Teachers

• Pir-O-Murshid Inayat Khan
• Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
• Pir Zia Inayat Khan
• Wajid Gallien

	Pir-O-Murshid Inayat Khan, founder of the Sufi Order in the west, was born in Baroda, India, on July 5, 1882, into a family of great musicians. As a child, Inayat Khan took a great interest in music and visits to holy men. Due to his deep love of the Indian musical heritage, which had become very decadent, he dedicated his early life to reinstalling the spiritual value of music by traveling and performing in the high classical style. One of the greatest patrons of music, the Nizam of Hyderabad, responded to Inayat Khan's singing by awarding him the greatest musical title in India: Tansen of India. Inayat Khan had fulfilled his purpose in music and began to look for a spiritual teacher. He found his ideal teacher in the being of Hazrat Abu Hashim Madani, the successor to one of the branches of the Chisti Sufi Order in India. After taking the sacred vow of initiation, he went through a course of training in the four Sufi Schools: Chishti, Naqshbandi, Qadiri, and Shurawardi. Before Abu Hashim Madani died, he called his pupil Inayat Khan to his bedside to bless him and enjoin him to bring the message of Sufism to the West, saying that he had received the order from Moinuddin Chisti, founder of the Chisti Order in India. Following the call of God, Inayat Khan left India for the Western world on September 13, 1910. He landed in America, and later traveled to Europe and Russia, sowing the seeds of Sufism. Pir-O-Murshid's complete works are now available on the web at the following link: http://www.petama.ch/EM-Works.htm
	Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan was born in London in 1916, the son of the Sufi Master Pir-O-Murshid Inayat Khan and Ora Ray Baker. His early years were thus imbued with both the rich mystical tradition of the East and the heritage of the West. His later training also reflects the synthesis of East and West. He studied philosophy and graduated with a degree in psychology from Paris University, later did postgraduate work at Oxford, and also studied music at l'Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris. He then began an intensive practice of meditation in India and the Middle East with Sufi masters and teachers of various meditative disciplines, and carried out long periods of seclusion and retreat. In 1926 his father named him to be his successor and head of the Sufi Order and the Confraternity of the Message. Later, when he came of age, he was confirmed as by the Sufis in Ajmer, India. In accordance with this background, Pir Vilayat exemplifies the global consciousness of the emerging holistic age, allowing him to fulfill his position as successor to Pir-O-Murshid Inayat Khan in the line of Murshids of the Chisti Order, and present the message of unity. Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan is now a well-known teacher of meditation, presenting seminars, camps and retreats throughout the United States, Western Europe, and India. The training he gives integrates a broad spectrum of meditation techniques from many traditions. In seminars he demonstrates ways to adapt meditation to the needs of people in our age. A particular focus in the current work is his dedication to the retreat format as means of enabling personal transformation. In June 2004, Pir Vilayat passed away leaving the work of the sufi message to his heir and successor, Pir Zia Inayat Khan
	Pir Zia Inayat Khan is the son and successor of Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan and president of the Sufi Order International of North America. In addition to the interfaith mystical training he has received from his father, Pir Zia has studied Buddhism under the auspices of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and Sufism in the classical Indian tradition of the Chishtiya. Pir Zia has recently published: Holy Mysteries of the Five Elements
	Wajid Gallien is a senior Sufi teacher and guide who has led retreats in both Canada and the U.S. during the past 30 years. He is the author of two books on Sufism, and Editor for several Sufi publications and the Interfaith Council of Washington. He also works with Sufi Order International Wajid Gallien lives in Seattle WA, with his wife Avalon, where they facilitate the centre "Wings of the Message." They both are students of the perennial philosophy in the Sufi tradition. Checkout Wajid's latest book: Wings of the Message: A Sufi Perspective