South Asian Sufism in America

1 South Asian Sufis: Devotion, Deviation and Destiny Marcia Hermansen Loyola University Chicago South Asian Sufism in America South Asian Sufism has a long and variegated history and presence in America. Some of the complexity of the topic should be indicated at the outset. One dimension is that South Asia extends beyond India and Pakistan to include Sufi trends from Sri Lanka and even Fiji. Further, America extends beyond the United States, and although I know little of Mexican developments, Canada, which has received so many South Asian immigrants, has been and continues to be a center for Sufi movements. How we define Sufism also needs to be elaborated. The strictest definition might limit the discussion to initiatory Sufi orders that have a discrete identity and inculcate some form of exercises and guidance toward individual development along with collective spiritual practice. Beyond that, however, we find South Asian influences both among universalist groups that invoke the name Sufi with minimal reference to Islamic identity or practice, and within South Asian post-tariqa movements such as Deobandism, Barelvism and Tablighi Jama’at that may have little or no scope for initiation or individual Sufi practice alongside collective activities. In the United States, three types of Sufi movements emerged over the 20th century. One strand of movements, more universalistic in outlook, invoked Sufism and some aspects of Muslim tradition, but did not demand formal conversion to Islam of their adherents. The earliest, most well known, and successful of these movements was that brought by the Indian Chishti Sufi, Hazrat Inayat Khan (d. 1927). Other universalist Sufi movements include branches or offshoots of the Inayat Khan movement such as the Sufi Movement, the Sufi Islamiyat Ruhaniyat Society, and the Dances of Universal Peace (Samuel Lewis) that are more remotely connected to South Asia. The Society for Sufi Studies (Idries and Omar Ali Shah) also included a South Asian element, for while Idries Shah claimed royal Afghan blood, he was born in Simla India and his father and grandfather were born in British India as well.  2 A second type of South Asian Sufi movement, while substantially recruiting among Americans, has a grounding in the Islamic shari’a (ritual law) and understands being Muslim as essential to spiritual progress within the Sufi tradition. In one of my early papers on the subject I termed such movements “hybrids”.1 Most of the leaders of these movements have been immigrants from Muslim societies. Notable among South Asian movements of this type is the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship, established by a Sinhalese teacher, Guru Bawa (d. 1986). Even in this case there remains some ambiguity about the shari’a orientation since a substantial proportion of Bawa’s pupils see his teachings as universal, rather than specifically Islamic. I can think of no other South Asian hybrid Sufi movement, although South Asian immigrants and their children have joined other non-South Asian hybrid movements, in particular the Naqshbandi–Haqqani Order led by the Cypriot, Shaykh Nazim, and directed in the West by Shaykh Hisham Kabbani, who is of Lebanese origin. Finally, in a category that I term “transplants”, I place Sufi groups influenced by South Asian tariqa Sufism. Such groups have included pockets of immigrants from Muslim societies, particularly found in larger urban centers such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, who follow Sufism in ways very similar to practices in their home societies. The specifically South Asian emphasis of this volume leads me for the first time to include consideration of what might be termed “post-tariqa” or “quasi-tariqa” movements that are very South Asian, while being somewhat removed from the Sufism of the traditional orders. Here I would include varieties of Islamic practice, interpretation, and spirituality that emerged in India in more recent centuries, especially since the late 1800s, such as those associated with the Deoband madrasa system and with the movement known as Barelvism initiated by Reza Khan of Bareli (1856–1921). These forms are especially influential today in certain areas of the United States and Canada and have found a strong following among Muslim youth of South Asian background. While they make many accommodations and adjustments to the modern, in some cases by using 1 Marcia Hermansen, "In the Garden of American Sufi Movements: Hybrids and Perennials." In New Trends and Developments in the World of Islam edited by Peter B. Clarke, 1997, 155-178.  3 technology or social media, they have little attraction for Americans and therefore they may also be considered transplanted forms of South Asian Sufism. Early South Asian Universalist Sufism in America –the Inayat Khan Movement Hazrat Inayat Khan was born in Baroda (Varodhera), India in 1882 into a family of prominent classical Indian musicians. As a young man he frequented Indian courtly society and became a Sufi disciple of the Hyderabadi Chishti, Abu Hashim Madani (d. 1907). His teacher instructed him that his mission lay far to the West and Inayat Khan first embarked on a career bringing classical Hindustani music to America in 1910. In the aftermath of the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 and through the activities of groups such as the Theosophical Society, he found the West ready to receive Eastern spirituality of a certain type. Inayat Khan is said to have realized that his Western audiences in many cases needed spiritual instruction from him more than musical edification. He therefore reoriented his activities and to a great extent sacrificed his music in order to better serve what he perceived as the spiritual needs of the West.2 Inayat Khan traveled throughout the U.S., Western Europe and Russia, giving lectures and musical performances after which he would often hold informal talks with potential disciples, conferring formal initiation into the Sufi Order upon all those who requested it.3 Circles of disciples, or mureeds (murids) as they were called, were established in England, France, Switzerland and the U.S. In 1915 the Sufi Order of the West was registered in London under the 'Rules and Regulations of the Sufi Order4, and in 1923 the International Headquarters of the Sufi Movement was legally instituted in Geneva.5 2 Inayat Khan, The Mysticism of Music and Sound (Element, 1991), prologue. 3 James Jervis, "The Sufi Order in the West", in Peter Clark, ed. New Trends and Developments in the World of Islam, London: (Luzac Oriental Press, 1997), 214- 215. 4 Ibid., 215. Jervis also discusses the problems associated with determining the exact date of the so-called London constitution (249 n.33). 5 Elizabeth de Jong-Keesing, Inayat Khan (The Hague: East-West Publications and Luzac & Co., London, 1974), 209.  4 In the United States, his first disciple, and later head of the American branch of the Sufi Order, was a woman, Ada Martin (known as Rabia Martin). Another early American disciple was Samuel Lewis, who was to become a seminal figure in the development of the American Sufism in the 1960's. In 1914 Inayat Khan married an American woman, Ora Ray Baker, who had initially been his student in music.6 Inayat Khan’s career as a Sufi master was cut short by his death during a return visit to India at the age of forty-four. By this time he had initiated a number of European and American disciples into Sufism and given copious teachings and lectures. Most of his published works are based on transcripts of the talks made by disciples. His teachings explored the common spiritual themes of various world religions and he did not require his followers to formally accept Islam or to practice the Islamic shar’ia. In Inayat Khan’s Sufi order there were many elements of South Asian Sufi practice and cultural sensibility. Terms such as murshid, dhikr, or wazifa are used. The Chishti-Nizami silsila is published as being his spiritual lineage. Certain elements also draw on the eclectic spirituality and ideas of mastery in movements such as Theosophy, which also had a strong Indian influence. The image of India as pluralistic and deeply spiritual is conveyed in his writings. Themes from other world regions and religions are embodied in the weekly practice know as universal worship, where edifying passages are read from a range of scriptures. One joined the order through a process of initiation with the Murshid or his representative and received individual concentrations and wazifas in periodic interviews, progressing through 12 grades or levels. Certain teachings and practices were only introduced at the higher stages. Inayat Khan’s son and successor, Vilayat Khan (1916-2004), grew up in Europe but spent time in India after World War II studying with both Hindu teachers and a Sufi in the Kalimi Chishti lineage in Hyderabad. Vilayat Khan’s teaching was eclectic, incorporating some Sufi practices based on the breathing techniques, as well as tantric style exercises based on chakra visualization,7 and later on Christian and alchemical symbolism.8 In this Order, the South Asian Sufi tradition of commemorating the death 6 Ibid, 106-7. 7 8 Various mediatios of Pir Vilayat Khan in audio or video are available at http://www.universel.net/ Accessed March 11, 2011.  5 anniversary or Urs of Inayat Khan is preserved and Khan was interred in a shrine near the Nizamuddin Dargah in Delhi, built on land donated by the famous Indian Sufi, Khwaja Hasan Nizami, who had known him personally.9 European and American murids of the movement who came to India for the Urs were exposed to Indian Sufi practices such as listening to Qawwali music and this also kept a certain South Asian flavor within the Order. Vilayat Khan’s son and successor, Zia Inayat Khan (b. 1972), the current head of the order, was especially attracted to his South Asian heritage and spent extensive time in Baroda (Varodhera) and Hyderabad learning Urdu and Persian so as to undertake deeper study of the sources of the Chishti Sufi tradition. He married an Indian woman from his circle of relatives, further deepening his personal connection to India. Among the current following of the Sufi Order International,10 however, the Islamic or South Asian influence seems to be less that it was during Vilayat Khan’s leadership in the late 1960s and 1970s. This may be due to the fact that the post-baby boom generation has a less romantic view of South Asian and Indian spirituality, while inexpensive overland travel to India has become increasingly difficult, if not impossible, since the Iranian Revolution and the invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1970s, not to mention the current overt and covert wars along the route. Samuel Lewis and the Sufi Ruhaniyat Samuel Leonard Lewis (d. 1970) was born in San Francisco on October 18, 1896, to Jacob Lewis, a vice-president of the Levi Strauss Company, and the former Harriet Rothschild, of the international banking family. His Sufi name was Ahmed Murad Chishti.11 He was an early student of Inayat Khan who also followed Zen and Yogic paths and teachers.12 His “Sufism” was transmitted to a smaller circle of disciples in San 9 Marcia Hermansen, “Common Themes, Uncommon Contexts: The Sufi Movements of Khwaja Hasan Nizami (1878-1955) and Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927)” in A Pearl in Wine: Essays on the Life, Music and Sufism of Hazrat Inayat Khan ed. Zia Inayat Khan, (New Lebanon, NY: Omega, 2001), 323-353. 10 The name was modified from “Sufi Order in the West” in 11 Wali Ali Meyer, “Murshid Samuel L. Lewis”, http://www.marinsufis.com/murshid.php Accessed March 10, 2011. 12 Many of his writings are now archived online http://murshidsam.org/Papers1.html  6 Francisco during the 1960s.13 He developed, in particular, practices of “spiritual” movement and “Sufi dancing” utilizing circle and round dances in group settings accompanied by the chanting of litanies drawn from various religious traditions, including the Islamic profession of faith. This is still carried on in many parts of the West in the form of the Dances of Universal Peace.14 The disciples that Lewis passed on to Inayat Khan’s son, Vilayat Khan, infused the latter’s group with new leadership and energy in the early 1970s. Many of “Sufi Sam’s’” disciples chose to constitute a distinct group called the Sufi Islamia Ruhaniat Society.15 Members of this group share in the annual Urs of Inayat Khan held every February in the Nizamuddin area of New Delhi, India. The current leader, Shabda Kahn, is an accomplished musician in the Indian tradition. Later in life Lewis maintained a correspondence and spiritual connection with the Pakistani Sufi, Barakat Ali (d. 1997), based near Faisalabad, with whom he had taken initiation. Despite dropping the term “Islamiyat” from their title—the group is interested in some elements of Islamic Sufi practice, for example, reciting the divine names of Allah with proper pronunciation, as evidenced by a website providing MP3 sound files to accompany a forthcoming book on reciting the wazifas.16 The International Sufi Movement Accessed March 9, 2011. 13 A unique resource for Lewis’ activities and teaching style is the diary of one of his closest disciples, Mansur Johnson, Murshid: A Persoanl Memoir of Life with American Sufi Samuel Lewis (Seattle WA: PeaceWorks Publications, 2006). Photos of Lewis and his disciples may be found at http://www.mansurjohnson.com/node/6 and http://www.sonic.net/%7Efatima/oldphotos1/oldphotos1.htm Accessed March 10, 2011. 14 http://www.dancesofuniversalpeace.org/ Accessed March 10, 2011. 15 The group dropped the word “Islamiyat” from its name some years ago. Links between the Sufi Order and the Ruhaniyat continue and both fell victim to the 2009 financial scandal perpetrated by Bernie Madoff that notably scammed many Jewish charities as well http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/08/27/madoff_scheme_took_in_members_ of_religious_group/ Accessed Feb. 1, 211. 16 http://physiciansoftheheart.com/ Accessed March 9, 2011.  7 This group in the Inayat Khan [Inayati] lineage has had rather more influence in Europe, Canada, Australia,17 and New Zealand, although there are some activities in the United States. This branch did not accept the succession going to Inayat Khan’s son, Vilayat, but focused more on relatives Mahbeoob Khan, Ali Khan, and Musharaff Khan.18 The current leader is Inayat Khan’s son, Hidayat, who was born in 1917 and trained as a European classical musician. In 1988, Hidayat Inayat-Khan assumed the role of Representative-General of the International Sufi Movement and Pir-o-Murshid of its Inner School. He divides his time between Holland and Germany, and travels extensively, giving classes and lectures on Sufism.19 In the United States the main representative is Rabia Perez. In a 2010 article, she described the leadership of the movement as “under a collaborative Pir. It offers a bold change in how we will address leadership in the world.”20 The same article describes Inayat Khan’s teachings as “synthesized Sufi practices, extracted from four Sufi Tariqats, the Chishti, Naqshbandi, Qadiri and Suhrawardi lineages.”21 In addition, “He developed what we now call the Five Activities of the Star, the Esoteric school, the Universal Worship Activity, the Healing Activity, the Sister/Brotherhood Activity and the Zirat (Ecological Symbology) Activity.”22 These latter elements are also part of Sufi Order activities. 17 On this lineage in Australia see Celia A. Genn, “The Development a Modern Western Sufism” in Sufism and the ‘Modern’ in Islam Martin van Bruinessen and Julia Day Howell (eds.) (London: I. B. Taurus, 2007), 257-277. 18 Discussion of this branch in Europe is beyond the scope of this paper. A study of the lives and leadership roles of these figures is Karin Jironet, Sufi Mysticism in the West: Life and Leadership of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s Brothers 1927-1967 (Leuven: Peeters, 2009). 19 http://www.sufimovement.org/repgen.htm Accessed March 11, 2011. 20 http://www.sufimovement.org/teach_m_rabia.htm Accessed March 10, 2011. 21 A discussion of Inayat Khan being a representative of “four school” Sufism is offered in Bruce Lawrence and Carl W. Ernst Sufi Martyrs of Love (Palgrave, 2002), 142-3. 22 Ibid  8 CHART OF THE INAYAT KHAN (INAYATI) LINEAGES Muinuddin Chishti (d. 1236 Ajmer) [After 600 years of successors] ‘Inayat Khan (1882-1927/1910-1927) The Sufi Movement/ The Sufi Order in the West Mahbub Khan (1927-1948) (‘Inayat Khan’s brother) Samuel Lewis (1923-1971) aka Ahmad Murad Chishti Muhammad Ali Khan (1948-1958)‘Inayat Khan’s uncle Muinuddin Jablonsky (1971-2001) Musharraf Khan (1958-1967) ‘Inayat Khan’s brother Sufi Islamia Ruhaniat Society renamed Sufi Ruhaniat International in 2002 by current leader, Shabda Kahn Dances of Universal Peace Fazl ‘Inayat Khan (1967-1977) (‘Inayat Khan’s grandson) Vilayat Khan (1916-2004/1956-2004) Hidayat ’Inayat Khan (1977- present) (‘Inayat Khan’s son) (‘Inayat Khan’s son) Zia ‘Inayat Khan (2004-present) (Vilayat Khan’s son) The International Sufi Movement The Sufi Order Table 1: ‘Inayat Khan’s selected sub-lineages (leadership dates in bold). Chart Based on Art Buehler “Modes of Sufi Transmission to New Zealand”, 101. The Golden Sufi Center Although they trace their lineage to an Indian branch of the Naqshbandi Sufi Order, I would classify the Golden Sufi Center as a “universalist” Sufi movement. This group was inspired by the teaching and writings of a female teacher from Britain, Irena  9 Tweedie (d. 1999),23 who traveled to India in 1961 and became the disciple of a Hindu Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi called “Bhai Sahib”. Tweedie chronicled the process of her instruction in her book, Chasm of Fire, first published in 1985, and since 1986 available in an expanded version as Daughter of Fire.24 Once the book was published, she began to give lectures at the Theosophical society in London and started a small meditation group. Her followers later expanded to Germany and Switzerland. She first visited the United States in the role of a spiritual teacher in 1985 and again in 1987 when she came to the Bay Area accompanied by fifty disciples from London. She appointed Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee as her successor before her retirement in 1992.25 On her instructions he started a group in Inverness, Marin County, California and since 1991 has resided for long periods in the United States where he writes articles and books and occasionally gives seminars on spirituality and Jungian dream interpretation. In an article, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee describes the meditation process of the tariqa using Sanskrit terms such as dhyana and samadhi and indicating their compatibility with Jungian psychological understandings of the transformative process. He lists the practices of the group as primarily consisting of meditation, dreamwork, discussion, and ultimately the relationship with the teacher, known as suhbat.26 He further characterizes the Naqshbandi Sufi path as the most introverted one27 indicating the challenge of such a practice in “extroverted” American culture. For example, “solitude in the crowd”, a traditional Naqshbandi teaching, is described as a spiritual process that primarily takes 23 On Tweedie and female leadership see the article by Sara Sviri, "Documentation and Experiences of a Modern Naqshbandi Sufi" in Women as Teachers and Disciples in Traditional and New Religions. ed. Elizabeth Puttick and Peter B. Clarke (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1994), 77-89. 24 Chasm of Fire: A Woman's Experience of Liberation through the Teachings of a Sufi Master (Tisbury: Element, 1979) and Daughter of Fire (Nevada City, CA: Blue Dolphin, 1986). 25 Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, The Lover and the Serpent: Dreamwork Within a Sufi Tradition (Rockport, MA: Element Books, 1991), The Call and the Echo: Sufi Dreamwork and the Psychology of the Beloved (Putney, VT: Threshold, 1991), Sufism: The Transformation of the Heart (Golden Sufi Center, 1995). Awakening the World: A Global Dimension to Spiritual Practice. 26 Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, “Neither of the East nor of the West: The Journey of the Nashbadiyya-Mujaddidiyya from India to America”, 12. Available online http://goldensufi.org/article_eastwest.html Accessed March 10, 2011. 27 Ibid, 14.  10 place in inner worlds beyond the conscious mind, a dimension that is often difficult for Americans who expect fast and tangible results.28 As of 1994 there were an estimated 500-600 members of this movement in Germany and Switzerland, 300 in England, and 200 in the U. S.".29 In the United States, a website notice as of 2011 lists Golden Sufi meditation groups in northern California, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boulder, Minnesota, Chicago, North Carolina, New York City, Boston, New Hampshire, and Vancouver, B.C. 30 Guru Bawa Muhaiyuddeen: A Sufi Saint from Sri Lanka The Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship was founded by a Singhalese teacher, Guru Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, who first came to the United States in 1971. He gradually gathered a group of Western disciples at his Fellowship in Philadelphia, which is particularly remarkable since he was already quite elderly and never learned to speak more than rudimentary English.31 Bawa’s public career began in Sri Lankan during the 1940s when he emerged from the jungles and was approached by some pilgrims to local shines who recognized him as a holy man and requested spiritual instruction from him. He founded an ashram in Jaffna, primarily a Hindu area, and was later invited to teach in Colombo by visiting Muslim businessmen. In 1955 he laid the foundation for a mosque in Mankumban, but the building was only fully constructed during the 1970s with material assistance form American followers. He apparently, regularly used teaching stories from Hindu sources as well as stories of the Prophets (Qisas al-Anbiya) and other Muslim/Sufi traditions.32 28 Ibid, 15. 29 The information about the Golden Sufis in the 1990s is based on their publications and on an interview with Michael Eccles at the International Association of Sufism Conference in San Rafael, March 26, 1994. 30 http://www.goldensufi.org/about.html Accessed Feb. 26, 2011. 31 The Fellowship has smaller branches in Iowa, Boston, Connecticut, Vermont, and Sacramento. 32 Gisela Webb, “Third-Wave Sufism in America and the Bawa Muhaiyadeen Fellowship” in Jamal Malik and John Hinnells, eds. Sufism in the West. New York: Routledge, 2006), 92.  11 Bawa came to America at the invitation of a group of spiritual seekers with whom he had corresponded. His early circle in the United States was comprised of black and white Americans from both Christian and Jewish backgrounds. As this circle grew, disciples purchased a former Synagogue in the Overbrook area of Philadelphia that remains the central focus of the Bawa Muhaiyadeen Fellowship. Webb suggests that the early circle did not recognize the distinctive Sufi and Islamic elements of Bawa’s early teachings, despite their clear presence. He was rather perceived as a South Asian guru who imparted no formal practices or exclusive religious identity. In fact, the Sufi content of some of these early teachings has been documented by Gisela Webb as including the light of Muhammad (Nur Muhammadi), the inner Qur’an, letter symbolism of the Alif and Mim. and the role of the Sufi saints of the past including Abd al-Qadir Jilani, among other elements.33 One may characterize a gradualism in Bawa’s introducing Islamic and Sufi elements of practice into his teachings during the period between 1971 and 1986 including the ritual prayers (salat), performance of silent and vocal dhikr, and finally, in 1984, the construction of a mosque. His tariqa affiliation is primarily Qadari and this is written above the entrance to the mosque. Construction of the mosque element defined the group as Islamic, and this identification alienated some members who then left the group, while the Sufi aspects were not acceptable to some local non-Sufi Muslims who considered the movement to be heretical. The mosque did position the group more explicitly as past of the interfaith movement in Philadelphia, since it was no longer seen as an isolated cult but rather as representative of Islam. It also positioned the Fellowship as part of the international Muslim community and attracted more Muslims of immigrant Muslim background, both South Asians and others, to consider the teachings of Bawa. Currently there are three orientations among those involved with the Fellowship—a universalist group who do not see the teachings of Bawa as restricted to any one religious or cultural form; a group who come for the external practices of Islam associated with the mosque and Islamic functions and holidays; and a group following both external Islam and the Sufi elements of Bawa’s teachings. In fact, the eventual 33 Ibid, 94.  12 splitting of followers of hybrid Sufi groups into universalist and shari’a oriented branches in fairly typical in the West. Bawa did not appoint a successor and the community continues to publish archived material drawn from his teachings. Two Imams were appointed by Bawa to lead the Friday prayers. In addition to Friday prayer activities, there are Sunday sessions focusing on Bawa’s teachings, Friday and early morning dhikr sessions, children’s and other meetings. There is also a school for the children of Fellowship members. A farm in Unionville Pennsylvania was acquired to serve three functions: to be a residential and instructional site, a burial ground for Muslims, and the place for Bawa’s shrine (mazar), which is the first large structure of its type in the United States. The mazar is a concrete manifestation of South Asia Sufi custom in the United States and an annual Urs is held there. At many other times it is visited by pilgrims from around the United States. During some periods of Bawa’s leadership, disciples would follow him back and forth to Sri Lanka and reside there for extended periods34 and a handful of disciples even studied Tamil, so as to work more directly on his teachings. Writing in 2003, Webb states that the membership of the Fellowship has remained fairly steady at about 1,000, with several small branches in other cities and even in Canada. Numbers involved in the mosque activities would be even greater.35 While the group of followers is diverse and therefore does not take a collective stand on political and cultural issues, many individuals involved in the Fellowship have been inspired to undertake creative, spiritual, and progressive activities—contributing extensively to these sorts of currents within the broader American Muslim community in the United States. Here I might mention Coleman Barks, well-known translator of Rumi’s poetry and Sufi feminist scholar, Zohara Symmons. Hakim Moinuddin Chishti and the Chishti Order of America Another smaller example of hybrid Chishti practice under an American shaykh is the Chishti Order of America, founded in 1972 by Hakim G. M. Chishti. At first the 34 Maryam Kabeer Faye, Journey Through 10,000 Veils: The Alchemy of Transformation on the Sufi Path (NJ: Tughra Books, 2009), 121-155. 35 Webb, “Third-Wave Sufism”, 99.  13 group was known as the Chishti Sufi Mission, an affiliate of the Chishti Sufi Mission Society of India in Ajmer. Hakim was a student of Mirza Wahiduddin Begg who was a senior Sufi teacher in Ajmer during the 1970s. When Begg died in 1979, Hakim was granted his succession, a fact confirmed in a ceremony in Ajmer in 1980. At the same time, the Chishti Sufi mission was renamed the Chishti Order of America. Hakim Moinuddin has authored several books on traditional Sufi healing36 and studied and promoted Unani medicine and aromatherapy. He studied Persian at the University of Arizona and traveled on a Fulbright to Afghanistan to study with traditional shaykhs and healers there. He claims the Chishti Sabiri lineage and was also associated with a Pakistan Shaykh, Syed Safdar Ali Chishti of Lahore. This group features one of the first born-in-America Muslim Sufi shaykhs and although small in numbers, may represent South Asia Sufi influence through its promotion of Unani healing, which is typical of South Asian ethno-medical cultural practice. Transplants and Local Forms of South Asian Sufism in America The small South Asian immigrant groups in local American contexts are too diverse and numerous to be comprehensively documented and described in the course of this chapter. They constitute expressions of Sufism in America where one would find the most South Asian diversity in language, nationality, tariqa affiliation, and practice. Since the transplants are so closely linked to immigration patterns, I will briefly summarize that element. Literature on South Asian immigration identifies two major waves of immigration to the United States. The first wave during the first half of the twentieth century was limited and consisted primarily of agriculturalists and working class immigrants from the state of Punjab. The second wave following immigration changes since the Luce-Celler Act of 1946 brought in more diverse groups and Lyndon Johnson’s Hart-Cellar Act of 1965 further opened the door for immigration based on skills and education. Not only were South Asians immigrants originating from post-colonial nations like Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, the community also consisted of 36 Hakim Moinuddin Chishti, The Book of Sufi Healing ( ).  14 individuals belonging to the wider South Asian diaspora spread across the world. The selectivity of American immigration standards initially insured that immigrants would generally have high levels of education and skills required to rapidly advance in American society. Family reunification gateways to immigration eventually resulted in some immigrants coming without strong language skills or professional training. While some degree of illegal South Asian Muslim immigration also takes place, many illegal South Asian Muslim immigrants fled after 9/11. Historically and today, the West Coast and specifically the San Francisco Bay area is a rich center of South Asian Sufi immigrant populations and Sufi diversity. Among Sufis there, I encountered a small community of Fijian Rifa’i Sufis in San Jose who showed me tapes of their practices of testing faith and states of consciousness through sticking small skewers in their facial skin during a Rabita ceremony. Several academic colleagues in New Zealand have described similar groups of Fijian immigrant Sufis in their country.37 Afghan immigrants in Walnut Creek, CA, the Washington, DC area and in Chicago also include small, tariqa-based circles of transplanted Sufis. I came across the website of one such group while researching this article.38 In Chicago, the large Hyderabadi immigrant population includes Sufi initiates from diverse tariqas. Few continue traditional Sufi practices and individual spiritual guidance is almost completely missing. What do persist are collective dhikr circles that may be held in basement mosques or in private homes. There is a strong overlap with the South Asian Barelvi population that holds broader sessions incorporating devotional practices such as celebrating the Prophet's Birthday (milad), ceremonial viewing of a beard hair of the Prophet (mu’i mubarak), and recitation of the Qasida Burda, accompanied by drums and processed flags. In New Jersey, Chicago, and perhaps some other cities, activities such as a public processions of green banners and chants “Marhaba Ya Mustafa” may accompany the Prophet’s Birthday occasion. The disciples of Muhammad Afzal al-Din Nizami (d. 2007), a Hyderabadi Chishti shaykh, continue his lineage with monthly dhikr sessions, an annual Urs including 37 Arthur Buehler. “Modes of Sufi Transmission to New Zealand” in New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 8, 2 (December, 2006): 97-109, p. 100. 38 http://www.afghansufi.com/ourteacher.html Accessed Feb. 27, 2011.  15 ceremonies at the Rosehill cemetery where he is interred, and periodic Qawwali sessions.39 Meanwhile a circle of South Asian Qadaris meets every Monday evening to perform a dhikr in the basement of the Elmdale (Hamidiyya) mosque in North Chicago. Dr. Abd al-Sattar Khan, a retired Arabic professor from Usmania University, who resides above the Elmdale mosque, is a Shaykh and khalifa in the Naqshbandi lineage of Abdullah Shah Sahib (d. 1964) from Hyderabad. Baji, a Pakistani Sufi Shaykha in America Baji Tayyibah is a contemporary Pakistani Sufi shaykha who lives in Philadelphia. Since she has followers who are both Pakistani and American, her group could be considered in some ways hybrid, but the limited extent of her circle leads me to locate her among transplants. Baji’s family came to Pakistan from Agra in India and she speaks Urdu interspersed with English. She is a teacher in the Indian-based Chishti order (founded by Mu’in al-Din Chishti, d. 1326), although her master held several lines of tariqh affiliation. Baji characterizes the path of Chishtis as, “Small effort, big results. There are no complicated litanies and obligations to do every day. In spiritual seeking, there is the way of difficulty and the way of ease. We must take the way of ease.” Before he passed away, Baji’s teacher gave the succession of the order to Baji and her brother jointly. When asked by researcher Barbara von Schlegell whether one of them had more power than he other? She replied, “No. We are both ‘zeroes’.” In Peshawar the brother leads the men in their rituals and prayers, while Baji holds separate ceremonies for women. But in the United States she also has male disciples, including the adolescents and unmarried men of the group. Baji herself, who is perhaps forty years old, is not married. When asked about this and Baji was insistent that this celibacy is not Islamically acceptable; the reason she never married is that she performed istikhara (a prayer made to God to answer a specific question, made right before sleep) after every marriage proposal that came her way, but God never gave His consent to any of her suitors. 39 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PxycSH6Vy0 Accessed Feb. 26,  16 Baji’s master, Mawla ‘Abd al-Rahim Chishti, was Pashtun but he insisted on women’s education and advancement. Baji says, “He wanted women to excel both in din and dunya (religion and the world).” The shaykh worked hard to convince husbands to allow their female family members to attend his Sufi gatherings. Every week, Baji cooks for hundreds of people; she owns and operates an Indian food business in the center of Philadelphia and she provides the donated meals at a local mosque.40 South Asian Post-Tariqa Sufi Movements: Deobandis, Barelvis, and Tablighi Jamaat In discussing Deobandis, the Tablighi Jamaat and Barelvis in relation to South Asian Sufi influences in America, the first issue to be addressed is whether these movements are, in fact, Sufi at all. There is disagreement on this issue arising from the fact that each of these groups stresses collective behavior and practice rather than individual spiritual training and initiation in a tariqa. For this reason they may be termed “post-tariqa” forms of Sufism. The Deoband madrasa was founded in 1867 In Northern India by scholars in the lineage of Shah Wali Allah (d. 1762), a Naqshbandi Sufi scholar who himself combined scholarly, reformist, and Sufi elements in his thought and practice. Deoband has been known for inculcating a rigorous madrasa training along with Sufi ike attachment of students to their instructors as spiritual guides, and in fact these guides may have been members of Sufi trariqas. Among the more famous Deobandi scholars have been Ashraf Ali Thanvi, a Chishti and Hajji Imdadullah Muhajir Makki, a Chishti Sabiri. Among Indian Deobandis one finds both lines of Chishtis as well as Naqshbandi influences, along with the idea of a spiritualizing of the madrasa experience. More recently Deoband has been named as a source of Taliban training, although this is not characteristic of Deobandis more generally. In America, Deobandi ulema are increasingly influential since their institutions such as madrasas and fatwa boards are the most active in 40 I owe this material these quotations to an unpublished article by Barbara von Schlegell, who interviewed Baji in 2008.  17 inculcatig Islamic learning and practices in South Asian Muslim immigrant communities. In a few instances there are strands of what I term, “Deobandi Tasawwuf”. An example of this is a group directed by Shaykh Hussain Abdul Sattar in Chicago. Abdul Sattar is a practicing physician trained in the United States and the khalifa of a Pakistan Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi, Shaykh Zulfiqar Ahmad.41 This is perhaps the only Deobandi group in North America that is openly "Sufi." The group holds open lessons and a dhikr session every Sunday that are podcast from the Islamic Center of Chicago.42 In areas with significant South Asian Muslim populations I would generally place Deobandism as having a conservative influence—an alternative to the Salafi-Saudi trend that may be more resonant with South Asians. As an attitude and practice, Deobandism is fairly compatible with most strands of US Islam except for the rival South Asian Barelvis who offer little resistance. Part of its success in having a growing influence is through the madrasa institutions in the West that train young Imams fluent in English who are capable of providing leadership due to their authority in Islamic law. In some senses we could see such influences as moving away from South Asian cultural Islamic practices toward a more transnational circulation of authority through mastery of fiqh. In this fiqh privileging arena, the Hanafi school (madhhab) seems to be dominant, and of course this legal school is the most popular one among South Asians. Among youth in America who are primarily of South Asian background, currents that are primarily “fiqhi”, as opposed to Sufi, are represented by White Thread Press43 and Sunni Forum.44 The trend is clearly Hanafi Deobandi, although Sunni Path accepts content from other Sunni legal schools as sufficiently “traditional”. Tablighi Deobandis 41 http://www.tasawwuf.org/ and his publications at http://www.faqirpublications.com/ Accessed March 11, 2011. 42 www.sacredlearning.org Accessed March 11, 2011. One can download a “rabita” form from this site in order to keep track of the extra devotional and Sufi practices performed every week. 43 http://www.whitethreadpress.com/ Accessed March 10, 2011. 44 http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/forum.php Accessed March 10, 2011.  18 Another current in American Deobandism is what I term a Deobandi Tablighi synthesis. The Tablighi Jamaat was founded in India in the 1920s by Maulana Muhammad Ilyas, A Deobandi scholar influenced by Sufism who was inspired to try and preach to the Muslim masses who were ether uninformed or lax about their religion. The Tablighis have been the subject of extensive scholarly interest as a global movement involving large numbers of Muslims transnationally, although the predominant constituency is South Asian. Over time I would observe that they have become ever less Sufi and more Deobandi in outlook. Many customs of the Tablighis do reflect their South Asian Sufi origins such as a preference for simplicity and maintaining proper comportment (adab). Unlike many of the other groups mentioned in this chapter, Tablighis eschew electronic and even print media, although they are not averse to traveling internationally by air—they often prefer to act locally and perform their missionizing tours around neighborhoods on foot. French scholar, Marc Garborieau, reviews conflicting scholarly opinions as to the Sufi nature of Tablighi Jamaat.”45 While some scholars have emphasized the Sufi origins of the movement in the life of Muhammad Ilyas, other put more stress on its critique of popular Sufi ritual and exclude it from the fold of tasawwuf. Garborieau states that the Tablighis “have done away with all the external practices which characterized traditional Chishtiyya religiosity. Not only do they shun mystical audition, samâ‘, which in Nizamuddin takes the shape of qawwâlî singing; but they also prohibit the visit of the tombs in the Dargâh complex, and the celebration of annual festivals which are either the Islamic death anniversaries of Nizamu'd-Dîn, of the Indo-Persian poet Amîr Khusrau (1253-1325) and of the Prophet Muhammad, or festivities of Hindu origin like basant in honour of the Spring.”46 In contrast to Sufis, Garborieau characterizes Tablighis as “outward looking and collective” “more concerned with building power than with self-improvement” and having “lost all esoteric character and only interested in reform”.47 While Garborieau’s 45 Marc Garborieau, “What is left of Sufism in Tablîghî Jamâ‘at?” In Archives de sciences sociales des religions 135 (2006): 53-72. Online address http://assr.revues.org/3731 Conculted March 1, 2011. 46 Garborieau, para 38 [online]. 47 Ibid, para 42 [online].  19 view is perhaps excessively harsh on Tablighis, it does appear that the overwhelming majority of Tablighis and Tablighi Deobandis can barely be considered Sufis at this point. Sufi Barelvis Considering Barelvism48 as a manifestation of South Asian Sufism in America clearly fits in terms of its being South Asian. This interpretation and practice of Islam is typically South Asian and was given intellectual form by Reza Khan Barelvi, an early 20th century scholar. Barelvis promote and defend Islamic Sufi practices and attitudes such as veneration of the great saints (auliya) of the past and maintaining a devotional relationship with the Prophet Muhammad. On specific matters of practice and doctrine they have come into conflict with Deobandi and other views, at time leading to rather severe arguments and mutual condemnations.49 Individuals may be initiates of Sufi Orders as part of their Barelvi commitment or their Sufism may be more collective and diffuse. Scholars such as Pnina Werbner and Ronald Geaves have looked at the British South Asian Barelvi community, noting the overlap and occasional conflict between the authority of learned maulvis and of charismatic pirs within that community.50 Institutionally, madrasas and mazars are institutional centers for these varied forms of authority in England.51 In the case of the American landscape, there are perhaps fewer and less concentrated Barelvi populations and therefore this dynamic has not arisen. Two Barelvi oriented madrasas are Al-Noor Masjid in Houstn, Texas and Dar al- Ulum Azizia, in Dallas. I will mention a few other Barelvi organizations in America. The Naqshbandiyya Foundation for Islamic Education 48 The terms Barelvi and Barelvism are not usually self-descriptions. Barelvis call themselves “ahl-e sunna wa’l jama’a”—the people of the Sunna and the community indicating that they see themselves as the center of mainstream islam, not as a sectarian or distinct movement. 49 Sanyal Fatwa aricle 50 51 Ronald Geaves, “Continuity and Transformation in a Naqshbandi Tariqa in Britain”, 66. Werbner Pilgrims f Love (London: Hurst, 2003), 257.  20 The Naqshbandiyya Foundation for Islamic Education was founded by Barelvi- oriented Sufis from Pakistan, specifically murids of Jamaat Ali Shah (d. 1955), a Naqshbandi, studied by Arthur Buehler),52 and organizers have tried to have an impact in the United States by organizing Milad conferences (celebrations of the birth of the Prophet Muhammad), and at one point gathering ulema of the “Ahl-e sunna wa l- Jama’at” (Barelvi) orientation to try to form some kind of North American umbrella organization. That the group envisioned a broad Sufi-Barelvi consensus as is evident from their website which links both Western and Muslim World Sufi Orders and the sites of Ahl-e Sunnat associations in various countries.53 Here a form of contemporary South Asian Sufism—Barelvi-ism was being exported to the US through immigrant networks and attempts were made to cooperate with three local groups—American (Muslim) academics sympathetic to Sufism, American Sufi Orders, including at one point the Helveti-Jerrahis, Naqshbandi-Haqqanis, the Guru Bawa Fellowship, and some others, as well as Barelvi ulema of South Asian origin. Several Milad al-Nabi conferences were held in Chicago (1993-1995) that attempted to combine all three constituencies54 and branches in several other American cities continue to host smaller events.55 I would characterize this effort as one based on the efforts of a handful of immigrant Muslim professionals. The main target of this initiative was to influence the Muslim community in North America toward more inclusion of the Barelvi element. However, most Muslim institutions, mosques, ISNA (the Islamic Society of North America) and so on, rejected these manifestations of Sufism—and the Barelvis were not 52 Arthur F. Buehler, Sufi heirs of the Prophet : the Indian Naqshbandiyya and the rise of the mediating sufi shaykh (Columbia : University of South Carolina Press, 1998). 53 http://www.nfie.com/links.htm The site seems to have been dormant since 2002. 54 Publications arising from these conferences are the two journal issues called, Sufi Illuminations. 55 While NFIE continues sporadically only at the local level, an offshoot Islamic Studies and Research Association (ISRA) has a similar style of networking, and has host twelve annual conferences with a regional appeal, but clearly now is attempting to have a global reach through social media such as Youtube. http://www.israinternational.com/ Viewed March 1, 2011.  21 ultimately able to organize in the United States at the national level.56 The ulema didn’t achieve consensus among themselves, while the Sufi groups often were not very Barelvi in style, and had different concerns. For example, the divergent interests of American convert Sufis included a focus on Sufism as a source of personal development, promoting their respective charismatic shaykhs,57 identifying with classical “high” tradition Sufism, and nostalgia for the great Sufi past. At the same time in Pakistan, India and even in Britain, one finds successful Barelvi madrasas and networks, in some cases even political parties—but of course these have emerged in ethnically more homogenous “local” settings.58 Therefore we may question whether the problem with organized Barelvism taking hold in the United States is the paucity of a certain “class” of South Asian immigrants? We may also view it as attributable to elements in the American larger culture. Alternatively its failure may have occurred as a result of factors specific to the Muslim sub-culture in the United States; for example, the fact that most community organizations were already controlled by anti-Sufi Islamists? Islamic Studies And Research Association [ISRA] An offshoot of Barelvi organized Milad activities that has become an independent site for Sufi activities is the Islamic Studies And Research Association [ISRA]. This is said to have had its origin in a “think tank” established in 1987 formed by South Asian Muslim professionals. Since 1998 the group has gathered ulema and Sufi teachers across ethnicities and tariqas, every year in North Carolina for a Milad conference. 56 In fact a later organization, ISRA, tries to draw on many of the same networks. While localized in the South-East of the United States, the movement has tried to enter the Chicago area through a network of Pakistani Punjabi businessmen. This seems to have met with little enthusiasm from the persons who were initially gathered from the Chicago businessman’s contacts in the Pakistani Business Association. (ethnic and professional networks) but who have less interest in Barelvi spirituality or American Sufism, although sympathetic to Islamic activities in a more general sense. 57 In particular Naqshbandi-Haqqanis who at one point threatened to pull out of the event if their Shaykh Hisham was not given top billing. 58 Ron Geaves, Sufis of Britain on Barelvis.  22 The organization’s current mandate extends beyond Milads or specifically South Asian style activities to “introducing true tasawwuf (Sufism).” North Carolina A Sufi oriented mosque where teachings and practices are imparted is located in Cary, North Carolina.59 The teacher is a young graduate of the Jamea Arabia Ziaul Ulum, Varanasi and the Jamia Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya in New Delhi, Mufti Manzarul Islam. The founders of the mosque are disciples of Shaykh Ali Akhter Ali, a khalifa of Sufi Barkat Ali of Pakistan. While the Mufti is of Indian origin and has written extensively on Ahmed Raza Kahn, the mosque also has many members with strong links to Pakistani Deobandi ulema such as Asif Qasmi (Toronto) and Taqi Usmani (Pakistan).60 Minhaj ul-Qur’an Other manifestations of organized Barelvi groups in America are the Pakistani movement Minhaj ul-Qur’an, which is under the guidance of Maulana Tahir ul-Qadri (b. 1951), a Barelvi scholar who relocated to Toronto from Pakistan in 2005. Qadri is a community leader, intellectual, author, and the founder of a network of educational and charitable institutions in Pakistan. He issued a prominent fatwa against terrorism in 2010, and some say his relocation in Toronto is to avoid the dangerous environment of reprisals in contemporary Pakistan. Davat-e Islami Davat-e Islami constitutes another sort of Barelvi movement founded by the Pakistani Maulana, Abu Bilal Ilyas Qadiri.61 Its reach is exclusively within the immigrant community and primarily to Pakistanis. A strong online presence is 59 http://www.carymasjid.org/ 60 Provate e-mail communication from Maulana Manzurul Islam, March 28, 2011. 61 http://www.dawateislami.net/home.do Accessed March 10, 2011.  23 developing, including the ability to Facebook connect and tweet. Downloads include Ghaus-e Azam (Abdul Qadir Jilani) wallpaper for your computer62 and aspirants can also become mureeds online.63 In Chicago, for example, Dawat-i Islami has founded its own mosque and engaged in some public activities such as a Milad parade on Devon Avenue. South Asian Sufism in Canada According to one source, Sufism was first brought to Canada by Maulana Abdul Aleem Siddiqui, a Barelvi scholar, who spoke in Edmonton and Toronto during a tour he made in 1939.64 In Toronto, one of the early tariqa Sufi teachers was the Chishti shaykh, Dr. Mirza Qadeer Baiq of Ajmer, India, who was a professor in the Islamic Studies Department of the University of Toronto from the late 1960's until his death in 1988.65 He was the deputy (Khalifa) of the Guderi Shahi branch of the Chishti Order of Ajmer, India.66 He founded organizations such as the Society for the Understanding of the Finite and Infinite (acronym-SUFI), later known as the Sufi Circle of Toronto. Among his followers were both South Asian immigrants and Canadians who accepted Islam. Branches of South Asian Qadiri, and Naqshbandi orders have also operated in Toronto. Among universalist Sufis, the first branch of Inayat Khan’s Sufi Order in the West began activities in Toronto in 1973. In Montreal, followers of this group, under the leadership of a French-Canadian, Jean-Pierre (Junayd) Gallien, began holding public meetings and teaching sessions in 1974. 62 http://www.dawateislami.net/html/banners/ghous-ul-azam- wallpaper.php?IslamicWallPaper=5 Accessed March 11, 2001. 63 http://www.dawateislami.net/mureed Accessed March 10, 2011. 64 Siddiq Osman Noormuhammad, "The Sufi Tradition in Toronto" in The Message International (#6, Aug. 1995):42. 65 See biography at http://muslim-canada.org/sufi/drbaig.htm Viewed Dec. 21, 2006. 66 The Guderi Shahi Order is one of the few orders mentioned in an article by N. Landman, "Sufi Orders in the Netherlands: Their Role in the Institutionalization of Islam" as appealing to Dutch converts to Islam. P. S. van Koningsveld and W. A. R. Shadid, eds. The Integration of Islam and Hinduism in Western Europe (Kampen, The Netherlands: Kok Pharos, 1991), pp. 26-39.  24 In western Canada, the Sufi teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan was first introduced by his student, Shamcher Bryn Beorse, in the early 1970's. Beorse was living near Seattle at the time, and made contact through the mail with a seeker in Edmonton named Carol Sill. After meeting Shamcher in person, and with his encouragement, Carol began to hold meetings, and a number of disciples (murids) were initiated. Centers were subsequently started in Calgary and then in Banff. The Sufi seekers in western Canada were for a time associated with the Sufi Order, and had some contact with Sufi Order teachers Junayd Gallien, Anna Paloheimo and Shahabuddin David Less. Pir Vilayat also visited Calgary in those years. However, before his death in 1980, Shamcher Beorse introduced the small group to Hazrat Inayat Khan's younger son, Hidayat Inayat-Khan, and under his guidance they joined the International Sufi Movement in the early 1980's. Within the Sufi Movement, the first National Representative for Canada was Carol Sill. The Sufi Movement in Canada has centers in Edmonton, Calgary, Banff, Salmon Arm, Vancouver, Victoria and Toronto, with a membership of approximately one hundred in the mid-1990s. A Canadian, Nawab Pasnak, edited the International Sufi Movement Magazine, Caravanserai, published twice yearly from Sufi Movement Headquarters in The Hague for a time. Apart from local Center activities, the Sufi Movement in Canada traditionally held a yearly camp, under the direction of Pir-o- Murshid Hidayat Inayat-Khan, in the Rocky Mountains near Banff. In Vancouver both the Sufi Order and the Sufi Movements are active.67 In terms of post-tariqa South Asian Sufism Canada, there are four Deobandi madrasas in Canada. The first one is Al-Rashid Islamic Institute in Cornwall, Ontario. The second madrasa is Mufti Majid's madrasa Jamiatul Uloom al Islamiyyah in Ajax, very close to Toronto. The third madrasa is Darul Uloom in Bowmanville, Ontario which is also very close to Toronto. The fourth one is in Kelowna, British Columbia, about five hours by car from Vancouver. As in the United States, Tablighi and Barelvi activities are also engaged in by South Asian immigrant Muslims.68 An article by Siddiq Osman Noormuhammad 67 I am indebted to Nawab Pasnak for information on Sufi activities in Western Canada. 68 On Tabligh in Canada see Rory.Dickson, “The Tablighi Jama‘at in Southwestern  25 mentions a number of these activities taking place in Toronto including Qawwalis, viewing of the Prophet’s beard hair, and dhikr sessions. Conclusions Due to the South Asian focus of this chapter, I also wish to comment on a romanticized idea of “India” is evident in the teachings of Inayat Khan and Samuel Lewis. This image is also that of a religiously pluralistic India, evident in the stories and motifs that each Sufi leader prominently incorporated in his teachings, invoking examples from both Islamic and Hindu traditions. I have a sense that these ideas of India resonated differently in areas of the West that shared the linkages of the British Empire and the circulation of colonial administrators and ex-Raj families, and those that did not. This may explain why the Sufi Movement has been more prominent in Canada, Australia and New Zealand while the Sufi Order International was more influential in the United States. A further concluding observation that I will make regards gender. Among the universalist Sufi movements, female participation and leadership began early and reaches high levels. In these groups restrictions on women in matters such as dress codes are often seen as cultural and outmoded. What does remain in both the Inayati and Golden Sufi lines is a sense of the “feminine” as a distinct category that needs to be appreciated and, to an extent, nurtured and protected in an extroverted Western culture that is by nature dismissive of it.69 This attitude is typical of traditionalist Sufism more generally.70 The association of India with the mysterious East may also have played into the reception or appropriation of some Sufi claims or motifs among African-American Islamic and proto-Islamic movements. Figures such as the Ahmadi missionary, Mufti Ontario: making Muslim identities and networks in Canadian urban spaces” in Contemporary Islam 3 (2, 2009): 99-112 and Shaheen H. Azmi, “A movement or a Jamaat? Tablighi Jamaat in Canada” in. Muhammad Khalid Masud (ed.), Travellers in Faith (Leiden, Brill, 2000), 222- 69 Marcia, Hermansen “Two Sufis on Molding the New Muslim Woman: Khwaja Hasan Nizami (1878-1955) and Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927) in Barbara Metcalf ed. Islam in South Asia in Practice (Princeton, 2009), 326-338. and Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, “Neither of the East”, 20-22 70 Sachiko Murata. The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought. (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992).  26 Muhammad Sadiq, who preached in America during the 1920s. while not tariqa Sufi teachers, imparted some elements of South Asian spirituality in their teachings.71 It is clear that in America, as elsewhere in the West, the constituencies and interests of South Asian inspired Sufi movements can vary greatly. In South Asia itself, the shift from Sufi practice as an individual spiritual training imparted through an instructor Shaykh (shaykh tarbiyya) to a movement clustered around a Shaykh who embodies and conveys the charisma of a Sufi Order (shaykh tariqa), has been discussed by Arthur Buehler.72 This lack of attention to and competency for personal guidance among South Asian Sufi Orders was naturally also imported to the West. The Inayati movements attempted to retain a process of individual guidance and training by a shaykh, but faced the quandary that once any movement expanded beyond a smaller circle, the leader could not be available to provide such spiritual training on an individual basis. Attempts to institute deputyship and local leaders, most of whom were Western trainees, have only had a limited success and contributed to these groups becoming ever less Islamic and South Asian over time. The transplanted practices of specific South Asian tariqas as well as the larger post-tariqa constellations of Sufi inspired movements seem on the whole to have dropped the element of individual spiritual transformation and the personal training that leads to this, both in South Asia and the West. Among the Sufi Orders imported to the West from India, the Chishti tariqa seem to have come first to arrive and to have the greatest propensity to universalize and adapt. Its Indian origin and influences led the Chishtiyya to build conceptual bridges, even in South Asia, for example, by incorporating Hindu practices, terms, and spiritual motifs. Therefore the Chishti tariqa was the most distinctively South Asian Sufi Order and the most porous to cultural and religious diversity, and this continues to be the case in the West. The extent to which the performative elements of Chishti practice such as sama (Qawwali) can persist in the West is subject to factors such as the number of South Asian 71 Individual cases of African Americans influenced by Sufi motifs in the 1940s and 50s are being traced Patrick Bowen, forthcoming. 72 Arthur F. Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet : the Indian Naqshbandiyya and the Rise of the Mediating Sufi Shaykh (Columbia : University of South Carolina Press, 1998).  27 immigrants in a locality and the availability of specialists/performers. At the same time, among South Asian immigrants to North America other group performances such as recitation of the Qasida Burda may take on revitalized forms and broader practice in the diaspora, but these broader forms are primarily devotional rather than explicitly Sufi. In response to some of my inquiries about South Asian Sufi influences in America, one respondent answered that “there is no difference between the Barelvi practice of Sufism and Arabic practices of Sufism”. This discloses both a perception about and possibly an aspiration to an ideal authentic Sufism that is trans-cultural.