chapter one overview, research aims and design

267 Pages·2008·3.07 MB·English

by  Celia Genn

CHAPTER ONE
OVERVIEW, RESEARCH AIMS AND DESIGN

The key themes explored in this research project arose out of an incident that took
place about thirteen years ago at a Sufi Movement gathering in Sydney. Most
participants were initiates, i.e. people who have committed themselves to live as
mureeds (disciples) under the guidance of a pir, murshid, or shaikh (guides or teachers)
of the order. A few were ‘Brotherhood/ Sisterhood’ members, i.e. persons who may
attend some activities before or instead of making a fuller commitment. While the
leader, Murshid Sharif Jansen, was in hospital, the group was continuing to meet for
music and spiritual practices.

On this occasion, a long-time mureed and pianist asked to share her inspiration in
putting the healing prayer1 to music and writing a new first line that did not attribute
gender to the divine. She had replaced the words “Beloved Lord, Almighty God,” as
given by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan, the founder of the Sufi Movement, with “O Thou
the Healing Spirit of All.” The group began to sing it several times, as a preparation for
the healing circle, next on the agenda. A male mureed, and likely successor to Sharif
Jansen, interrupted the singing. He said that Inayat Khan had asked that his words not
be changed, and that doing so was disrespectful both to him and to Sharif Jansen, who
supported this position. As a mureed, he felt obliged to stop it.

The atmosphere that had built up over several hours of chanting and practices
shattered; a silence and then discussion followed. Strong feelings, explanations, partial
apologies and different perspectives, mingled in disarray. While some harmony within
the group was restored by recognition of the sincerity, (however misguided and/or

1
Inayat Khan, The Complete Sayings of Hazrat Inayat Khan (New Lebanon: Sufi Order Publications,
1978), 58. The full text of this prayer, known as Nayaz, is: “Beloved Lord, Almighty God! Through the
rays of the sun, Through the waves of the air, Through the All-pervading Life in space, Purify and
revivify me, and, I pray, Heal my body heart and soul.” It is used in the Healing service and as an
individual practice.
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ineptly handled), of all concerned, resolution of the issues involved is an ongoing
process.

On reflection, the conflict went beyond the peculiarities of the personalities or the
specifics of this particular dispute. It was a moment in the social and religious
development of the Sufi Movement in Australia that highlighted several key themes
and questions that are addressed in this study. How is Sufism, an Islamic tradition
originating in the Middle East and Central Asia, adapting and developing in a new
culture and time? How is change resisted or legitimated? Can the tradition harmonise
with the feminist and democratic perspectives of a Western environment, and maintain
integrity? To what extent is adaptation the result of conscious decisions, including
concerns to avoid some of the negative experiences of other groups of Eastern-origin,
or to make Sufism more accessible to Westerners? For example, other changes, such as
including non-initiates in wazifa and zikar, (practices involving remembrance/
repetition of the names of God), had been accepted almost without question. The thesis
documents Sufi traditions imported to the West by Hazrat Inayat Khan and changes in
those traditions, and sheds light on the processes of change. The incident described
draws particular attention to a focal issue in this thesis: Western interpretations and
practice of the master-disciple relationship, as one of the many dimensions of the
tradition involved in a process of adaptation and development.
2
Research Aims and Framework

The Sufi Movement studied in this thesis was first introduced to the West (United
States and Europe) in 1910 by Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927), a Pir-o-Murshid of the
Chishtiyya Sufi order in India. The Sufi Movement was first introduced into Australia
in 1927 by Baron von Frankenberg (Shaikh Momin), and from 1951 was developed by
Murshid Sharif Jansen (1908-1990). Particularly since the 1970s, it has attracted a
growing following, mostly among people of ‘Western’ background.

The study arose from my interest generally in the processes of cultural translation and
social adaptation of Eastern-origin religious traditions in Western society and my
particular interest in how the development of the Sufi Movement in the West and
Australia, and the murshid-mureed relationship within it, could be understood. The
primary aim of this thesis is to explore and analyse the origins, nature and development
of the Sufi Movement in Australia, with particular attention to the relationship between
the murshid (master, spiritual teacher, guide) and the mureed (disciple, student). Within
this primary aim, the study has a number of secondary aims: to contribute to
understanding the adaptation of Sufism in the West, to contribute to an understanding
of the practice of Sufism in Australia, to provide information about Inayat Khan’s Sufi
Movement, and to contribute to current debates about the master-disciple relationship.

Three major areas of literature are examined: literature related to the process of change
or adaptation in religious traditions, literature about Sufism in the West, and literature
related to the master-disciple relationship. The literature review has revealed a virtual
lack of any literature concerning Western Sufism in Australia, and it is hoped that this
thesis, along with material found during its preparation, will make a useful contribution
to the development of such a literature.

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Theoretical Framework

Dynamic of Religions

The study adopts the theoretical framework that Gerardus van der Leeuw2 in 1938
termed the “dynamic of religions,” to indicate his concern with the process of change
or growth within a tradition, as well as its “static character.” It is a research area of
increasing interest to scholars today.3 This theoretical framework, as refined by
Michael Pye4 and Martin Baumann,5 is specifically relevant to exploring the
development of a religious tradition in a new socio-cultural context. In addition to Pye
and Baumann’s work, the study draws on a variety of other approaches to change
within religious traditions to add depth and breadth to the framework.

The Sufi Movement has undergone, and continues to undergo in many Western
countries, including Australia, a process of transplantation. Pye explains that
transplantation involves “a complex relationship between tradition and interpretation
… an interplay between what is taken to be the content of the religion and the key
factors in the situation which it is entering.”6 This interplay may include conscious and
unconscious activity, and key factors in the new situation may or may not be religious.
Pye identifies three principal aspects of transplantation that he calls contact, ambiguity

2
Gerardus van der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifestation, First published in 1938 ed.
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986).
3
For example see Peter Slater and Donald Wiebe, eds., Traditions in Contact and Change: Selected
Proceedings of the XIVth Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions
(Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1983), Victor C Hayes, ed., Identity Issues and
World Religions: Selected Proceedings of the Fifteenth Congress of the International Association for the
History of Religions (Bedford Park, S. Aust.: Australian Association for the Study of Religions, 1986),
Michael A Williams, Collett Cox, and Martin S Jaffe, eds., Innovation in Religious Traditions: Essays in
the Interpretation of Religious Change (New York: Mouton De Gruyter, 1992).
4
E M Pye, "The Transplantation of Religions," Numen 16 (1969): 234-239.
5
Martin Baumann, "The Transplantation of Buddhism to Germany: Processive Modes and Strategies of
Adaptation," Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 6, no. 1 (1994): 35-61.
6
Pye, "The Transplantation of Religions," 236.
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and recoupment.7 It is important to note that transplantation takes place both in space
(geographically) and in time, in the sense of changing cultural circumstances. Over the
nearly 100 years since Western Sufism began, changes in both contexts need to be
considered.

Baumann, in a social/ historical study of Buddhism in Germany, expands on the
aspects of transplantation identified by Pye. In doing so he provides the most
comprehensive model available for the adaptation of a religious tradition in a new
sociocultural context. Baumann’s model has three main elements: factors causing
change, stages or modes of change, and strategies of change.8 Baumann identifies two
major factors causing change: the willingness of the tradition to change, and the
disposition of the host culture. He identifies five stages or modes of transplantation:
contact, confrontation and conflict, ambiguity and adaptation, re-orientation or
recoupment, and finally, the rise of innovative developments. These are not necessarily
sequential and all may not be present in a particular case. The strategies of adaptation
that he identifies may be utilised within each of these modes. These strategies are
translation, reduction, reinterpretation, toleration, assimilation, absorption and
acculturation.

In an alternative reading of Baumann’s material, Eva Neumaier-Dargyay9 challenges
aspects of the metaphor of ‘transplantation’ and Baumann’s interpretation of events.
She questions whether the forms of Buddhism that arrived in Germany were identical
to those in their original countries, and suggests that “the mere resolve to take the
tradition outside of its own ethnic and cultural precinct is already a phase of

7
Ibid.: 237.
8
The model is primarily outlined in Baumann, "The Transplantation of Buddhism to Germany:
Processive Modes and Strategies of Adaptation," 35-61. Additional information is provided in Martin
Baumann, "Culture Contact and Valuation: Early German Buddhists and the Creation of a Buddhism in a
Protestant Shape," Numen 44 (1997): 270-295.
9
Eva K Neumaier-Dargyay, "Is Buddhism Like a Tomato? Thoughts About the Transplantation of
Buddhism to Germany: A Response to Martin Baumann," Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 6,
no. 1 (1994): 185-194.
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transformation.”10 Drawing on the work of Julia Kristeva,11 Neumaier-Dargyay
believes “the adaptation of a foreign religious tradition to another cultural context
brings forth Otherness on both sides,”12 with the religious tradition enacting a
previously unacknowledged ‘foreignness’ within it, and those accepting it actualising a
part of their identity that did not previously have an avenue of expression. In
addressing the complexity and fluidity of the boundaries between the imported tradition
and its new situation, Neumaier-Dargyay complements and adds to Baumann’s
analysis.

Another useful, but less comprehensive model of transplantation has been developed by
Henry Finney. In a study of American Zen, Finney criticises scholars who emphasise
motivations for participation in New Religious Movements, but ignore the structural
and cultural origins of the groups, and the impact these origins may have on subsequent
development. His study demonstrates how an adequate understanding of Eastern
traditions that have become New Religious Movements in the West requires
consideration of the broader historical and cross-cultural context.13 Finney’s ‘culture
diffusion’ model suggests six factors or stages that should be taken into account in the
analysis of such groups. These factors are: the predisposition of the source culture to
export elements of its own culture, the pressure on the institutional agencies actually
involved in exporting the culture pattern, the preparatory culture contacts, the selective
receptivity of American culture, the proclivity of certain people to the new cultural
pattern, and the strategies adopted by the institutions engaged in implanting the new
cultural form.14 Finney’s emphasis on investigating and including the potentials
inherent in the historical and cultural origins of a group is an important extension of
Baumann’s model.

10
Ibid.: 188.
11
Julia Kristeva, Strangers to Ourselves (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991).
12
Neumaier-Dargyay, "Is Buddhism Like a Tomato? Thoughts About the Transplantation of
Buddhism to Germany: A Response to Martin Baumann," 192.
13
Henry C Finney, "American Zen's Japan Connection," Sociological Analysis 52 (1991): 379.
14
Ibid.: 393-395.
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Ursula King examines the development of modern Hinduism within the “dynamic of
religions” framework.15 This non-Western religious tradition, or “multi-dimensional
socio-religious process,” as she suggests it is viewed more accurately, has been
transformed as a result of its contact with the West. Explaining this development
requires a sociological analysis of factors involved in the cross-cultural contact, and
can be usefully approached on the conceptual, doctrinal and institutional/ societal
levels. While other levels could be added or chosen, King’s work, in distinguishing the
dimensions of a tradition involved in particular change processes, adds clarity to the
framework. It assists particularly in this study in considering cross-cultural contact at
the societal level.

Julia Howell and Peter Nelson’s extensive research on the Brahma Kumaris (BKs), a
Hindu-derived group that has spread from India to Australia and other countries,
includes a detailed analysis of organisation-environment interactions. The authors
found that these interactions differ significantly in the Brahma Kumaris’ Indian and
Australian contexts, and have strongly influenced the social, structural and ideational
transformations of the group in the Western World.16 While the BKs retain central
teachings and practices, internationalisation has been enabled by changes in
organisational dynamics and adaptations that make the movement more culturally
acceptable to Australians. While Howell and Nelson’s use of causal analysis and focus
on theories of group survival are not appropriate to this thesis, their delineation of
issues involved in the cross-cultural development of the Brahma Kumaris suggests
perspectives relevant to other Eastern-origin groups like the Sufi Movement in
Australia.

15
Ursula King, "Some Reflections on Sociological Approaches to the Study of Modern Hinduism,"
Numen 36, no. 1 (1989): 74-75.
16
Julia Day Howell and Peter L Nelson, "The Brahma-Kumaris in the Western World, Part I: Structural
Adaptation and 'Success' in Transplantation of an Asian New Religious Movement." Research in the
Social Scientific Study of Religion 8 (1997): 1-34, Julia Day Howell and Peter L Nelson, "The Brahma-
Kumaris in the Western World, Part II: Demographic Change and Secularisation in an Asian New
Religious Movement," Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion 11 (2000): 225-239.
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Insights from the study of New Religious Movements also contribute to the “dynamic
of religions” framework. As Eileen Barker has pointed out, even though New Religious
Movements may be neither ‘new’ nor ‘religious,’ in the narrow sense of the words,
they share certain characteristics.17 To the extent that a movement is new, in a
particular environment, the first generation membership is likely to be younger and
more enthusiastic, as well as less experienced, than the membership of established
religions. With the passage of time, the membership will grow older, and the original
“charismatic leadership” undergo changes. New religious movements are liable to
change more rapidly than more established religions, because they are starting from a
“novel position.”18 These insights add to the framework as the study finds that some of
the post-founder developments in the Sufi Movement are better explained by the
group’s ‘newness’ in the West than by cross-cultural processes.

Of the variety of approaches discussed, Baumann’s model provides the most
comprehensive and useful heuristic tool for exploring and differentiating the factors
and processes involved in the development of the Sufi Movement in the West. The Sufi
Movement studied in this thesis has undergone a process of cultural translation and
social adaptation from its origins in Indian Sufism to America, Europe and Australia. In
the process significant alterations have occurred and it has become what could be
called a Western Sufism as well as a New Religious Movement in the West. The
“dynamic of religions” framework, and specifically Baumann’s model are used to
assess the findings of this study in relation to this theoretical approach. The
appropriateness and ‘fit’ of Baumann’s model of adaptation and change processes
within ‘transplanted’ traditions is also assessed in relation to the study’s findings.
While most aspects of Baumann’s theory are confirmed by the study, the findings also
suggest a need to modify and extend his model by incorporating elements of the other
approaches that have been discussed.

17
Eileen Barker, New Religious Movements: A Practical Introduction (London: HMSO, 1989).
18
Eileen Barker, "New Religious Movements in Europe," in Religion in Europe: Contemporary
Perspectives, ed. Sean Gill, Gavin D'Costa, and Ursula King (Kampen, The Netherlands: Kok Pharos
Publishing House, 1994), 123-125.
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By exploring and analysing the development of the Sufi Movement in Australia, this
study contributes to scholarly knowledge of religious traditions in the Australian
context, as well as contributing to theories concerning change in spiritual traditions, in
cross-cultural circumstances. A special interest in developments or changes in the
understanding, function and practice of the spiritual teacher-student relationship, also
allows a contribution to current debates about the master-disciple relationship.

Context and Literature Review

Sufism in the West

Sufism has historically been one of the main carriers of Islam into non-Arab cultures
and therefore has been associated with cultural translation and social adaptation from
very early on. The encounter with the modern West over the last century has continued
this process, yet we know little about it. Sufism in the West can be found in both
migrant communities (preserving traditions of the homeland) and among Westerners.
While there is some overlap, most Sufi orders in Australia reflect a particular
community or ethnic group. The pressures for change are the most intense in Western
Sufi groups, but little has been written about Sufism as practiced by cultural
Westerners, and very little indeed about Hazrat Inayat Khan’s Sufi Movement.

Only two detailed studies of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s Sufi Movement were located. One of
these explores connections between Sufi teachings and the field of transpersonal
psychology. In this, O’Kane19 includes an analysis of the role of the Sufi teacher and
the dynamics of the teacher-student relationship from a Jungian perspective, and
identifies differences and similarities with the psychotherapy relationship. O’Kane’s
work provides insights into this relationship and the development of the Sufi tradition
in a Western country. While he draws on his own experience as a mureed and spiritual

19
Thomas Atum O'Kane, "Transpersonal Dimensions of Transformations: A Study of the Contributions
Drawn from the Sufi Order Teachings and Trainings to the Emerging Field of Transpersonal
Psychology" (PhD, Union Graduate School, 1987).
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teacher, his study is mostly theoretical and limited to the United States. The other
detailed study is by Jironet,20 within the field of psychology of religion. It briefly
examines the relationship between the spiritual guide and the disciple, as part of the
exploring of how Sufism influences the daily lives of followers. The main contribution
and focus of Jironet’s thesis, however, is to analyse spiritual development from the
perspective of cognitive linguistic theory.

Other published material on the Sufi Movement and Inayati (Chishti) lineage21 in the
West, includes descriptive overviews in North American,22 Australian,23 and New
Zealand24 encyclopaedias and dictionaries of spiritual groups. The journal, Gnosis,
devoted an entire edition to Sufism and includes the Inayati orders in a survey of
Sufism in North America.25 Gisela Webb26 goes a little further, examining the
development of the Inayati lineage in the United States, and notes that Western Sufism
has received little scholarly attention, to date. In a study of Western teachers in Eastern

20
Karin Jironet, "The Image of Spiritual Liberty in the Sufi Movement Following Hazrat Inayat Khan"
(PhD Thesis, University of Amsterdam, 1998).
21
This term incorporates all the branches of the Sufi Movement deriving from the work of Inayat Khan.
Unlike the multiplicity of Sufi orders now in the West, Inayat Khan’s Sufi Movement was the only order
in the West at that time and did not need to be distinguished from others. An early mureed and
commentator, Louis Hoyack, suggested the term ‘Inayatism.’ Louis Hoyack, De Boodschap Van Inayat
Khan (Deventer, Holland: E. Kluwer, 1946). Consistent with traditional practice in naming orders, this is
adapted to Inayati.
22
J. Gordon Melton, Encyclopedia of American Religions, 3rd ed. (Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1989).
Michael A Koszegi and J George Melton, eds., Islam in North America: A Sourcebook (New York &
London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1992).
23
Rowland Ward and Robert Humphreys, Religious Bodies in Australia: A Comprehensive Guide, 3rd
ed. (Melbourne: New Melbourne Press, 1995), 283-286.
24
Peter Donovan, ed., Beliefs and Practices in New Zealand: A Dictionary (Palmerston North:
Dunmore Press, 1985). Also, Robert S Ellwood, Islands of the Dawn: The Story of Alternative
Spirituality in New Zealand (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993).
25
Jay Kinney, "Sufism Comes to America," Gnosis, no. 30 (1994): 18-23.
26
Gisela Webb, "Sufism in America," in America's Alternative Religions, ed. Timothy Miller, Suny
Series in Religious Studies (Albury, New York: State University of New York Press, 1995), 249-258.
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