the branching of western sufism
Sufi Inayat Khan passed away unexpectedly in 1927. Leadership of the Sufi Movement he had founded first passed to his brother, Shaikh-ul-Mashaikh Maheboob Khan; in 1948 to his cousin, Pir-o-Murshid Ali Khan; in 1956 to his youngest brother, Pir-o-Murshid Musharaff Khan; and in 1968 to his grandson, Pir-o-Murshid Fazal Inayat-Khan.
Murshid Fazal’s style of teaching was dynamic, poetic, and responsive to the spirit of the times. However, by the early 1980’s, some older members of the Sufi Movement objected to this more radical and experiential style of teaching. In order to accommodate both tendencies, Murshid Fazal proposed a bifurcation between the more traditional Sufi Movement and the more inclusive and experiential Sufi Way, which became a specific branch of Inayat Khan’s lineage founded by Murshid Fazal in 1985. (An in-depth description of this history written by Murshid Fazal – “Western Sufism: The Sufi Movement, The Sufi Order International, and The Sufi Way” – can be read by clicking here.)
Following his death in 1990, Murshid Fazal was succeeded by the first woman leader of the tariqah (path), Pir-o-Murshida Sitara Brutnell. She passed away in 2004, naming Pir-o-Murshid Elias Amidon as her successor.
At various times during the 20th century there were other disputes among Sufi Inayat Khan’s mureeds about who should most rightfully be the next leader of the Sufi Movement. Inayat Khan’s eldest son, Vilayat, contended for many years that it was his right, culminating in his establishing his own order, the Sufi Order International. Another American mureed of Sufi Inayat’s, Samuel Lewis, also rose to prominence in the late 1960’s, and while not claiming leadership of the Sufi Movement, began his own related order, the Sufi Ruhaniyat International.
The richness and variety of teachings within the western Sufi tradition inspired by Sufi Inayat Khan is a sign of its vitality. As Murshid Fazal described it:
One can conclude in historical perspective that the cause of Sufism’s resurgent, adaptive and changing permanency as a feature of human, spiritual thought and practice, is its ability to decentralize and evolve its body of thought among a great variety of leaders. So it remains continuously in a flux of spiritual searching, responding to the present human condition at any particular time.
