Creating Space for Piety, Practice and Dialogue: Religious Freedom and North American Sufi Devotionalism

Home , Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Clinton Bennett, Inayat Khan

Kashshaf Ghani Nalanda University, India

This exploratory study draws from a larger engagement with religious plurality in the U.S. through the SUSI program in 2018, combined with my own research on Islamic spiritual tradition in South Asia. The idea of religious plurality in the U.S. contextualizes itself within the broader vision of religious freedom upheld in the First Amendment. While the latter has created sufficient scope for varied religious traditions and practices within the U.S. to voice themselves, a major shift in this regard was realized only through the transnational dimension, which witnessed the opening up of U.S. territory to international immigrants.

The following exploration studies the early history of Islamic devotional tradition in the U.S. particularly through the rise of the Sufi movements. I intend to approach this study primarily from the vantage point of historical origins and development of Sufi groups in the U.S. from the late- 20th century. This approach will be grounded on the perspective of Sufism as a minority faith practice and its various manifestations in U.S – spiritual practices, devotional exercises, artistic expression and cross-cultural dialogue.

Sufism being one such manifestation, its career in the U.S. can be identified along multiple positions of ideology and practice – drawing from normative Islamic teaching and morals, following an eclectic and universalist approach, and transplantation of Sufi practices from parent societies, like South Asia and Africa. The exploration will conclude by focusing on the dimension of transnationalism through a reference to the career of a South Asian Sufi master in Philadelphia – Bawa Muhaiyadeen.

Introduction

The vision and practice of religious freedom in the U.S. upholds the spirit of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that rules out any legal formulation concerning an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Understandably, this has created the space for plural religious traditions to flourish – dominated by major religions from the Abrahamic tradition

– Christianity, Islam, Judaism, as well as non-Abrahamic ones – Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and

Sikhism. In such a diverse religious space what is more interesting are not the big names, but the minor faith traditions, who on most occasions draw their inspiration from the Christian Church, the teachings of Jesus, the Islamic sharia, teachings and practices of Muhammad – and sustain their own beliefs on a bedrock of what can be called ‘inspired spirituality’.

A relevant approach to chart the historical career of these minor faith traditions, driven by a strong spiritual impulse, is not to stop by merely acknowledging their presence. Rather it is important to study their ways of negotiating the diverse arena of American society and culture. To frame it through a question would be to ask, In what ways did these minor traditions appeal, and adjust themselves, to American sensibility and emotions? However, it is one thing to pose this question for any spiritual tradition inspired by Christianity, followed by majority of the U.S. population. It is a completely different challenge to pose the same question for an obscure spiritual tradition like Sufism, drawn primarily from Islam, the youngest Abrahamic faith whose social presence in the U.S. has only gradually increased over the last century. In the following discussion, keeping the aforementioned question as the polestar, we explore ways in which Sufi movements from the early 20th century manifested itself in the U.S.

Early History:

Spiritual traditions arriving in the U.S. in the early 1900s were primarily traced to the East, an exotic civilizational idea fed and sustained by Orientalist scholarship, whose exploration of Sufi wisdom through the poetry of Hafiz from Shiraz (d. 1390) and Jalaluddin Rumi from Turkey (d.

1273) introduced Sufism to a Euro-American audience. In the 1960s and 70s the counter cultural movement riding on the first wave of feminism, demand for civil rights, led young middle-class

Americans to protest against racism and the Vietnam War, criticizing established religions for their failure to contain the evils of technocracy – all of which signaled the second phase of Sufi movements. The third phase saw the transnational dimension in American Sufi movements strengthen itself when favorable immigration laws opened U.S. territory to international communities. The fourth phase of Sufi activities can be seen in the post-globalisation era of 1990s when spiritual practices and retreats came to counter a hyper-consumerist culture.1

Some major personalities who carried Sufism into the U.S. were connected to their parent societies in South Asia, primarily Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and the island nation of Sri Lanka.

Since the early 13th century South Asia emerged as the most important region in the entire eastern world of Islam where Sufism flourished under multiple spiritual orders who migrated eastward from Iran and Iraq under the Mongol impact. When Sufism arrived in South Asia Sufi masters found themselves preaching to a non-Muslim population having little idea of Abrahamic religious beliefs. Centuries later, history would repeat itself, in rather interesting ways, when Sufi masters from Southern Asia arrived in the U.S. to preach to an American non-Muslim audience, who had

1 Merin Shobhana Xavier, Sacred Spaces and Transnational Networks in American Sufism: Bawa Muhaiyaddeen and Contemporary Shrine Cultures, Bloomsbury, 2018; Gisela Webb, “Sufism in America” in Timothy Miller (ed.), America’s Alternative Religions, SUNY Press, 1995, 249-58.

little idea of what Sufism meant as an Islamic spiritual tradition. Faced with this challenge early

Sufi masters had to think of ways by which they could successfully convey the message of Sufism, and to some degree that of Islam as well, to an audience largely unaware, yet receptive. Sufism needed to be garbed and packaged in ways intelligible and appealing to an American audience standing at the crossroads of global cultures, steeped in modern sensibilities and multiple religious affiliations.

Observing generations of Sufi activities in America, scholars writing from the 1990s came to see this movement along two approaches – the hybrid model which combined traditional Islamic practices with the American social environment; while the perennial model emphasized universalist trends of religion, thereby dispensing with any formal adherence to Islam by its members. By de-recognizing the practice of Islamic law as central to Sufism, perennialists allowed followers of any traditional religion to embark on the path of spiritual realization, through practices culled from various religious traditions under the belief that they all emanate from a single true source.2 The assumption latent in this approach shows a clear influence from the

Abrahamic belief in one God as the source of all knowledge and creation. A second group of perennialists though accommodating and universalist in approach, put up a semblance of attachment to the Sharia. At the end of the day, these two approaches can be seen to project a conflict of cultural identity, either by upholding normative Muslim cultural styles of attire, name, religious worship, or blending into the host culture in an accommodating and adaptive manner. As

2 Marcia Hermansen, “Hybrid Identity Formations in Muslim America: The Case of American Sufi Movements”, The Muslim World, 90, Spring 2000, 158-97; Marcia Hermansen, “American Sufis and American Islam: From Private Spirituality to the Public Sphere” in Islamic Movements and Islam in the Multicultural World: Islamic Movements and Formation of Islamic Ideologies in the Information Age, Kazan Federal University Publishing House, 2014, 189-208.

we turn to the careers of some Sufi masters in America we will see how universalist trends and traditional Islamic practices intersect in complex ways.

Early Sufi Master: Inayat Khan

The earliest Sufi master to arrive in America was Hazrat Inayat Khan (1880-1927), who arrived in

New York from Bombay in 1912. A musician trained in the Hindustani classical tradition, Inayat

Khan was affiliated to the Chishti order, South Asia’s earliest and most popular Sufi order which arrived from Afghanistan in the early 13th century. Inayat Khan’s arrival inaugurated the first phase of Sufi activities in America that was already showing an increasing interest in the esoteric, spiritual and philosophical traditions of the East, formalized through the Theosophical Society; as well as the reception of the wisdom of Hafiz and Rumi deeply followed by figures of the

Trancendentalist Movement like Ralph Emerson (d. 1882). As a believer in the oldest Sufi tradition from South Asia it was expected of Inayat Khan to project his spirituality through the lenses of

Islamic tradition and practice, resting on the foundation of Sharia. Rather interestingly, Inayat

Khan spoke through the language of universalism that was transmitted through the practice of

‘universal worship’ drawing from scriptural traditions across world religions, to be interiorized by his spiritually inquisitive American Christian audience through chants, recitations, meditation and concentration practices. This movement which came to be named the Sufi Order, did not require conversion to Islam and practice of the Sharia.3

3 Ibid.; Marcia Hermansen, “South Asian Sufism in America”, in Clinton Bennett and Charles M Ramsey, South Asian Sufis: Devotion, Deviation and Destiny, Bloomsbury, 2012, 247-68; Nile Green, Sufism A Global History, Wiley- Blackwell, 2012, 224-28; Webb, “Sufism in America”; Gisela Webb, “Negotiating Boundaries: American Sufis”, in J. Hammer & O. Safi (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to American Islam, Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 190- 207. 5

This eclectic tradition continued under Inayat Khan’s son and spiritual successor Pir Vilayat Khan

(d. 2004) who trained himself with a Hindu teacher as well as a Sufi master, incorporated

‘breathing techniques… tantric-style exercises based on chakra visualization, and… Christian and alchemical symbolism.’4 Interestingly however, neither Inayat, nor his son could dissociate themselves completely from the bedrock of Islamic spiritual practices which they had interiorized as part of their affiliation to the South Asian Chishti-Nizami silsila/order. Though the five daily prayers were not included as a mandatory practice, the Sufi ritual of dhikr (recitation and repetition of Divine names), was clearly the central practice of the order. So was the role of Inayat and Vilayat as Sufi murshids, and the use of music to facilitate meditation and conditioning of the heart. As membership increased during Vilayat Khan’s lifetime, community-reading of the unpublished writings of Inayat Khan became an important practice among the adepts, clearly reflecting a centuries-old tradition among Chishti Sufis, to record instructions and messages of saints in writing, known as malfuzat, to be handed down across generations as a normative body of spiritual knowledge and instruction, replacing the master after his physical demise. Also historic was the practice of giving spiritual names to new initiates under Vilayat Khan, though these names were drawn from varied religious traditions.

Chishti Sufis are historically renowned for their deep social network across the length and breadth of the Indian subcontinent, independently as well by co-training disciples from other orders. In the

U.S. Inayat Khan’s endeavors took a similar trajectory by forging regional as well as transregional connections. Fazal Inayat Khan (d. 1990) started The Sufi Way in England. Hidayat Inayat Khan (d.

4 Hermansen, ‘Hybrid Identity”; Hermansen, “South Asian Sufism”; Webb, “Sufism in America”; Webb, “Negotiating Boundaries

2016) carried forward the lineage of his father through the International Sufi Movement, based in

Holland but active in the U.S. and Canada. Murshid Samuel Lewis (d. 1971) from San Francisco became a disciple of Inayat Khan in 1923. This training led Lewis to form the Sufi Islamia Ruhaniat

Society (SIRS) shortly before his death. Lewis’ disciples followed the example of their master by joining Vilayat Khan’s Sufi Order in 1971 only to part ways 6 years later.5

Sufi Master in Philadelphia: Bawa Muhaiyaddeen

Decades of the 1960s and 70s witnessed a crisis and struggle for moral order within the American society. A series of unsettling events, locally and globally as mentioned above, led to a realization of moral depravity and hollowness among a large section of the population. Individual manifestations of this anxiety through soul-searching may be difficult to trace, and will not be delved into. But one example stands out, and might help in furthering this discussion.

In Fall 1969, a doctoral student from Sri Lanka at the University of Pennsylvania listened in all eagerness to a young woman who traveled from New Orleans to Philadelphia specifically to meet him. As she narrated her experiences of spiritual turmoil that began in November 1963 leaving her emotionally distraught in search of spiritual guidance, this doctoral student Mohamed Mauroof offered help by telling her about a Sufi master he knew back in Sri Lanka, named Muhammad

Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen. As reaching out to spiritual masters from the East once more seemed to be the way out, this lady wrote to Bawa in October 1969 seeking help. As exchange of letters became regular she shared with Bawa personal and worldly problems which accentuated her emotional crisis – her father leaving for Vietnam on war-duty leaving the family anxious, the

5 Hermansen, ‘Hybrid Identity”; Carl W. Ernst and Bruce B. Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love: The Chishti Order in South Asia and Beyond, Palgrave, 2002, 140-43; Webb, “Negotiating Boundaries.

assassination of strong voices for civil rights like Malcolm X (d. 1965) and Martin Luther King Jr. (d.

1968), and racial issues in Philadelphia. Since she was not financially strong enough to relocate to

Bawa’s ashram in Sri Lanka, she decided to sponsor his visit to Philadelphia. Bringing together a group of like-minded spiritual seekers and yoga enthusiasts the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship was informally founded in late 1971 paving the way for Bawa’s arrival on 11 October 1971.6

Who was Bawa, and what was his career in Sri Lanka like, which catapulted him into the American social and spiritual arena at a time of crisis and moral corrosion? We turn to this South Asian story briefly. Sometime between 1940-42, after long years of meditation in solitude, Bawa emerged from the jungles of southern Sri Lanka, moved to the northern part of the island and settled in

Jaffna. Though he claimed affiliation to the Qadiriyya Sufi order, a global Sufi lineage originating in

Baghdad under Abdul Qadir Gilani in the 12th century, Bawa’s initial disciples were interestingly poor Hindus from the lower sections of the society, not many Muslims, though Christians and

Buddhists occasionally visited him. It was not until a decade later that Bawa could acquire a worn down Dutch warehouse to establish an independent ashram or commune in 1952. In the following decade Bawa cleared forest lands in the vicinity to start farming rice, vegetables and coconuts in order to support his growing family of disciples – a model that will be readily followed by his

American disciples later.7

6 Frank Korom, “Charisma and Community: A Brief History of the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship”, Sri Lanka Journal of Humanities, 37, 1-2, 2011, 19-33; Gisela Webb, “Tradition and Innovation in Contemporary American Islamic Spirituality: The BawaMuhaiyaddeen Fellowship”, in Yvonne Haddad and Jane Smith (Eds.), Muslim Communities in North America, State University of New York Press, 1994, 75-108; Webb, “Sufism in America”; Gisela Webb, “Negotiating Boundaries”. 7 Ibid.

As the community grew in Jaffna and Bawa’s name traveled as a healer, counselor, exorcist and

Sufi teacher, he came to be recognized as Guru, a perfect man/insane-e kamil with a pure heart.

The urban educated elite comprising Muslim intellectuals and Buddhist Theosophists started organizing his sessions in Colombo that led to the formation of the Serendib Sufi Study Circle in

1962. It focused on philosophical discussions, spiritual practices like dhikr, and community services like distribution of free food. This elite group of Muslim followers came to identify Bawa as Sufi saint/sheikh. Interestingly it was from this clientele of educated urban elite Muslims in Colombo,

Kandy and Matale that his name was carried across the seven seas into the farthest West where he landed in 1971. His initial followers were African-American Muslim communities from

Philadelphia, who attached themselves in good numbers pushing the Fellowship to move out to a bigger space in the outskirts of Philadelphia in 1973, by converting a Jewish community centre.

Bawa’s early teaching drew freely from Hindu, Buddhist, Christian and Islamic traditions which did not foreground the Islamic elements, thereby allowing Bawa to be accepted as a South Asian

‘guru’ whose circle of teaching and preaching did not require an exclusive religious identity, and adherence to formal religious practice.8

However, over the next decade two significant developments determined the Fellowship’s social capital and religious investment. With more and more Euro-American followers responding to

Bawa’s teaching and preaching, the demographic scale of the Fellowship shifted from poor, lower middle class African-American Muslim communities to affluent urban elite Euro-American followers, most of whom were non-Muslims. Despite Bawa’s repeated attempts to teach his followers the merits of looking beyond divisions of race, class, caste, gender, his message proved

8 Ibid.

insufficient to transcend the social realities of the age. A large section of the African-American members of the Fellowship left. The second development was a clear stride towards Islamisation of what was till now a universalist Sufi tradition. Important markers of this were seen in the formalization of the Sufi practice of dhikr in 1976, instituting the five daily prayers in 1981, and finally the creation of a ritualized space for all of the above, with the completion of the mosque in

May 1984, more than a decade after Bawa landed in Philadelphia. Bawa’s Qadiriyya affiliation is enshrined above the entrance of the mosque, a declaration of the Fellowship’s attachment to a historical Sufi order. In current times, the mosque serves as a religious and educational centre for immigrants as well as Bawa’s immediate followers. A gradual acquiring of an Islamic dimension by the Fellowship in America is interesting when juxtaposed against his ashram in Jaffna which continued to be maintained by a Hindu follower of Bawa.9

Bawa’s transnational career based on spiritual practice and teaching though encompassed a universalist attitude, nonetheless could not hide the tensions of his continuous negotiations with the immediate socio-cultural environment. These tensions would play out in meaningful ways after his death. Take for example his last resting place. After he passed away in December 1986 he was initially buried in the Fellowship House in the outskirts of Philadelphia. Thereafter his senior disciples wanted to build a shrine over his tomb to preserve the lasting spiritual charisma of their master for future generations and visitors. It may be assumed that some among these disciples experienced a Sufi shrine in South Asia when they accompanied Bawa to Sri Lanka, and hence carried back the novel idea to America. Bawa’s shrine was designed by Michael Green an American

Sufi artist and built in East Fallowfield, 40 miles outside Philadelphia, in a land meant to serve as a

9 Ibid.

Muslim cemetery for members of the Fellowship and communal farm, much similar to the Jaffna model. On a South Asian model the shrine/mazaar resembling a tomb chamber was built over his earthly remains. The current author while paying his respects at the shrine could identify interesting aesthetic similarity with South Asian Sufi shrines. Bawa’s tomb is covered with dark green cloth having Quranic verses in golden calligraphy. Lattice screens typical in South Asian Sufi tombs were replaced by panoramic glass windows allowing the interplay of natural light, creating an imagery of the heaven. The room thoughtfully kept copies of the Koran, prayer books and prayer beads for visitors and devotees to sit close to the tomb and pray.

Bawa’s personal room at the Fellowship has similar things. However they are made ‘sacred’ by

Bawa’s touch, and the living memory that he used these items during his lifetime. Followers and visitors to the Fellowship, aspiring for a corporeal attachment with the saint, touch and kiss these items.10 On the other hand, by building a mazar over Bawa’s earthly remains, and containing his spiritual charisma to a physical space, a long-awaited opportunity was utilized both by American and immigrant Muslims to construct a sacred geography that would connect his ashram in Jaffna, and his Fellowship in Philadelphia to his last resting place, all mediated by the physical presence of the Sufi saint. An opportunity was also created for current and later generations aspiring to seek blessings/baraka from Bawa through the ritual of visitation/ziyarat to his shrine. Additionally, through regular commemoration of Bawa’s death anniversary/urs through communal prayer, feasting and social congregation, his memory and earthly remains were successfully incorporated into a cosmos of Sufism thoroughly ‘Islamic’, through symbols, rituals, performances and

10 Marcia Hermansen, “In the Garden of American Sufi Movements: Hybrids and Perennials”, in Peter B. Clarke (ed.), New Trends and Developments in the World of Islam, Luzac Oriental, 1998, 155-78.

commemorations so intrinsic to Sufi personalities across the Islamic world, also South Asia. At his death, Bawa’s journey from a universalist Guru to an Islamic Sufi was completed.

It is interesting that the sustenance of Bawa’s continuing legacy as a South Asian Sufi master is tensely negotiated through competing claims put forth by his Euro-American followers, alongside an ever-growing South Asian diaspora of Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans, who seek his blessings through a set of rituals carried across from their cultural backyard – shrine rituals like offering a new covering to the tomb, lighting incense, ritual performances like singing in the memory and praise of the saint, cultural practices like cooking food and offering it in the memory of the saint, and physical congregation in the proximity of the shrine. This transnational connection creates moments of anxiety for Bawa’s Euro-American shrine caretakers who perhaps unknowingly impose a code of conduct on the site, made visible through signs requesting visitors to honour the silence of the shrine through silent meditation and remembrance while refraining from noisy activities, lighting incense and sprinkling rose water on the tomb – so typical at Sufi shrines in South Asia.11

Conclusion:

Historically it remains undeniable that Sufism has been profoundly shaped by local cultural and social realities as it moved into diverse geo-cultural zones. Over the 20th century American religious arena opened up to global influences, where Sufism is but one strand. Our discussion has taken us through transnational Sufi movements from South Asia as it unfolded in the U.S., from a universalist approach to an increasingly Islamic form and practice. We might easily lose sight of this diverse journey of Sufi movements into the hearts and lives of Americans if we plunge

11 Xavier, Sacred Spaces

ourselves into debates of exclusive orthodoxy. Rather, what benefits this discussion is the inclusive approach adopted by Sufi masters like Inayat Khan and Bawa Muhaiyaddeen as they responded to the spiritual aspirations of their American followers irrespective of their social position and faith affiliation. This created complexities as we saw above, but more importantly it also created room for dialogue as Sufi masters recognized the freedom to preach and practice in a diverse American religious landscape.