Khilafat-Nama

WHEREAS the sacred traditions of the faiths of Beni Israel—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—derive from the prophecy of Abraham, who "was the first to bring the knowledge of mysticism from Egypt, where he was initiated in the most ancient order of esotericism";

AND WHEREAS the early Sufis of Islam were deeply studied in Judaica (Isra'iliyyat);

AND WHEREAS Rabbi Abraham Maimonides observed, "the ways of the ancient saints of Israel ... have now become the practice of the Sufis of Islam," and developed a school of Hasidic Sufism in thirteenth-century Cairo;

AND WHEREAS Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan founded, in London in 1914, the Sufi Order in the West, a new order of universalist Sufism rooted in the transmission of four unbroken lineages: Chishtiyya, Suhrawardiyya, Qadiriyya, and Naqshbandiyya;

AND WHEREAS Hazrat Inayat Khan appointed Pir Vilayat Inayat-Khan as his Sajjada-nishin, and Pir Vilayat has in turn appointed this faqir as his own Sajjada-nishin;

AND WHEREAS in California in 1975 and New York City in 1976, invoking the names of Melchizedek and Abraham, Pir Vilayat and Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi performed mutual initiations, bestowing the titles of Shaikh and Kohen l'El Eliyon respectively;

AND WHEREAS as a duly authorized Sufi Shaikh and Hasidic Rebbe, Reb Zalman has masterfully integrated the authentic traditions of the Sufis and the Hasidim, in the manner of a "merging of two oceans";

NOW, THEREFORE it is with jubilation of heart that I hereby recognize the establishment of the Maimuniyya, as a new order of Hasidic Sufism, reviving the tradition of the Egyptian Hasidic school and bearing the initiatory trans mission of the Sufi Order in the West, whereby it is vested with the baraka of Hazrat Inayat Khan and the fourfold chain of Pir-o-murshidan preceding him.

IT IS MY PRAYER that the Maimuniyya will bring healing to the tragically divided family of Abraham and guide many sincere seekers on the path that leads to the fulfillment of life's purpose. May the Message of God reach far and wide!

IN WITNESS THEREOF I have signed this deed at The Abode of the Message on the 6th of May, 2004.

PIRZADE ZIA INAYAT-KHAN

Pir Netanel (Mu'in ad-Din) Miles-Yépez is the current head of the Inayati-Maimuni lineage of Sufism. An artist, writer, philosopher, and scholar of comparative religion, Pir Netanel studied History of Religions at Michigan State University and Contemplative Religion at the Naropa Institute before pursuing traditional studies and training in both Sufism and Hasidism with his murshid and rebbe, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, the famous pioneer of inter-faith dialogue and founder of the Jewish Renewal movement, as well as masters of various other traditions, including Father Thomas Keating. He has been deeply involved in ecumenical dialogue and is considered a leading thinker in the InterSpiritual and New Monasticism movements. He is the author of In the Teahouse of Experience: Nine Talks on the Path of Sufism and The Merging of Two Oceans: Nine Talks on Sufism and Hasidism, the translator of My Love Stands Behind a Wall: A Translation of the Song of Songs and Other Poems, the co-author of the critically acclaimed commentary on Hasidic spirituality, A Heart Afire: Stories and Teachings of the Early Hasidic Masters, the editor of The Gathekas: A Universalist Catechism, and co-editor of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi: Essential Teachings.