HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN – The Mysticism of Sound

Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882 –1927) was an Indian professor of musicology, singer, exponent of the saraswati vina, poet, philosopher, and pioneer of the transmission of Sufism to the West. He initially came to the West as a representative of several traditions of classical Indian music, and established an order of Sufism (the Sufi Order) in London in 1914. By the time of his death in 1927, centers had been established throughout Europe and North America, and multiple volumes of his teachings had been published.

Well, I’ve been many things in my life and I don’t renounce any of them. But I don’t necessarily practice any of them on a daily basis either. I never renounced Christianity or if I did, I take it back. I’ve been involved in Tantric things that I guess you could call Hinduism, although that’s a very vague term. I practice Shia Islam. I still consider myself all those things but, obviously that’s a difficult position to take vis-a-vis the orthodox practitioners of these different faiths. So, if I had to define my position now in terms that would be historically meaningful in an Islamic context, I would refer to Hazrat Inayat Khan and his idea of universalism, that all religions are true. And if this involves contradiction, as Emerson said, OK. We’ll just deal with it on a different level. And the inspiration for this in his case was Indian synchrotism, between Hinduism and Islam especially, although other religions were involved too such as Christianity, Judaism and others. This happened on both a non-literate level of the peasantry and still persists to this day on that level, and also occurred on a very high level of intellectual Sufism which was almost a courtly thing at certain times, especially under some of the wilder Mughal rulers like Akbar who started Din-i Ilahi. So these things have precedents within the Islamic traditions, this universalism, this radical tolerance would be another way of putting it, but nowadays of course it’s hard to find this praxis on the ground. I can’t practice some Indian village cult here, that would be a little — well I sort of do, you know — but actually (laughs), it’s highly personal.

PETER LAMBORN WILSON, Interview,

The Anarchist Library

Inayat Khan’s teaching emphasized the oneness of God (tawhid) and the underlying harmony of the revelations communicated by the prophets of all the world’s great religions. His discourses treated such varied subjects as religion, art, music, ethics, philosophy, psychology, and health and healing.

Music: Ustad Mohi Baha’ud’din Dagar – Bhairavi Rudra Veena Sounds of Isha – Amla | Yoga Padhi | Meditative music | Instrumental