Contemporary Sufi Literature

Karin Jironet is a theologian and psychologist. She works at De Baak in the Netherlands in the field of leadership development. She is an executive coach and the author of The Image of Spiritual Liberty and The Quest for Unity.

Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan (1916–2004) was the eldest son of Murshid Inayat Khan. From the 1950s onward he organized retreats for mureeds of the Sufi Movement, and in 1968 he founded his own organization, The Sufi Movement International.

Pir Zia Inayat Khan (1971) is the eldest son of Pir Vilayat Inayat-Khan. He is the current leader of the Inayatiyya Order, a spiritual guide, and the publisher of many books on Sufism.

Elias Amidon is the spiritual director (Pir) of the Sufi Way. He has been an initiate of Sufism since 1970 and later joined the Sufi Way, the organization founded by Fazal Inayat-Khan in 1985. He was appointed as the Pir of the order in 2004 by the previous Pir, Sitara Brutnell.

Theo van Hoorn (1887–1957) was a mureed from the 1920s onward. He wrote his memoirs during the war, but the manuscript was not published until 1982. In 2011 the book was translated into English and extensively annotated by Hein Horn.

Johannes Witteveen (Sufi name Karimbakhsh, 1921-2019) was a Dutch economist and politician. Witteveen served as Minister of Finance in two Dutch cabinets. From 1973 to 1978, he was Chairman of the IMF. For decades, he was a leader of the national and international Sufi Movement. His autobiography, The Magic of Harmony, was published in Dutch in 2012.

Mark Sedgwick was born in London, and grew up in England, Spain, and France. His interest in history and the world beyond the West was first awakened by his grandfather, who celebrated his 21st birthday in Egypt during the 1919 Revolution, saw some of the Turkish War of Independence, and then moved on to Imperial India. Mark studied history at Oxford University, did a PhD on Sufism at the University of Bergen in Norway, and taught for 20 years at the American University in Cairo. He now teaches at Aarhus University in Denmark, where he is professor of Arab and Islamic Studies.

Mansur Johnson (born Otis Bigelow Johnson 1941) was born in Bloomington, Illinois, and lived on both coasts. He is a member of the Sufi Ruhaniat International.

Hidayat Inayat-Khan (1917-2016), the third child of Hazrat Inayat Khan and Ora Ray Baker-Bernard, is a well-known musician. Following his family musical tradition, of which his great-grandfather Maula Bakhsh and his father Inayat Khan were the highlights, he was violinist in different orchestras and string quartets, and also conductor and composer. He is the creator of the Message Symphony, the Gandhi Symphony, and many other works like the Suite Symphonique. At an age when people normally retire from work, Hidayat Inayat-Khan accepted the leadership of the Sufi Movement as its Representative General and Pir-o-Murshid.

From 1997 onward, Wali van der Zwan has written more than sixty books and translated many others into Dutch and German. His work focuses on Sufism and spirituality in general, with a particular interest in Rumi, storytelling, and Sufi poetry.

Wali Ali Meyer (1942–2022) became a pupil of Murshid S.A.M. Lewis in 1968. In 1970 Murshid Sam initiated him as a Sheikh on the Sufi path. After Murshid Sam's passing in January 1971, Wali Ali continued working on Murshid's world projects, offering classes in Sufism, Dharma, Dances and Walks training, and initiating and training students in Sufism. He also edited a number of Murshid Samuel Lewis' manuscripts for publication.