The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan Vol. 6 Centennial Edition

Teachings on the question of happiness from Inayat Khan’s later years

“In this sixth volume of the Centennial Edition of the Sufi Message series, Hazrat Inayat Khan approaches the question of happiness from various angles. Sometimes the context is a discussion of desire, other times an analysis of ethics. What links these investigations is that, in every case, Hazrat identifies happiness with the soul. ‘Happiness is your own being, your own self, that self that is the most precious thing in life.’ From this perspective, happiness is something to be discovered rather than acquired.”

—From the introduction by Pir Zia Inayat Khan

Hazrat Inayat Kahn, founder of the Sufi order in the West, was born in India in 1882. A master of classical Indian music by the age of twenty, he relinquished a brilliant career to devote himself to the spiritual path. In 1920, acting upon the guidance of his teacher, he became one of the first teachers of the Sufi tradition in the West. For a decade and a half he travelled throughout Europe and the US giving lectures and guiding an ever-growing group of seekers. In 1926, he returned to India where he died the following year.

Pir Zia Inayat Khan, PhD, is a scholar of religion and teacher of Sufism in the universalist Sufi lineage of his grandfather, Hazrat Inayat Khan. Pir Zia is president of the Inayatiyya and founder of Sulūk Academy, a school of Sufi contemplative study and practice with offerings in North America and Europe, as well as online. He is editor of A Pearl in Wine: Essays in the Life, Music and Sufism of Hazrat Inayat Khan and Caravan of Souls: An Introduction to the Sufi Path of Hazrat Inayat Khan, and author of Saracen Chivalry: Counsels on Valor, Generosity and the Mystical Quest; Mingled Waters: Sufism and the Mystical Unity of Religions; and Dream Flowers: The Collected Works of Noor Inayat Khan with a Critical Commentary by Pir Zia Inayat Khan. Pir Zia divides his time between Richmond, Virginia and Suresnes, France.