In this order, the Sufi lineage of Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927), the first Sufi master to bring Sufism into the West, has been joined to the Hasidic lineage of Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, the Ba'al Shem Tov (1698-1760), founder of the influential 18th Century Hasidic movement. But because it is not the first time that these two mystical paths associated with Islam and Judaism have been brought tog
ether, we endeavor to connect to and renew the spirit of the original Egyptian Sufi-Hasidism practiced by Rabbi Avraham Maimuni of Fustat (1186-1237), our forerunner, who successfully combined these paths as far back as the 13th Century. For this reason, we are called the Inayati-Maimuniyya, honoring both Hazrat Inayat Khan's vision of Sufism as a universal approach to spirituality and Avraham Maimuni's radical innovation which made a peaceful marriage between Jewish Hasidism and Islamic Sufism in a time of open conflict between the Abrahamic traditions. Founded in 2004 by Pir Zalman Suleyman Schachter-Shalomi, z”l, and his khalif, Pir Netanel Mu’in ad-Din Miles-Yépez, the community is currently led by the latter and based in Boulder, Colorado.
