among other places, in Katwijk, in the Murad Hassil, songs for which Maheboob Khan composed the music on lyrics of Inayat Khan and gradually it dawned on me that the brothers, the companions, had played an utmost important part in the continuity of the body of thought which Inayat Khan brought to the West. And whoever, as mureed, as a member of the Brotherhood or as an interested person, has committed oneself to the ideals of Inayat Khan, owes them gratefulness. In the Sufi Darbar, the The Hague Centre at the Banstraat, the brothers were commemorated on their birthdays and on the day of their death. And thereby the thoughts of them remained living.
Within our movement there are some mureeds who have known and witnessed one or more of the brothers. It is important that Karin Jironet has written a historic treatise on these three Murshids. Her book has to an important degree the nature of a historiography of heights and lows of those times. While reading it those who have witnessed that time can include their own precious memories. Those for whom this period is unknown will be curious after the experience of the association with the companions and the atmosphere which surrounded them. At any rate, that is how it was for me. In order to know more about the companions I contacted some mureeds who could tell about those times at first hand. In italic words I refer to what they have said, not only about their experience of those days with the companions but how, from that background, they think about the Sufi Movement right now and how they see the future.
It was surprising – each one of them told something no one had ever mentioned before. Two mureeds sighed that they were heard at last. It would be useful to develop a way of working in which listening to the ideas and suggestions of mureeds would become accepted.
In those interviews more than once it was mentioned that Murshida Shahzadi should be always be bracketed together with the companions. She was responsible for the progress, formed a bridge to the present day. She played a great role in the Sufi Movement, first as wife and support of Musharaff Khan and after his passing away as one of the leaders of the Sufi Movement and guide of many mureeds. She was part of the special atmosphere of the brothers. The one who has witnessed her in the Banstraat or somewhere else has been connected to that atmosphere and hopefully still is.
Not everyone in the immediate surroundings of the brothers experienced the same. For example, the widow of Inayat Khan. In a letter Ameen Begum begged Ali Khan, her brother in law, to come and visit the children’s party of the children.(1) It has to be stated that Shaik-ul-Mashaik, who was the guardian to the children, never visited her in her home after feeling not welcome on one occasion. Ameen Begum did not want to part with the guardianship. As a result the children did not see their uncle at their home anymore, at Fazal Manzil. Obviously, none of the children has received spiritual guidance from the companions in the Sufi tradition of Inayat Khan.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE COMPANIONS TO THE MUREEDS
Inayat Khan and his brothers came to the West as musicians. They were mystics, healers and seers. They supported themselves by giving concerts. The significance of the companions to mureeds is hard to express in words. There is hardly someone who has known and experienced Shaik-ul-Mashaik. A few have known Ali Khan and most of the persons I have interviewed cherish warm memories of Musharaff Khan. The stories told about the three of them were very respectful. They, the brothers, followed the tradition of Inayat Khan with the exception of giving ‘collective interviews’. The Summer Schools were sources of inspiration. Though, more than once it was stated that they were immigrants and that this has complicated their work. For example, they did not speak Dutch but only English to mureeds. Murshida Shaszadi always accompanied Musharaff Khan and, if necessary, translated the interviews of her husband with mureeds. That language barrier made some mureeds shy and timid. Among other things Ali Khan and Musharaff Khan also gave physical practices. They were keen on being healthy. I have the idea that nowadays this does not take place within the Sufi training. Those who have known all three of them were very young when they came into touch with Sufism. Shaik-ul-Mashaik was only mentioned by those who were born in a Sufi family and saw him from a distance. The beautiful songs, the ‘Sufi songs’, we owe to him. He composed the music to texts of Inayat Khan. His clairvoyance was illustrated, among other things, by an event during WOII. After a bombardment he was told which building had been flattened. ‘No’, he said, ‘it was a building at the big road.’ That proved to be right.
Ali Khan has been described in quite an opposite experience. An imposing presence under dramatic and oppressive conditions. A formidable human being, a strong leader. Because of that many people deserted. Those who had contact with him in private do understand that some people were a little bit afraid of him. They themselves call him: my soul guardian and referred to his loving attitude, his pleasant manner with other people, his sense of humor. His presence and silences have left an everlasting impression on the mureeds. Sometimes he cooked for his hosts when he stayed with them. He loved to sing with the whole family, sometimes in Chinese with words as spaghetti. If he laughed it was as if a whole mountain was laughing. He was rather corpulent and the average Dutchman did not expect this from a spiritual man. But soon his radiance was perceptible. He learned to ride a bicycle and that was not very easy for him. The person who told this thought this was very funny. Ali Khan was considered a man who could do everything and having a hard time in learning to ride a bicycle did not fit in.
His healing voice has permeated many people deeply and a great number of people have experienced his healing themselves. It is a pity I did not ask him more questions, someone sighed.
Those who did not have contact with him in private but only knew him as an initiator and a guide, a Pir-o-Murshid, told in awe about his authority, wisdom and power. He always was reserved, all dignity. Whatever deviated from that dignity was not good. Games within the Youth Brotherhood (Sufi youngsters) he thought beneath our dignity. You’d better not mention a campfire. ‘If I had no questions, he sang to me’, a mureed said.
In Karen Jironet’s book I read that he has been engaged for a little while and that he broke this friendship twice because one of the women accompanied a male violinist and the other woman had an animated conversation with a male co-mureed. For him that meant infidelity. To me it invoked a great compassion. I noticed how important it is that an initiator and a guide speaks the language and understands the culture in which he is working. In essence that goes for different communities and environments in the Netherlands too.
About Musharaff Khan all of my conversation partners consented that he was a man without any distance, either as an initiator and a guide or as a Pir-o-Murshid. Contact with him was like a tea party. But when one left, one felt that something had happened. The superlatives stated seem limitless: a radiant personality, kind, ‘When I met him it was as if I stood before a clear crystal’, one person said. Two other persons, ‘when I think of him, I experience a deep calmness’ and, ‘when I think of him, I see the sun in the parlor’. The relationships with him were characterized by friendship, a friend in the highest sense, remarkably happy, always amiable, a radiant personality, a great reconciler; he extinguished domestic fires before they could burst into flames. He did not talk much, was humble, but was experienced as being a counselor, a guide, an inspiring example of devotion and solidarity’. The words ‘Come and follow me’, which I had already learned from Jesus, I could apply to my Murshid in the truest sense’, a mureed wrote. In his presence difficulties disappeared. The words ‘smiling forehead’, introduced by Inayat Khan, did apply to him par excellence. ‘Looking back I have experienced Musharaff Khan as a guide, friend and father. It felt as family, warm, that is what we miss nowadays’, is told to me melancholically. Often he visited the weekends of the Sufi youngsters at the Hoornboeg and stayed there. ‘If he asked about what we would talk and out of shyness I hesitated, he began talking about what I dearly wanted to talk about’, was said more than once. A remarkable oneliner of his is, ‘All is well and all will be well’. A son of a mureed, who had been initiated by Inayat Khan, called his resemblance with Inayat Khan striking.
SUCCESSION
It is remarkable that the succession within the Sufi Movement is not clear to this very day, as well as concerning the leadership of the Movement as for most of the leaders of the Sufi centers. Only Ali Khan left a will in that sense, but with an ambiguous condition. There are no wills found of Inayat Khan, Shaikh-ul-Mashaikh and Musharaff Khan. It is said that Inayat Khan trusted his will to a mureed, who probably burnt it at home after his death in a mental breakdown. My first impulse was ‘Weren’t there any notaries at that time?’ After Inayat Khan’s passing away this uncertainty made some mureeds claim that they were the true successor because they had understood it that way.
From this several fractions originated. One mureed with whom I talked said sadly, ‘then someone died and a new fraction originated’. We can derive from this repetitively ambiguity that clarity is needed and that agreements should be recorded where they belong.
In 1968 Fazal Inayat-Khan, a son of Murshid Hidayat, a grandson of Inayat Khan, then 24 years old, has written a clear statement concerning the question of the succession within the Sufi Movement: ‘Statement on succession’. In short, he wrote, ‘one cannot succeed a Prophet’. Murshid Hidayat again and again characterized our time as a time in which we have to deal with followers of the followers of the followers etc. Fazal, ‘The Sufi Movement has been established for two reasons: to preserve and to spread this message. This is a twofold task. The spiritual and the organizational. For all Sufis all around the world the spiritual task goes. In the organizational sense it is a task for all Sufis who want to serve the message with their talents.’ If we can support this vision and take it seriously, we can face the future with joy, with the accompanying changes. The lesson we can learn from it is: think continuously of the best way of succession, prepare persons to it and include them into the whole at an earlier stage. In this, a sound grasp of the qualities of mureeds is essential.
It would be helpful if an age limit would be introduced for leadership of the Sufi Movement and the various activities. Introducing a limited duration for functions could also be considered. This is for the sake of the Sufi Movement. In this way everyone can remain aware of the need of paying attention to succession. Taking over functions unexpectedly usually ends in conflicts.
When attention and energy are given to the increase and the settlement of conflicts, they cannot be directed towards the preservation and the spread of the precious body of ideas of Inayat Khan. Therefore, a strong, clear organization is needed: an organization/a movement which indicates what is important and what is not important for this pursuit. We have to bear in mind that various activities which do not fit in this twofold aim of the Sufi Movement, can silt up.
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE SUFI MOVEMENT
Within the Sufi Movement it is striking that mureeds are often involved in various activities at the same time. One says ‘yes’ to perform a certain task and soon it so happens that that same task grows into an assignment of which it is no longer possible to have an overall view. From my interviews it shows that the companions were mainly involved in the spiritual guidance of mureeds and that the organization did hardly come on screen. Concerning this question lots of suggestions were made. One person suggested that the spiritual leaders would show up best if they could focus on guidance and would not be unnecessarily hindered by organizational questions. Some suggested to appointing an organizational leader next to a spiritual leader, who leads the Sufi Movement organizationally in good consultation with the spiritual leader. The financial aspect also belongs to this. From the beginning the Sufi Movement has been dependent upon persons who are ‘well to do’. Karin Jironet mentions this in her book. In a situation like that whoever pays, decides. The Sufi Movement should be able to support itself by membership fees, donations, the publication of books, lectures outside of our own circle, rental of owned buildings etc.
THE ESSENCE OF THE MESSAGE MUREEDS WANT TO SPREAD
In most cases the Universal Worship Service is a settled and regular weekly or monthly gathering. In some places other gatherings have been added or have replaced them. The cherags convey the message by kindling the candles, reading from the Holy Scriptures of the world and giving a lecture. The atmosphere accounts for the rest.
I remember very well that, when I became a mureed, Murshida Shahzadi said clearly during the ordination that we do not evangelize from Sufism. That seems to contradict with the term spreading, but that is not the case. Spreading occurs more or less of itself by the attitude one has acquired and when people have questions about Sufism a short and clear answer is appropriate. But my conversation partners experienced mixed feelings about the degree to which we succeed in this. The unity of religious ideals is the main thing: love, harmony and beauty. Our time needs this very much. Brotherhood was mentioned, ‘but that has not been realized within the Sufi Movement. How do I treat people? That always has to be with respect, that is what it is all about. But keep your feet on the ground.’
‘What I see in the Sufi Movement: it is all very beautiful, but when it comes to the crunch, it fails quite often. We are talking beautifully, but do we practice it at all? Friendship and enmity are hardly mentioned in the classes. People are looking for a kind of safety. Threats are less pleasant. The danger is that one escapes into all sorts of things. One has to come to the point where one sees that one is escaping. We have a Sufi Movement and that means that is has to flow, otherwise it does not have any life in it’, someone explains to me.
A few mureeds told me that they did not talk much and had not been involved in spreading the message. As a reaction one person said that he spreads out the altar, in which the unity of religious ideals takes shape. ‘The prayers are alive to me and arise spontaneously’. Another person thinks back in nostalgia of the circle in which the mureeds were sitting during memorials, ‘Now we are sitting in rows and receive pies. At Murshida Shaszadi’s we received little pieces of cake, made by Rahman, with a little glass of rosewater, as it were, a little bit of holy water, a ritual. At that moment the essence is unity, peace, friendship and brotherhood’. ‘The love I got from the companions and what Inayat Khan writes, that music is a divine art, I have never experienced so strongly as during the singing of Ali Khan and Musharaff Khan. The songs of Shaikh-ul-Mashaikh decided me to go to the conservatory in order to make his music known as a professional musician’, an older mureed said.
Someone else wants ‘to spread the understanding of the divinity of the soul and how it affects the issues of today, such as life, death, education, training and the tone of debate. If you see what is going on in the world, the Sufi way of thinking has been spread throughout the world; the more authenticable human beings are the better. The Sufi Message spreads of itself.
More clarity about the true meaning of hierarchy would be useful. One of the respondents mentioned this and Ratan Witteveen writes about this in the last chapter of the book of Karen Jironet, ‘Hierarchy can be misinterpreted. It should not be based upon strict rules’.
POSSIBLE CHANGES IN THE SPREADING OF THE SUFI MESSAGE
We should go more public and be not too modest about it, but find a way through our attitude, wherever we are, at the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the family. Not only the spreading is important, but it is our task. We are not allowed to keep it to ourselves and the source does not have to be mentioned. Let’s focus more on social discussions, discussions groups, writing, more planned actions in virgin territory and countries. It would be good if the lectures were not being given by the same persons over and over again. Mureeds can be encouraged and prepared. That requires an understanding of the qualities of the mureeds. A study of the Holy Scriptures belongs to this preparation and understanding what the original message was like. Reading the Sufi texts of Inayat Khan intensely, so that one emerges in them. And we should focus on the youth explicitly.
Our PR needs expansion. That means making optimal use of the Internet nowadays, selling books in stores and not only on the book tables of the Sufi centers, maintaining a good relation with the tape and record library, writing in magazines and journals.
And all of this without evangelizing!
CONCLUSION
In review of the above-mentioned the mureeds have made concrete remarks and remarks focused on actions, based upon their deep experience, about the present day and the future, remarks that are in accordance with what Inayat Khan has said, namely that we have to take care of the Movement and that the Movement takes care of itself.
What is the most important of the Sufism to create in one’s own life? As an answer I would like to refer to a quote one of the mureeds gave to me during our conversation and which motivates him in his life:
‘Therefore for the Sufi there is one principle which is most essential to be remembered and that is consideration for human feeling. If one practices in his life this one principle he need not learn much more, he need not trouble about philosophy, he need not to follow an old, or a new religion, for this principle in itself is the essence of all religions. God is love, but where does God dwell? He abides in the heart of man’.(2)
(1) Letter from the archive of the Sufi Movement.
(2) Sangatha, page 30.
I give thanks to Hamida Verlinden, who provided me with information from the archive of the Sufi Movement. Furthermore I have referred to:
* Fourteen mureeds. With ten of them I had a conversation by phone based upon questions I had sent to them. Four persons sent a written answer.
* Dr. Karin Jironet: Sufi Mysticism into the West: Life and Leadership of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s Brothers. 1927 – 1967. Publisher Peeters 2009 Leuven Belgium.
* Wali van Lohuizen: Some comments on the book of Sitara Jironet on the Brothers of Hazrat Inayat Khan. July 2007/January 2010.
* Shahzadi Musharaff Khan-de Koningh: Pages of a life with a Sufi, without date, not published.
* Walia van Lohuizen: lecture on Treasury of Sufism, October 2009.
* Musharaff Khan: Pages in the life of a Sufi, Miranda, Wassenaar, 1982, ISBN 90 62716628.
* Nasiban Xhrouet: Memories of Murshid Musharaff Khan. March 16, 1994.
* Fazal Inayat-Khan: Statement on succession, Deventer, August 29, 1968.
* Fourteen mureeds. With ten of them I had a conversation by phone based upon questions I had sent to them. Four persons sent a written answer.
* Dr. Karin Jironet: Sufi Mysticism into the West: Life and Leadership of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s Brothers. 1927 – 1967. Publisher Peeters 2009 Leuven Belgium.
* Wali van Lohuizen: Some comments on the book of Sitara Jironet on the Brothers of Hazrat Inayat Khan. July 2007/January 2010.
* Shahzadi Musharaff Khan-de Koningh: Pages of a life with a Sufi, without date, not published.
* Walia van Lohuizen: lecture on Treasury of Sufism, October 2009.
* Musharaff Khan: Pages in the life of a Sufi, Miranda, Wassenaar, 1982, ISBN 90 62716628.
* Nasiban Xhrouet: Memories of Murshid Musharaff Khan. March 16, 1994.
* Fazal Inayat-Khan: Statement on succession, Deventer, August 29, 1968.