
Show Notes
A long awaited episode, in which we finally talk about the important and controverisal 20th century sufi Inayat Khan and the Sufi Movement that he started in the West.
Sources/Recomended Reading:
Gandhi, Supriya (2020). "The Emperor who never was: Dara Shukoh in Mughal India". Belknap Press.
Inayat Khan, Pir Zia (ed.) (2001). "A Pearl in Wine: Essays on the Life, Music & Sufism of Hazrat Inayat Khan". Omega Publications.
Inayat Khan Zia (2006). "A Hybrid Sufi Order At the Crossroads of Modernity: The Sufi Order and Sufi Movement of Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan". Doctoral Thesis. Duke University.
Khan, Inayat (1996). "The Mysticism of Sound & Music". Shambala.
Khan, Inayat (2003). "The Sufi Message: Spiritual Liberty" (Vol. 5). Motilal Banarsidass Publications.
Miner, Allyn (translated by) (2016). "The Minqar-i Musiqar: Hazrat Inayat Khan's classic 1912 work on Indian musical theory & practice". Suluk Press.
Nair, Shankar (2020). "Translating Wisdom: Hindu-Muslim Intellectual Interactions in Early Modern South Asia". University of California Press. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from Let's Talk Religion
Iblis (Satan) refused to bow to Adam, and the Qur’an condemns him for it. But some of the most daring Sufi mystics read that refusal very differently: as the act of a perfect monotheist and a tragic lover who would not bow to anything but God, even at the cost of eternal separation. In this video we explore how Iblis was reinterpreted in Islamic mysticism, from Mansur al-Hallaj’s Kitab al-Tawasin to the Persian “School of Love” (madhhab-i ‘ishq) of Ahmad Ghazali and ‘Ayn al-Qudat Hamadani.
What is the Anqa? In this episode we explore the Anqa (عنقاء), the elusive, legendary bird of Arabic and Islamic tradition, often compared to the phoenix and the Persian Simurgh. We look at its origins in pre-Islamic Arabian lore, the story of how it vanished from the world, and how "the Anqa of the West" (ʿanqāʾ mughrib) became a proverb for something that exists in name but can never be found. We also trace how Sufi mystics like Ibn ʿArabi and Farid al-Din ʿAttar turned this mythical creature into a powerful symbol of the hidden, the unknowable, and the divine.
In this episode, we explore the fascinating history of alchemy in the Islamic(ate) world, from the writings of Jabir ibn Hayyan, to the Emerald Tablet, Abu Bakr al-Razi & the Sufis.
Ibn 'Arabi's famous "Religion of Love" verses are some of the most striking lines in Islamic mysticism - a declaration that the heart can take the form of every temple, church, and shrine. In this episode, we do a deep dive into the poem itself, its context in the Tarjuman al-Ashwaq, and what it reveals about Ibn 'Arabi's views on love, God, and universality in Sufi thought.
The House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma) is one of the most mythologized institutions in history, but what do the actual medieval sources say? In this video, we separate legend from evidence, tracing what the House of Wisdom really was in Abbasid Baghdad & what role it played in the translation movement.