Inayat Khan
Inayat Khan Rehmat Khan (Urdu: عنایت خان رحمت خان; 5 July 1882 – 5 February 1927) was an Indian professor of musicology, singer, exponent of the saraswati vina, poet, philosopher, and pioneer of the transmission of Sufism to the West. At the urging of his students, and on the basis of his ancestral Sufi tradition and four-fold training and authorization at the hands of Sayyid Abu Hashim Madani (d. 1907) of Hyderabad, he established an order of Sufism (the Sufi Order) in London in 1914. By the time of his death in 1927, centers had been established throughout Europe and North America, and multiple volumes of his teachings had been published.
Hazrat Inayat Khan, the founder of the Sufi Movement (now known as the Inayati Order), did not specifically practice or advocate for the traditional Islamic five daily prayers (salat). Instead, he composed and introduced a set of universal prayers that are used by his followers.
Inayat Khan’s approach to prayer was more universalist and adapted for a Western audience. He created several prayers that are central to the practices of his Sufi order:
- Saum: A morning prayer
- Salat: An afternoon prayer
- Khatum: An evening prayer
These three prayers form the core of a daily prayer practice called the Confraternity, which Inayat Khan introduced in 1926[3]. The Confraternity ritual is often performed when followers of the Western Sufi path meet, and can also be done individually. Through initiation, students commit to performing this ritual daily[3].
While Inayat Khan’s background was in Islamic Sufism, he deliberately avoided using Arabic, Persian, or Urdu terms in his teachings to make them more accessible to his Western audience[3]. However, traces of his Islamic background can be seen in the structure and movements associated with his prayers. For example, the movements for Saum and Salat can be traced back to the obligatory Islamic salat, indicating the influence of the prayer practice Inayat Khan was raised with in India[3].
It’s worth noting that while Inayat Khan drew inspiration from Islamic practices, he created a more universalist approach to spirituality that incorporated elements from various traditions, including Hinduism and Western esotericism[3][4].
Citations:
[1] https://inayatiyya.org/teachings/prayers/
[2] https://gardenoftheheart.org/prayers-of-hazrat-inayat-khan/
[3] https://peaceinmotion.info/docs/archief/Saum%20and%20Salat%20Source%20and%20Inspiration.pdf
[4] https://www.towardtheone.com/prayers.htm
[5] https://www.towardtheone.com/PrayerMovementsSaumAndSalat.pdf
[6] https://sufipedia.org/en/philosophical-and-spiritual-framework-of-hazrat-inayat-khan/