Visited the Dargah of Hazrat Inayat Khan yesterday.
Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882–1927 CE) was a Sufi preacher of the Chisti silsila.
He was a brilliant musician trained in Hindustani music. At the request
of his teacher, Sayyed Mohammad Abu Hashim Madani, he travelled west in 1910.
Hazrat Inayat Shah established the Sufi order in 1914 and taught
‘universal Sufism’, which became the International Sufi Movement in 1923.
Sufism, according to him, is based on ‘Tauheed’ or ‘One God’ and a unity
of religious ideals, love and harmony,
focusing on spiritual unity and interfaith understanding.
This attracted many disciples and he
eventually settled in a suburb of Paris called Suresnes. He returned to India in 1926 and passed away in 1927.
Shah was buried in a grave near the dargah of Hazrat Nizamuddin
Auliya, on land given to him by a descendant of the saint, Khwaja Hasan Nizami.
It is a serene environment and now it is the office of the International
Sufi Movement.
Inayat Shah is said to be a descendant of Tipu Sultan from his maternal side.
his daughter, Noor Inayat Shah, was a spy in the second World War as part of the Allied Special Operations.