Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
(?-1986), spiritual teacher.

His Holiness Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, a venerated spiritual teacher in Sri Lanka from the 1940s to his death in 1986, brought his teachings to the United States in 1971 and became a major figure in the development of Sufism in the West.

Sufism is the mystical dimension of Islam, whose expositors, such as Hasan al Basri (d. 728), Rabia al-Adawiya (d. 801), al-Hallaj (d. 922), Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (d. 1166), Ibn Arabi (d. 1240), and Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273), sought to inculcate deepened devotion, an understanding of the forces of illusion and forgetfulness that cause separation from God, and a means of acquiring the "qualities of God"—his love, justice, compassion, patience, and wisdom. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen was a contemporary teacher (shaykh) of these traditional Sufi themes. In his early career his audiences in Sri Lanka were local Hindus and Muslims. Bawa's disciples in the United States also came from a variety of religious and ethnic backgrounds. His earliest American members tended to define themselves as "sixties spiritual seekers," inspired by Bawa Muhaiyaddeen's charismatic, loving character; his abilities in teaching "wisdom" through such vehicles as stories (from Indian Puranas to the Islamic "Tales of the Prophets"), songs, metaphysical discourses, artwork, cooking, and farming (the latter two terms were used in both their literal and their metaphorical senses); and his view of Islam as an essential state of unity without divisions of race, class, or religion. Bawa instructed his Fellowship to buy land in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, to be used for farming; for burial of members; for family gatherings; and for his mazar (burial site), which is now a pilgrimage site for Muslims and other spiritual seekers from around the world. Bawa's universal message of peace and unity was not seen by most of his early American followers as being directly related to "Islamic" religious teachings; Bawa was often referred to as "Guru" Bawa, a term with Hindu associations. Bawa made a clearer connection with Islamic religion when he had the membership build a mosque (1982–1983); although persons of any religion were welcome to visit and pray in the mosque, he instructed that the five-times prayer and Friday congregational prayers were to be practiced in traditional Sunni Muslim form. The Fellowship increased its international and African-American Muslim membership with the building of the mosque; however, the Fellowship has an openness to the variety of ways in which members define their relationship to traditional Islam. Bawa instituted such Islamic religious and cultural practices as the Ramadan fast, the Id celebration, maulids (celebrations) in honor of the Prophet Muhammad, and maulids in honor of "the qutb," a term used in Sufism denoting the spiritual "pole" or axis of an era. In the "Maulid al-Qutb," Bawa's followers honor previous qutbs, primarily Abd al-Qadir Jilani, a twelfth-century medieval Sufi shaykh, as well as Bawa Muhaiyaddeen himself, who is revered as shaykh and qutb.

The Fellowship has about one thousand members, with branches in locations other than Coatesville; a vast library of audio- and videotapes of Bawa's discourses (still used at Fellowship meetings); a press that distributes his books internationally; and an out-reach program that includes prisons.

See alsoGuru; Islam; Mysticism; Pilgrimage; Sufism.

Bibliography

Muhaiyaddeen, M. R. Bawa. GoldenWordsofaSufiSheik. 1982.

Muhaiyaddeen, M. R. Bawa. Islam and World Peace: Explanations of a Sufi. 1987.

Webb, Gisela. "Tradition and Innovation in Contemporary American Islamic Spirituality: The Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship." In Muslim Communitiesin North America, edited by Yvonne Haddad and Jane Smith. 1994.

Gisela Webb