Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927), a Sufi mystic and teacher of the early 20th century, also attempted the first systematic Sufi psychology. Born in India to a musically gifted Muslim family, Inayat Khan was also largely responsible for popularizing Sufi thinking in the West. Khan was more of a William James “psychologist.” His theory of human psychology was drawn from his observations of human nature and his religious training.
Sayings of Hazrat Inayat Khan
A sampling of Khan’s aphorisms give a flavor of his philosophy:
Beauty is hidden in every soul, however wicked.
There is nothing in this world which does not speak.
The more one regards the feelings of others, the more harmony one can create.
The sign of the enlightened soul is readiness to understand.
Tolerance is the sign of an evolved soul.
The one who judges himself learns justice.
No sooner has the heart become living than the law of justice manifests.
The same bridge which connects two souls in the world, when stretched becomes the path to God.
It is not true that Adam was put out of the Garden of Eden. He only turned his back upon it.
(Khan, 1979, 228, 230, 231, 233, 237, 239, 244, 250)
Striving for a Universal Message
One often sees the Khan’s writings under the name Hazrat Inayat Khan. But “hazrat” is an honorific meaning “the honorable.” As a teenager he developed his considerable talents as a musician as well as studying under various Sufi teacher. Khan traveled to the United States in 1910, only 28 years old. In the years that followed, Khan would also live in England and France. He married Ora Rae Baker, a relative of Christian Science founder Mary Eddy Baker.
While primarily inspired by Muslim Sufi traditions, Khan hoped to develop a universal system that would find consistencies with all religious traditions. Khan believed that “When we are fact to face with truth, the point of view of Krishna, Buddha, Christ, or any other Prophet, is the same.”
A lack of focus on specific religious ideologies gave a good deal of Khan’s resulting system a pragmatic, psychological, profoundly human tone. In this it has a good deal in common with meditative Buddhism.
Hazrat Inayat Khan’s Psychology
Khan delivered the majority of his lectures while he lived in the United States and Europe in the 1920s. His specifically psychological system took shape in the final few years of his life, in lectures delivered in 1925 and 1926. There is a good deal of his thinking that was consistent with William James and later humanistic psychologists.
For example, Khan wrote: “What is to be revived in the present generation is the capacity of feeling. Only thinking is developed today and not feeling, but thinking is not enough. After thinking comes feeling, after feeling comes seeing, and it is this seeing which is meant by the word seer.” (Khan, 1979, p. 74)
Far from being an obstacle to be overcome, feelings are seen as one of the most important through-ways to insight.
Khan argued that we all are influenced by suggestions, either positive or negative. He explained that suggestions could be experienced through thoughts, colors, voices, movement, etc. Suggestions could be made to our self, to others, to animals and even to objects. As such, Khan believed, our thinking influenced our experience of the world. “The mind takes a certain attitude, and then the whole world comes under the shadow of this attitude.” (Khan, 1979, p. 123)
Nature, Character and Personality
“Nature is born,” Khan declared, “character is built, and personality is developed.” (Khan, 1979, p. 134)
There is no point in denying nature, he argued, as it cannot be changed. A timid person will not become bold. But character could be built by habit. Personality, in Khan’s view, was the harmony of nature and character. These beliefs had clear implications for how one should guide another person to emotionally evolve:
“How do Sufis help their pupils to develop their personality? Was it by telling them that this is right and that is wrong; or this is good and that is bad; or you must do this or you must do that? No, it was by establishing that current of sympathy through which the spirit of the teacher is reflected in the pupil…” (Khan, 1979, p. 140)
In all of this, there is much that would parallel the concepts of Carl Rogers and his Person-Centered Psychotherapy of the 1950s and beyond. Muslim scholars couldn’t fail but notice the incursions of Western style psychological models and concepts, all while retaining distinctly Sufi elements.
One reason that the considerable contributions to psychology from insightful thinkers in Asia are that before the 1970s or so, these figures were not typically psychologists by training. For another figure like Hazrat Inayat Khan, you might be interested in reading about a brilliant educator in India named Rabindranath Tagore.
Selected References for Hazrat Inayat Khan
Khan, Inayat (1997). The Inner Life. Boston: Shambhala Publications.
Khan, Inayat (1979). The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan: Philosophy, Psychology and Mysticism. Geneva: International Headquarters of the Sufi Movement.
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