Uniting Our Families in Morocco, Europe and the USA

Beloved one,

In continuation of the great work done already with Morocco by Pir Shabda and Tamam Kahn and having a couple of Moroccan mureeds in New York City this opened a window of interest on Morocco. I had lunch recently with the NY Moroccan consul Mr Beyyoudh Abderrahim and with Selima Raoui (who is in the Sufi Ruhaniat and who applies in her art work the writing of the name of Allah as a spiritual practice). Khadija and I have also met with Dr. Mokhtar Ghambou, Professor of Post Colonial & Anglophone Studies at Yale University and President of the American Moroccan Institute. The AMI as it is known just sponsored last month a conference on Moroccan Sufism at Columbia University with Ahmed Kostas.

I am preparing a trip to Morocco at the end of September and would like to share our interest (NY/NJ DHO & Sufi Ruhaniat family) in providing support to the ASMED project. This is one of the project that I would hope our DHO and also Sufi family would support. Another project concerns developing a spiritual community (Kankah) in Rabat with families that would adopt orphans children and with financial sponsorship from American and European families.

In return Morocco has much to offer including a long tradition and history in mysticism and sufism. For those on the spiritual journey what better way to continue our deepening in our studies while offering service and help. Since such programs are driven by our Moroccan sufi family members (Salima and Asmaa), supported in principle by the consul and the AMI, this shows great opportunity to unite our hearts between Morocco and the USA.

In addition we are working (Khadija Goforth and Jean Pierre in New York City with our local family) to have a major fund raising event in March 2006, for such effort, that will be called “Peace through the arts” and will bring great musicians, dancers and artists from Morocco. It will be a participatory event so we will share the dances of Universal Peace also.

ASMED (Association for Supporting Mothers and Children of the Desert) was founded in 2003 with the objectives of sustaining and helping mothers and children of the Moroccan desert.

The creation of the Association was initiated following the participation of two young women to the international female Rally that occurs annually in the dunes of the Moroccan Sahara – the “Rally des Gazelles” – 2001 Edition.

Mrs. Habida Dassouli, a Moroccan marketing advisor and Mrs. Muriel Hayet, a French teacher established in Morocco, witnessing the great precariousness of the populations of the area crossed by the Rally, especially women and children, their isolation, the inexistence of medical infrastructures, the almost total absence of primary health care and lack of hygiene and public heath, had the idea of a concrete and effective humanitarian action, setting up a Medical Caravan to try to concretely meet the elementary needs of the populations in the area. It is with the objectives of alleviating the difficulties and the harsh reality of the life of the women and children in these villages, that ASMED was created.

It is from their meeting with Pascal Valenti, a French entrepreneur also installed in Morocco, that ASMED will take form. The Association was officially founded in June 2002 and obtained its legal status of caritative organization in September 2002. There are certainly much caritatives associations in Morocco, but for these villages which do not appear on any geographical maps and which the only relevant statistics go back to 1992, assistance is scarce. Without this caravan these remote populations practically would not have access to medical care. Being too distant from everything and left to themselves, they are cut from the rest of the world.

From its beginning ASMED convened a voluntary medical team of specialized physicians and nurses, coordinated by Doctor Wafae Bisbis-Abounaidane, gynecologist / obstetrician and University professor. In the 2003 Caravan, the medical team was composed of eight Moroccans physicians and one professional nurse. They were all volunteers and gave intense effort and energy to the cause.

ASMED wants to continue its work. It also contemplates other complementary projects, all aiming at fighting medical precariousness and lack of assistance. ASMED wishes to work in a context of sustained development and perenniality. At medium or long term it even considers the distribution of medications, drugs and pharmacopoeias associated with the creation of health infrastructures, supply of drinkable water, socio-economic development through, for instance, micro credit for women’s projects, etc. It is an entire region that should not only survive, but also live.

Anybody interested in Morocco, contemplating a visit in the future on a reasonable budget, who would like to explore Moroccan Sufism or who could contribute money and/or medical expertise (I pray that some American doctors and nurses could volunteer time to this effort) to such project (ASMED) please contact me (I will send you the complete file on ASMED showing the list of medical equipment needed)

Love and blessings,
Jean-Pierre

PS: ASMED file is in the files section on the DHO Listserv

Pictures of the Federation Meeting in New York City – 2005

Beloved one,

Here are some marvelous pictures of the Federation of the Sufi Message in New York City. Thanks to Abdul Majid Al Jerrahi who took those pictures for us.

Blessings,
Jean-Pierre

      

Above: Photos from “Mysticism of Sound” Evening at Saint Peter’s Church
Below: Photos from Zikr at Al-Jerrahi Center

     

Below: Additional Photos from the Federation of the Message Meeting

                  

Mysticism of Sound in New York City, April 22

AN EVENING OF MUSIC AND MYSTICISM
AT SAINT PETER’S CHURCH ON LEXINGTON AND 54TH

Musicians, Poets and Mystics Present an Evening of Ragas, Solo and Chamber Music, Poetry and Readings from the Writings of Great Sufi Masters. International performing artists for this event include:
Michael Harrison, Hidayat Inayat-Khan, Shabda Kahn, Julia Khadija Goforth and Talia Toni Marcus.

New York, NY (March 17, 2005)— On Friday, April 22, 2005 at 7:30 PM Saint Peter’s Church on Lexington and 54th street will host an extraordinary evening of performances by musicians, poets and mystics. “Mysticism of Sound” is the focus and title of this event. Mystics of all ages universally love music. Sufis especially have taken music as a source of their meditation. Mystical expression of inner states of consciousness through music allows communion through tuning to unite performer, instrument and audience.

Shabda Kahn and Michael Harrison will open the evening program singing Indian Ragas. Both Harrison and Kahn are accomplished Raga musicians that teach and perform this ancient style of singing. Shabda Kahn has been a Sufi disciple since 1969. He is a direct disciple of Murshid Samuel Lewis (Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti) and worked closely with the great American mystic Joe Miller. Shabda is currently the Pir (Spiritual Director) of the Sufi Ruhaniat International and the Director of the Chisti Sabri School of Music. Shabda spent 24 years (since 1972) developing as a vocalist under the guidance of the late Pandit Pran Nath, the master North Indian classical vocalist, who planted the 800 year old oral transmission of Chisti Sufi vocal music in the Western world. He is also a disciple of the illustrious Tibetan Buddhist Master, the 12th Tai Situpa Rinpoche.

Michael Harrison is an internationally acclaimed composer of “just intonation” piano music who performs ragas as well as concerts of his piano compositions. He studied with the late Pandit Pran Nath from 1978 to 1996 and continues his studies today with master vocalist Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan. Michael teaches and performs concerts of North Indian classical music throughout the United States and India with Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan, Terry Riley, Shabda Kahn, Steve Gorn, and as a soloist.

As a groundbreaking composer/pianist Harrison has developed one of the most distinctive musical styles of our time. He will also present a 45-minute version of his 95-minute work “Revelation” using a contemporary “just intonation” tuning that he invented. Working with ancient principles of harmonic resonance, Harrison’s music is an eclectic synthesis of North Indian and Western classical music, minimalism, and modal jazz. Through his expertise in alternate tuning systems and North Indian ragas, combined with a deep understanding of Indian and Middle Eastern rhythms, and his innate gift for melodic composition, he has created a revolutionary new sound for the piano. Harrison’s work Revelation was recently hailed by Stuart Isacoff of the New York Sun, and will be the co-subject of an upcoming feature article in the New Yorker by music writer Alex Ross.

The evening’s program will also feature Hidayat Inayat-Khan, son of the Indian mystic and musician Hazrat Inayat Khan, introducing his composition “La Monotonia.”

“La Monotonia” (opus 13) describes the various episodes of a meditative invocation, starting with a call to prayer (played by the altos and followed by the prayer-walk scored on a rhythmic pattern), all of which is part of the A-section of this slow movement, composed according to the principles of the classical “Lied-form.” The B-section is the actual prayer aspect with various thematic elements coming and going continuously in a fugue style while sticking all the way through to the monotonous formula of the Indian Raga Bhairavi, where no harmonic modulation prevails. This B-section culminates into an apassionata representing “victory” over the self, the atmosphere of which is emphasized by the classical western harmonic chords sounding in a full expressive outburst. The closing is a return to the A-section of the first bars, followed by a coda, all of which is expressive of the inner meditative call. (Hidayat’s great grandfather Mawlabakhsh Khan founded the first Academy of Music in India, invented the music notation system bearing his name and restored the fundamentals of Indian classical traditions in all fields of music).

Julia Khadija Goforth will present the poetry of Sufi Samuel Lewis “God’s Call” that will be read by Monick Mervilus David and Eddie Greenberg. Murshid Samuel L. Lewis, aka Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad), (dubbed ‘Sufi Sam’ by newspaper columnists in San Francisco in the 1960’s), was a forerunner of universal religion and unitive mystical experience. His poetry “God Calls” will be shared with dervish dancers turning towards their heart, becoming a torch of love in the presence of the One. Lewis died in 1971.

Event in New York City — April 22

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jean-Pierre David

AN EVENING OF MUSIC AND MYSTICISM
AT SAINT PETER'S CHURCH ON LEXINGTON AND 54TH

Musicians, Poets and Mystics Present an Evening of Ragas, Solo and Chamber Music, Poetry and Readings from the Writings of Great Sufi Masters

International performing artists for this event include Michael Harrison, Hidayat Inayat-Khan, Shabda Kahn, Julia Khadija Goforth and Talia Toni Marcus

New York, NY (March 17, 2005)— On Friday, April 22, 2005 at 7:30 PM Saint Peter’s Church on Lexington and 54th street will host an extraordinary evening of performances by musicians, poets and mystics. “Mysticism of Sound” is the focus and title of this event.

Mystics of all ages universally love music. Sufis especially have taken music as a source of their meditation. Mystical expression of inner states of consciousness through music allows communion through tuning to unite performer, instrument and audience.

Shabda Kahn and Michael Harrison will open the evening program singing Indian Ragas. Both Harrison and Kahn are accomplished Raga musicians that teach and perform this ancient style of singing.

Shabda Kahn has been a Sufi disciple since 1969. He is a direct disciple of Murshid Samuel Lewis (Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti) and worked closely with the great American mystic Joe Miller. Shabda is currently the Pir (Spiritual Director) of the Sufi Ruhaniat International and the Director of the Chisti Sabri School of Music. Shabda spent 24 years (since 1972) developing as a vocalist under the guidance of the late Pandit Pran Nath, the master North Indian classical vocalist, who planted the 800 year old oral transmission of Chisti Sufi vocal music in the Western world. He is also a disciple of the illustrious Tibetan Buddhist Master, the 12th Tai Situpa Rinpoche.

Michael Harrison is an internationally acclaimed composer of “just intonation” piano music who performs ragas as well as concerts of his piano compositions. He studied with the late Pandit Pran Nath from 1978 to 1996 and continues his studies today with master vocalist Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan. Michael teaches and performs concerts of North Indian classical music throughout the United States and India with Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan, Terry Riley, Shabda Kahn, Steve Gorn, and as a soloist.

As a groundbreaking composer/pianist Harrison has developed one of the most distinctive musical styles of our time. He will also present a 45-minute version of his 95-minute work “Revelation” using a contemporary “just intonation” tuning that he invented. Working with ancient principles of harmonic resonance, Harrison’s music is an eclectic synthesis of North Indian and Western classical music, minimalism, and modal jazz. Through his expertise in alternate tuning systems and North Indian ragas, combined with a deep understanding of Indian and Middle Eastern rhythms, and his innate gift for melodic composition, he has created a revolutionary new sound for the piano. Harrison’s work Revelation was recently hailed by Stuart Isacoff of the New York Sun, and will be the co-subject of an upcoming feature article in the New Yorker by music writer Alex Ross.

The evening's program will also feature Hidayat Inayat-Khan, son of the Indian mystic and musician Hazrat Inayat Khan, introducing his composition "La Monotonia."

"La Monotonia" (opus 13) describes the various episodes of a meditative invocation, starting with a call to prayer (played by the altos and followed by the prayer-walk scored on a rhythmic pattern), all of which is part of the A-section of this slow movement, composed according to the principles of the classical "Lied-form." The B-section is the actual prayer aspect with various thematic elements coming and going continuously in a fugue style while sticking all the way through to the monotonous formula of the Indian Raga Bhairavi, where no harmonic modulation prevails. This B-section culminates into an apassionata representing "victory" over the self, the atmosphere of which is emphasized by the classical western harmonic chords sounding in a full expressive outburst. The closing is a return to the A-section of the first bars, followed by a coda, all of which is expressive of the inner meditative call. (Hidayat's great grandfather Mawlabakhsh Khan founded the first Academy of Music in India, invented the music notation system bearing his name and restored the fundamentals of Indian classical traditions in all fields of music).

Julia Khadija Goforth will present the poetry of Sufi Samuel Lewis "God Calls" that will be read by Monick Mervilus David and Eddie Greenberg. Murshid Samuel L. Lewis, aka Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad), (dubbed 'Sufi Sam' by newspaper columnists in San Francisco in the 1960's), was a forerunner of universal religion and unitive mystical experience. His poetry "God's Call" will be shared with dervish dancers turning towards their heart, becoming a torch of love in the presence of the One. Lewis died in 1971.

Suggested tickets donation for "Music and Mysticism" are $25.00 dollars general admission.

Visit to Auschwitz and Birkenau, 3/2005

When lights went out ………….all over Europe

Visit to Auschwitz and Birkenau, Palm Sunday 20 March 2005

In early March this year I offered to go with my friend Jo to Poland, specifically to visit the concentration camps near Krakow.  Jo, a non-Sufi non-DUP yet like-minded friend of many years, had recently been inspired to create some artwork on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz/Birkenau and now wanted to visit there in person.

We flew to Krakow on a Saturday, and that evening Jo and I prepared for our visit with the healing ritual, adapted for places of great suffering as recommended by Saul.  During our bus journey the next day, and throughout our time at the camps, the Sufi Invocation was constantly on my breath, and I felt an increasing gratitude for this constant sense of support as, entering beneath “Arbeit maketh frei”, we were surrounded and immersed and had no choice but to look, see, imagine.  I was aware of my face becoming more and more drawn, I avoided looking at others, and noticed that most people were responding similarly.

That evening, back at our hotel in Krakow, having showered and changed our clothes, Jo and I found our own ways of beginning to process some of what we’d experienced. She wrote and wrote whereas I sang and danced, sang and danced.  First, all the Dances of Universal Peace honoring the Jewish tradition, again and again.  Then the first line of the Aramaic Prayer, closing with saying the whole prayer.  Finally the spoken Fateha, switching my focus of concentration to peace in the Middle East.

Some days later, back home again in Edinburgh, I opened my computer and began to write about my experiences – and this is what I’d now like to share with you …………

Aware of my feet as I walked along Edinburgh’s streets, it seemed incredible that these same shoes had, only a few days previously, walked along stony paths, along concrete corridors, through mud and across rubber matting, up stairs, along railway sleepers, across grass.  They had taken me to Poland.  They had taken me to Auschwitz and Birkenau (known also as Auschwitz II).  They had followed our Polish guide as she expertly swept us along in the allotted time from room to room, building to building, all the while delivering a clear and factual account of what was before us.  And today, before walking out in them again in my home town of Edinburgh, I had stopped to recall where these shoes had last walked before brushing the dust of Auschwitz from them.

Shoes, shoes, shoes.  A mountain of shoes behind glass, footwear of all kinds, heavy shoes and light shoes, expensive, cheap, tatty, new, adult’s, children’s, sandals, clogs.  Colored shoes were there for sure, yet somehow the memory is of grayness, dust-covered, worn-down.  Where had these shoes been worn for the last time?  Did they walk to the gas chambers, the solitary cells, the execution yard?  Were they scrabbling for footing at the sides of ditches being dug for the corpses?  With respect, human security, even self-respect and hope of every kind completely gone, did they in fact carry their owners willingly to their demise?  Was that final walk, for some, made in dignity and knowingness, a voluntary giving up of life when the life left to them was no life at all?

Shoes were not the only items on display behind glass walls.  Women’s hair filled another huge display area; pots and pans and various kitchen items; walking sticks, crutches and artificial limbs; hair and shaving brushes; dentures; spectacles; clothing, even from babies.  Everything that could be salvaged from the human body was salvaged.  Taken from the despised, nevertheless it was all destined for recycling to help support German soldiers wounded in battle – also providing a double bind for the SS themselves, double binds being needed to keep them in thrall to an insane regime.  A terrible symbiosis underpinned by fear on both sides.

Our introduction to Auschwitz had been by means of a video in a room full of people, many standing.  Some scenes were familiar, but what was new was that many of these photos were not stills – sudden movements of the emaciated and hollow-eyed somehow seemed shocking, a timely reminder that, in spite of their appearance, these people had indeed been alive when the photos were taken; a reminder of the endurance of the human spirit, with body wasted and frail beyond imagination; a reminder of the strength of the will to live, perhaps seen here in its last resort.

In Auschwitz we saw cells for solitary confinement, the suffocation cell, an enclosed yard where executions by firing took place.  We saw improved quarters for camp informers and the superior rooms used by the SS.  We also stood inside the old gas chambers beneath the holes from which cyanide had been dropped.  Bodies had been crammed into the space to provide sufficient natural heat to vaporize the cyanide pellets.  We saw the ovens.  But extermination at Auschwitz was not efficient enough.  With 700 bodies per day to dispose of and the crematoria only able to cope with half that number, the gas chambers and ovens were closed down in preference to the more extensive and efficient procedures being built at Birkenau, a huge concentration camp intended to take in men, women and children.  Whereas the buildings at Auschwitz were brick-built, having previously been an army barracks, those at Birkenau were wooden pre-fab constructions, supplied from Germany.  Originally intended as stables for 50-plus horses, at Birkenau each hut provided sleeping space for 700, sometimes increasing to 1,000.  Night-time space would be a better description than ‘sleeping’, the wooden-slatted bunks being in tiers of 3, each wide enough for 10 bodies, provided all turned at the same moment.  Space between the bunks was minimal, so the scene as one looked down the length of the room was of almost continuous wooden slating interspersed by upright supports.  It was the fittest who were able to climb into the preferred top bunks, knowing at least they would not be covered by dripping excrement from bodies exhausted with diarrhea lying in the bunk above. A few burning coals in a bucket were provided when the temperature dropped sufficiently below freezing, and this in Silesia, a coal-mining area of Poland.  Ironically these rooms provided jobs in which people were most likely to survive – cleaning the latrines, the battery of holes barely giving shoulder-to-shoulder space and which in-mates were allowed to use twice a day.  Cleaning these was preferable in terms of life-expectation, in spite of the stench and risk of infection, to having to walk in all weathers to hard manual work in the labor camps.  Running water was laid on after Birkenau had been functioning two years – prior to that prisoners had no alternative but to drink supposedly purified recycled water from latrines and primitive washing facilities.

Birkenau is enclosed by deep ditches inside double perimeter fences of wire and barbed wire, interspersed by watch towers.  I stood between these double fences, attempting to imagine escaping through one in darkness only to be caught by searchlight before the second. The tallest tower above the entrance gate, with rail tracks passing beneath, provides a view of the whole camp.  I stood here also, this time attempting to imagine myself in SS shoes, hearing the rumble and clanking of the next trainload to arrive. Gazing across the huge area of the camp I imagined it filled again with the wooden huts that once occupied this space.  Complete huts only occupy the foreground now, the SS having burned down the majority in the last days of January 1945, before liberation.  Only the brick chimneys survived, two to each hut, neat rows of twin chimneys now covering the ground to the far perimeter fence.  Beyond the fences the land between Auschwitz and Birkenau had been kept free of buildings and trees, so that escaping prisoners could be better seen, and this was also where ash from the crematoria was spread, as fertilizer.

Eric Berne taught that, under stress, we regress to either a childish part of ourselves or a part that we involuntarily absorbed from our parents, depending on who we are currently communicating with and the context.  Thus, under the conditions of a concentration camp, in-mates would be likely to react from their Conditioned Child ego-state towards the very real (rather than subjectively perceived) Authoritarian Parent ego-state of their aggressors.  The Games People Play (Eric Berne, 1964) would be played out at the ‘nth’ degree, with destructive or self-destructive endings.  Further, if the SS were to function effectively, they needed to be kept in bondage to their insane regime – and that was carried out not only from the threat of death they themselves faced if they failed in their duties, but from believing they were morally right to do what they had to do.  In a wider context, perhaps one needs to remember that the so-called science of eugenics had been interesting Western intellectuals for some time.  Any humane feelings that might begin to surface in an individual Nazi were therefore a threat to their own life and had to be squashed; any feelings of compassion and the whole house of cards could start to come down.  Unlike the ‘Games’ that people usually ‘play’ (ibid), the whole set-up was self-perpetuating with no likelihood of an end being brought about by the ‘role’ change normal in human social interactions.  Only intervention from outside could do that – and contemplation of that raised questions in my mind of the outside world, of not only Poles, not only Germans but the whole of the Western world. Where was the country that really opened its doors to Jews and Gypsies?

The words of a children’s song ask: “When I needed a neighbor were you there, were you there?  When I needed a neighbor, were you there?”

Knowing, feeling, accepting that the darkness of the concentration camps, of victims and perpetrators both, is shadow residing within myself, since Palm Sunday this year I’ve found myself changing the words to: When you needed a neighbor, where, oh where, was I?

Lights indeed went out all over Europe.

Alice Fateah Saunders
March 2005

The Wintu or Wintun People of Mt. Shasta

D.H.O.’er’s

The original Peoples closest to Mt. Shasta are the Wintu People. In their creation story, their elders came to earth through a spring (in Panther Meadows.)

The Hoopa, Yaruk and Karuk Peoples are original peoples close by Mt. Shasta.

To all these people Mt. Shasta is a sacred place of pilgrimage.

I met a Karuk elder Charles RedHawk Thom and he said it is a tradition among many his people to visit Mt. Shasta once a year, not more.

It has been a priveledge to accompany RedHawk and his extended family to Mt. Shasta several times and do purification ceremony on the exact spot Red Hawks grandfather took him to ceremony as a young boy, beside the same sacred spring the Wintu people were “created” from.

This spring has some of the best tasting water, I’ve ever tasted. (In my past I’ve sold drinking water systems, I know water.) You might want to bring a jar to bring some water home with you.

This site is 35 to 40 minutes from the 2005 DHO Gathering site this year.

The Spring is called the Mother Spring of Mt.Shasta.

These people are all very much alive and have living Elders.

toward Spring 2005, not there yet,

Irish Francis Rainbowheart

p.s. Over the years I have found the Forest Service in Shasta City to be an excellant resource.

_____________________________

Thanks for the info on the "locals" -

I am aware of three main springs on the Mountain:

  1. Widows Spring – which we will visit
  2. the spring on Panther meadows – where Ballard met St Germain (posing as a black panther) and was “awakened” and started the I AM Society –
  3. and the headwaters of the Sacramento River – which is the sweetest water I ever drunk –

And, amongst all our usual "frolicking amongst the trees" --- we also plan on:

  1. having at least 2 of Mother Marys folks with us for stories – and maybe a view of her Biography –
  2. and, Inshallah!  a visit to Shasta Abbey – to pay respects to our late God mother – Jiu Kennett Roshi –

by the by -

the only time I ever heard SAM make the all inclusive statement that he would taker as mureeds all of someones disciples - was refeering to Mother Mary - a number of us showed up - I was number 2 after Basira.

see yas on the Mountain

halim saul

Update on the 2005 Federation Meeting

Beloved one,

I am happy to report that the upcoming meeting of the Federation of the Sufi Message is going to manifest once more, this year, with the participation of all the branches of Hazrat Inayat Khan as they were last year in Holland. Yes there will be representatives of the Sufi Order, Sufi Ruhaniat, International Sufi Movement, Fraternity of Light, Sufi Way and Sufi Contact.

So far 47 people will meet at the Sufi Books meeting room in New York City (in Tribeca) on Saturday and Sunday, April 23 and 24.

The meeting will start with a wonderful event at Saint Peter's Church on Lexington and 54th Street, called "Mysticism of Sound" with the participation of many great musicians including Pir Shabda and Michael Harrison who will play ragas, Talia Toni Marcus and a string quintet who will play "La Monotonia" that will be introduced by POM Hidayat Inayat Khan, with Murshida Khadijah Goforth who will direct turning dervishes during the poetry recital of Murshid SAM's "God Calls" and with Michael Harrison presenting his piano composition "Revelation".

Saturday night Zikar will be held at the Al Jerrahi center one block from Sufi Books with all the Federation attendees, the local family, all the great musicians and more cited above, Sheikha Fariha Al Jerrahi and her mureeds. Towards the One.... Sheikha Fariha has welcomed all of us with her great heart full of love without distinctions and differences.

All praise be to Allah.

May the vision and the work of the Federation of the Sufi Message continue.

Love and blessings,

Jean-Pierre

Mohammed’s teaching and example recognizing women their rightful place and status

Beloved one,

Saul asked me to send you the posting below. In addition, I would like to recommend the book "The Two Faces of Islam: Saudi Fundamentalism and Its Role in Terrorism" by Stephen Schwartz.

It describes in its book the two forces at play since the time of Mohammed. This includes description of the pluralism, tolerance, respect for women and all beings does not matter what religion they had, forgiveness as taught by Mohammed. This includes also very early on description of elements of fundamentalism, narrow minded interpretation, exclusion of others not following the true way, intolerance, etc... from that period on to the Wahhabis and their ambition to rewrite history, forget about Mohammed example and become the only source of the True Islam.

Schwartz research of historical facts and understanding of the role of Sufism in Islam makes this book a must read for people interested in understanding world events.

Love and blessings

Jean-Pierre

=============================================================

Salaam, I was sent this email and thought that people might find it interesting, insha'allah. HU! Ibrahim

Subject: [Islam_Muslims] Amra, the female master of hadith

Assalam alaikum,

One of Aisha's pupils was Amra bint Abd al-Rahman, whom Ibn Imad Hanbali remembered in these words, 'The posessor of understanding and a knowledge of jurisprudence and moral excellence, Amra bint Abd al-Rahman, who was nourished in the house of Aisha and who has narrated many hadith from Aisha, was reliable, precise, had a good memory and her reports could be relied upon'
[Ibn al-Imad, Shadharat al-Dhahab, vol 1, p 144]

[N.B. This text, Shadharat al-Dhahab, is a large biographical dictionary of prominent Muslim scholars from the first to tenth century AH.]

Ibn Haban said about her, 'She knew more about the narrations than anyone else'
[Ibn Hajr, Tahdhib al Tahdhib, vol 12, p 129]

The famous Muhadith and j urist of the period of the Tabioon (the generation after the companions of the Prophet Muhammad), Qasim ibn Muhammad, said to Imam Zuhri, 'I feel in you a thirst for knowledge. Shall I point out to you one who is full of knowledge?' Zuhri said, 'Yes certainly!'. He said, 'Go to the assembly of Amra bint Abbd al-Rahman and dont leave it, for she was nourished and educated by Aisha (i.e. and is the greatest inheritor of her knowledge)'. Zuhri says that on his recommendation he went into the assembly of Amra and found that she was a boundless ocean of knowledge.
[Dhahabi, Tadhkirat al Huffaz (Memorial of Hadith Masters), vol 1, p 106]

The account above shows how not only was knowledge sought from the best of sources, irrespective of gender, but that Amra would teach and share her knowledge of hadith to men and women. There is no reference or mention of seperation of genders, such things in my understanding were non-issues in early Islam , and God knows best.

May God Almighty have mercy and guide us all, ameen.

fi amanillah, assalam alaikum, f

====================================

Federation Meeting April 2005 in NYC update

Beloved One,

I like to report that we are making much progress in the preparation for the meeting of the Federation of the Sufi Message from April 22 to April 25 in New York City, with the tremendous help of our local committee.

The local committee includes Khadija Goforth, Jean-Pierre & Monick, Michael Harrison, Uwais, Subhan, Aishah, Maritza, Deirdre & Lisa-Renee.

We are preparing a first night event at Saint Peter’s Church on Lexington &  54th Street. This event will be called “Mysticism of Sound.” The church has great acoustic and Nicholas will record the event. Subhan will take pictures.

We will be blessed and honored to feature Pir Shabda Khan & Michael Harrison for Classical Indian Music Ragas, Pir-O-Murshid Hidayat Inayat Khan for “La Monotonia: by String Quartet (Hidayat will introduce his music), Murshida Khadija Goforth: Mystical Poetry of Sufi Murshid Samuel Lewis “God Calls” & Dervish Dancers and finally Michael Harrison playing “Revelation” (a short version of 45 minutes on piano). This will be a commemorable event.

The Federation meeting will be held at Sufi Books on West Broadway (between White and Franklin) on Saturday and Sunday, April 23 & 24, 2005.

Sheikha Fariha al-Jerrahi, who leads the Jerrahi community, has given her blessing to our gathering of the “Federation of the Sufi Message”. The Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Order is a community of dervishes within the Halveti-Jerrahi Tariqat, in the specific lineage and spirit of Sheikh Muzaffer Ashki al-Jerrahi & Sheikh Nur al-Jerrahi.They are based at the Masjid al-Farah in NYC on West Broadway. I was always warmly welcomed at Sheikha Fariha Zikar on Thursday night when I attended by myself or with our Sufi Ruhaniat mureeds.

Sheikha Fariha has offered the use of her Masjid for Zikar one evening and asked if she could join us in prayer with her mureeds. I like to share with you that this beautiful woman touched my heart the day she welcomed one of my mureed to her inner study circle. She told this mureed that since she took hand in the Sufi Ruhaniat and also came to her Zikar, that she welcomed her with her own mureeds in her advance class. She also came once when Murshid Sauluddin lectured at the Sufi Books and sat at his feet with many of her mureeds, in turn, Saul stopped what he was doing and told a story of Sheikh Muzaffer.

The Federation board will meet on Monday morning.

I will be in touch regularly with Amrita to find out who is coming for the meeting and we will do our best to help anybody find suitable accommodation in New York. Please let Amrita know as soon as possible if you plan to join us.

Hidayat Inayat Khan, Aziza and Nawab will be staying at my home in Montclair, NJ.

I am grateful for all those who are helping to make this meeting happen and further the vision set in the ideal of the Federation of the Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan.

All praise be to Allah.

In service to the message.

Jean-Pierre

Remembrances of the 33 Bead Pilgrimage

* The Lama air, the Lama earth, the Lama sky, the Lama sunsets!

* The magnificent dome, looking out through the 8-foot octagonal window transports one through time and space *The Prayer room, not the KIVA, is steeped with so much PRESENCE.  We were graced with morning sits, afternoon healing ritual prayers with Asha, and evening transformational wazifa with Firdousi.

* The incredibly delicious food, presented with such beauty and passion.

* The Joy of REUNION with so many new and old BELOVEDS

* The Processional up to Murshid's Maqbara was powerful. The mass energy helped to propel even the non-hikers.

* The laying of white, green and gold darga cloth of Moineddin Chisti on Mursid's grave...it was given to Lama and will be kept in the Maqbara Hut.

* The laying of the calligraphy rug that Saul was given by Auntie Helen which covered Murshid's body until burial. (What a story of how mother Mary instructed Auntie Helen to go buy the rug...and the money appeared)

* The openness and candor of Mansur Johnson relating stories of Murshid and our family. Thank you for your priceless work, and we will all buy cases of the book, MURSHID!  Please come again.

* Meeting  Sara Morgan, hearing her Murshid stories. "God is your LOVER not your jailer!" Hearing her talk about Murshid's woman's class and how special that  transmission was. I wish we could do a Mushid's Woman's Weekend and invite many of the original woman's class so we could feel the energy.

* Having the "subtle TEA" ceremony with Asha.. .perhaps the crown of ALL the Dervish Tea Ceremonies!

* Zikr with Ananda is like tuning the radio to the ECASTY station. Many beautiful tunes... same incredible frequency.

* The pre-Tibetean "BON meditation on transmission" was given to us by Ananda at the Maqbara one early morning. She took us to levels on other planes impossible to describe. I felt a sensation of opening going across my shoulder blades, energy going back and forth, I soon realized it was a chipmunk that was trailing across my back and soon ran down my arm.

* The woman's zikr of the prophets in the female form was the most powerful expression of this song I have witnessed.  We are so blessed to be in the PRESENCE of so many  who can tune into the transmission and make it a REALITY.

* The work of Murad in helping us integrate our body & spirit. So simple, yet so powerful when done.

* The saying of the Heart Sutra by Jean-Pierre at the Maqbara by heart...

* The morning meditations at the maqbara, doing Mursid's zikr followed by the BEAUTIFUL HU dance around Murshid's grave.

* The hike to the high ridge, the flutter of the pinion leaves, the radiance of the flowers, the REMBRANCE of true beauty beyond the fire, beyond the form.

* The group concentration on " Transitions and Transformations" was an incredible process. So much hima, longing for manifestation for a higher ideal, whether it be aging to saging, wholistic hospice care, Sufi centers engaging both both pre-school and elder care... with the guidance of Murshida Mariam and Farishta MAY OUR WORK BE MADE MANIFEST.

* The making of the 33 BEAD flower essences from the flowers on Murshid's grave.

* The HOMEWORK Saul would give us at night. The first one was as we go to sleep to ask Murshid Sam what our next 33-year assignment was! One other piece of homework I remembered was to reach our hand up to Murshid as we were going to sleep. Dreams the next morning are always interesting.

* The finding the GREAT INVOCATION in the outhouse. (Saul had left it there...and I picked it up)

* The walk of Hanuman the Servant as given by Noel is a gift to be remembered as well as the walks of Mary in her many forms given to us by Khadija.

* I love Saul's presentations of the many walks, an accelerated class that is a great model for teaching us concentration in a multitasking world.

* The energy of the the Healing Ritual in the Dome knocked me off my feet.

* So many blessings, it goes on and on. 33 beads...so many beautiful expressions of Murshid. We are so very lucky to have the freedom, power, and joy of this transmission.

* Thank you for your service Lama... Thank you Murshid.

Sarfaraz Cathy Knight