Dear Sulūk Press Community,
One of the great joys working at Sulūk Press these past two years has been interacting with our community. It has happened so many times in the course of a “mundane” business exchange that someone surprises me with a beautiful, uplifting, email signoff, that I have started to collect them in a list. They cause a moment of awakening and feeling my heart again in the midst of a busy day. I would like to pass on the sentiment from one received this morning, which ended “Take care, and may the holidays bring to your heart waves of joy, even amidst these times.” Others in my list are “May your day contain Awe’,’ “May you be blessed,” and one of the most startlingly wonderful came from Parzival, a German translator of Inayat Khan’s writings, who ended his email “May the vision of your soul fulfill.” You are all so wonderful to deal with, and always so understanding, I am full of gratitude. Please keep the wonderful sentiments coming!
I write to you today to share news about forthcoming and newly available books, as well as other news, and to offer you the coupon suluk23 for 10% off any purchases at our site for the rest of December.
Coming in late January Sulūk Press will release Breathtaking Revelations by Carl Ernst and Patrick D’Silva. From the back cover:
For centuries, mystics and seekers in the region of South Asia have pursued techniques of watching the breath, bodily disciplines of yoga, and visionary experiences. The two texts presented here illustrate how adepts of Sufism internalized and explained these practices, starting with an anonymous Persian translation of The Fifty Kamarupa Verses in the fourteenth century, and concluding with The Science of Breath composed in English by Hazrat Inayat Khan in the twentieth century. The long tradition of Sufi engagement with yoga, illustrated by these writings, reveals surprising intersections between Hindu and Muslim spiritual practices, and it poses a fascinating challenge to conventional assumptions about interreligious boundaries.
Together with Ernst and D’Silva’s lucid introductions, the two fabulously rich texts presented in Breathtaking Revelations are essential sources for understanding some six hundred years of contacts and exchanges between Persianate and Indic worlds of the imagination. Yogis and Sufis, yoginis and angels, planets and flowers, divination and zeppelins all come together in a riotous celebration of the “science of breath.”
—David Gordon White, author of Sinister Yogis and Dæmons are Forever: Contacts and Exchanges in the Eurasian Pandemonium
A biography of Shaikh al-Mashaik Mahmood Khan, nephew of Hazrat Inayat Khan, by Wali van der Zwan has just been published in Europe. In Family’s Footsteps: Mahmood Khan Youskine His Life and Reflections on Sufism is available on Amazon. Born in 1927, Shaikh al-Mashaik Mahmood Khan has lived through most of the history of Sufism in the West. His spiritual and scientific-historical approach to Sufism is unique. It offers insights that may surprise readers familiar with Sufism in the West as it is often understood. For readers unfamiliar with the Sufi path, Mahmood offers a complete introduction to mysticism.
Other news
- We have reconsidered our decision to only issue Spiritual Liberty in hardcover. There is already a link at our site for the paperback version, and it will be available to ship in early January. After receiving feedback from customers, and in consideration of collections people have started, we are making an exception with the Centennial series to our general policy of issuing new books only in one format.
- Gift cards are now available at our site!
- If you live outside the US you will be happy to know that we have excellent new shipping rates via Fedex implemented at our site. If you have been deterred by high shipping rates in the past, please try again!
- No God or Only God, the new book by Suhrawardi Gebel, is also nearing completion and will be ready in the new year.
- In early October, our editor Alim Labrie and myself undertook the project of moving the Sulūk Press archives from Vermont to storage in Richmond, Virginia, near the Astana. The adventure included a nine-hour road trip with a van, many conversations about life, books, and Sufism, and many delightful discoveries among the archives, such as this box of original artwork for Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan’s publication Toward the One from the 1970s, pictured below. We are happy to say that we are honoring a post-it note we found from 11/15/1982 on one of the manuscripts that said “Retyped ms of Toward the One to be copy-edited for reproduction in a simpler format someday.” This project is slated for late 2024!!
Gift Ideas
For the pianist or singer in your life:
The Nirtan Songs for Voice and Piano
For someone in need of centering and inspiration by means of short contemplations:
Immortality: A Traveler’s Guide, by Pir Zia Inayat Khan
The Story of Layla and Majnun for someone reading Spiritual Liberty and wanting a more in-depth read of the story discussed in Part 4.
We always welcome your questions and feedback about our books, our website, and your experience ordering with us.
With very best wishes,
Beatrice Upenieks
Business Manager
