Hazrat Inayat Khan was a Sufi teacher from India who started "The Sufi Order in the West" (now called the Sufi Order International) in the early part of the 20th century. Though his family background was Muslim, he was also steeped in the Sufi notion that all religions have their value and place in human evolution.
Background
Inayat was born into a family of musicians in 1882. His grandfather was a well-known musician respected as a composer, performer, and developer of a musical annotation which combined a group of diverse musical languages into one simplified integrated notation. The house in which he grew up was a crossroads for visiting poets, composers, mystics, and thinkers. There they met and discussed their views (religious and otherwise) in an environment of openness and mutual understanding. This produced in the young man a sympathy for many different religions, and a strong feeling of the "oneness" of all faiths and creeds. Inayat's early life primarily revolved around music, and he was given many awards and medals of honor for his magnificent singing. In 1903 Inayat published a Hindustani collection of some 75 songs as Professor 'Inâyat Khân Rahmât Khân Pathân.
Education
Studied hard, detecting with a deep understanding of the world, especially its attracted to philosophy and religion.
His success in teaching were considerable, and in his youth he had been initiated into the Order of the four, namely: Chishti, Naqshbandi, Qadiri and Suhrawardi - which, I must say, is a rarity. One day, after years of study and friendship, Sheikh Madani called unto him, and during intimate conversations uttered these words: "Go, my child into the world, connecting East and West is the harmony of your music, to spread the wisdom of Sufism, for you are blessed by God the All-Merciful , Merciful. " From now on, doing the will of his Murshid, Inayat Khan becomes the bearer of "Sufi Message" - the message of the freedom of the Spirit. Since 1910, he is traveling, leaving India with lectures and concerts in America, Europe, Russia and visits. In his foreign tours accompanied by his brothers: Maheboob Khan and Musharraf Khan, and uncle - Ali Khan. In 1912, he married an American Ore Ray Becker, subsequently accepting name Pirani Amina Begum. They are born four children: Nurunissa Inayat Khan, Vilayat Khan, Hidayat Khan and Harunissa Inayat Khan. In 1926, he returned to India, and February 6, 1927 in Delhi leaves this world, leaving behind a legacy in thirteen volumes of poetry, plays, outlining the religious, mystical and philosophical views, and in which you can now find the answer to many questions that concern people.
What is the meaning of "Sufi Message" and why is it, this message appears in the world? Inayat Khan said that when the law is violated and justice is in decline, down to earth is the messenger, and this messenger brings the Word, and the Word - the light that fills the crescent (which is not a symbol of Islam). Inayat said this about the great messengers: Moses, Jesus, Muhammad. They were messengers for entire eras and nations, and they remain so today.
Career
Before he was 20 years old, he became a full professor at the Gayanshala. He played the vina and had a beautiful singing voice, and soon his fame spread everywhere in the country. He sang at the courts of Nawabs and Princes, and the then Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Mahebub Ali Khan (whom Inayat Khan describes as a mystic ruler), called him his Tansen.
A special page Inayat Khan's life is connected with Russia. He reached Russia in its journey between about 3 and 21 October 1913 and has lived here for seven months. In Moscow, he arrived in Paris with his three brothers-musicians. The purpose of his visit was to organize concerts and lectures, demonstrations of Indian music. First Indian Classical Music concerts were held in the theater "Maxim". To attract the public cabaret owner invited musicians from all over the world. And he invited the famed Paris Inayat Khan. Inayat Khan will soon establish a friendship with composer and musician S. Tolstoy (son of Leo Tolstoy), the poet Vyacheslav Ivanov, a teacher of the Imperial Conservatory singer EA Lavrovskaya with actress Lydia Dmitrievnoj Ryndina. They were "discovered" by Inayat Khan Moscow musical circles. Unusual music, excellent performance, the charm of a handsome, educated, having also "special" knowledge - all this attracted many to him a subtle sense of people, including his friendships with the teachers of the Imperial Conservatory, with singer Olga Tacke, pianist and composer Vladimir Paul and St. Leo Tolstoy help him publish a musical album with sixteen Indian melodies arranged for piano. Indian brothers ensemble gives concerts at the Polytechnic Museum in the ethnographic concerts, organized by the Department of Ethnography and Ethnographic Commission Musical IO LE, A. and E, and at the Moscow Conservatory. In just seven months, there were about ten concerts. In the poetic salon Vyacheslav Ivanov in January 1914 Inayat Khan met Scriabin, who was at that time at the height of his musical fame. Then they met a few more times. A. Scriabin, having been on the lecture-concert Inayat Khan invited him to his home in the Arbat alley. It happened in the spring. Inayat Khan wrote on Scriabin: "I found him not only a wonderful artist, but also a thinker and mystic. He seemed dissatisfied with Western music, think about how to make something from the eastern to the western music in order to enrich the latter. I agree with him, I thought that if this idea ever be fulfilled, despite the difficulties that arise at the beginning, then this kind of music could be the music of the world. That, in turn, could help to unite humanity in universal brotherhood. Music for this is best, because it is loved by both the East and the West. " In addition to musical activities: lectures, concerts - the Sufi Inayat Khan is in operation. Around him in Moscow and then in St. Petersburg is going to circle those involve spiritual discipline. He managed to find a way to transfer the Sufi ideas and characters in a language that Europeans. It was then among the Russian intelligentsia appear first Sufis. His classes filled with wise Sufi parables, explaining the symbols and signs in nature and life stories of how the ever so desirable in Russian Freedom, which "is the natural state of the soul and its goal" to win him the heart. Russia has always been quite a few who, like the Sufis who aspired to freedom and was willing to suffer for it, openly expressing his opinion on the square in front of "the palace of power" or "bazaar of life" ... But, as always, all opinions, and even interest to other opinions were under surveillance. And not all have sufficient courage and inner freedom. Some people could not afford to openly attend religious classes Inayat Khan, wanting to see him, did it in secret. Soon there is another important event here in Russia, published his first book - "The Sufi Message of Freedom of the Spirit." From this small volume book can be found quite invaluable and reliable concentrated information on the history and practice of Sufism. By that time, Inayat Khan appears close disciples, and he opened a branch "Sufi Order" in Russia, which is representative of the music department becomes SL Tolstoy. The music is associated another interesting page Inayat Khan stay in Russia. It is in Russia had fulfilled a very important mystical idea Inayat Khan - a symbolic statement of the mystery of the ballet "Shakuntala" (Shakuntala) by the drama of Indian playwright Kalidasa. This idea became interested Tahirov director Alexander, head of the Chamber Theater in Moscow. Music, Inayat Khan proposed for the performance, arranged Vladimir Paul. The premiere took place in December 1914 in the role of Alice made Shakuntala UNC. In May 1914, Inayat Khan and his brothers leave in late May Petersburg and sent to Paris for the International Music Congress, where he was supposed to represent Indian music. Relationship with their students in Russia Inayat Khan maintained until 1921, and then cut off the correspondence, since the letters are not neither one nor the other.
Views
The merit of Inayat Khan is that he brought to the Western world the philosophical system that was previously only available to Indian Sufis, he found the method of presentation of Sufi ideas acceptable to Western man. Transfer of ideas from one cultural, ethnic environment to another is complex, and the work that has done Inayat Khan, a Sufi bringing ideas from the East to the West - is significant. The Sufi movement, which went for ideas Inayat Khan, does not aim to make the whole world is made up of the Sufis. It exists to bring people together who want to study in Sufism how to contemplate God and how to serve Him, how to know yourself and the world in which the man destined to live how and where to seek the truth.