Description
Sufism: A Quarterly Magazine 1921–1924
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan (1882-1927) was an Indian mystic, philosopher, poet-musician. He was a disciple of Shaykh al-Mashaikh Sayyid Muhammad Abu Hashim Madani. In 1910 a long held desire to travel to the West was fulfilled and with his brother and cousin he travelled to America, then to England, Russia and France. From 1921 to 1924 a quarterly magazine, Sufism, was published in London by one of Inayat Khan’s students, Sophia E.M. Saintsbury-Green. Within it one can follow the development of the Sufi Order (later the Sufi Movement) through the reports of Inayat Khan’s tours in Europe and his first return to the USA in 1923; meetings attended; appointments made; and celebrations of Viladat and Hejirat Days. The magazine Sufism followed the publication of Sufi, a quarterly magazine also published in London from 1915-20. As it says in the first edition, Sufism expressed the hope that readers would find “the same spirit of mysticism and illumination as that with which. This book reproduces all thirteen editions. Within it one can follow the development of the Sufi Order (later the Sufi Movement) through the reports of Inayat Khan’s tours in Europe and his first return to the USA in 1923; meetings attended; appointments.
From the editorial of the first issue “With the present issue the little Quarterly SUFISM makes its first appearance in the world of letters as successor to the SUFI. At the first glance it may seem that in its yellow robe SUFISM does not make the same appeal to the sense of beauty as did its predecessor; but this impression will, we hope, be obliterated from the minds of its readers as they find within those robes of orange the same spirit of mysticism and illumination as that with which they were familiar in the pages of the earlier publication. The ever increasing scope of the work undertaken by Pir-o-Murshid in the various countries of Europe where branches of the Sufi Order have been established, makes it impossible for him to become the Editor of SUFISM; but the first place in its contents will at all times be given to his teaching as well as to everything relating to every department of his activity.”
