Author Description

A collection of landmark essays from early 20th Century Sufism. Essential reading for anyone interested in the roots of Sufism in Western culture. Inayat Khan (1882-1927) was the founder of the Sufi Order in the West and the first teacher of Universal Sufism to reach a broad Western audience. Writing on themes of love, harmony and beauty, Khan presented Westerners for the first time a new path to spiritual liberty. Two essays by Khan collected here - The Way of Illumination (1924) and The Soul – Whence and Whither? (1923) – present the soul’s relationship to the divine in some of his clearest and most concise writing. The third essay - Sufism as a Doctrine of Life (1915) - is by Carl Henrik Andreas (C.H.A.) Bjerregaard (1845-1922), a late 19th and early 20th lecturer in America of Sufism and provides a compelling interpretation of Sufi spiritual practice for Westerners.