Dr Javad Nurbakhsh:THE MASTER of a branch of the Nimatullahi order of Sufism in Iran, Dr Javad Nurbakhsh, who has died aged 80, not only furthered the cause of his religion, but was also one of the country's leading psychiatrists.
When the upheavals of the Iranian revolution in 1979 caused him and many others to emigrate, he continued to organise Sufism abroad.
Sufism is the mystical tradition within Islam whose followers - Sufis, or dervishes - espouse a religion of love based on poetry, music, and utilising various esoteric contemplative practices, the most important being a prayer called a dhikr, practised privately.
Sufis consider service to society and others to be the supreme form of worship, so ethics are very important. The centre for worship is the khanaqah, a private place where Sufis gather for weekly meetings for meditation, chanting of poetry and prayer.
There are at least 15 main Sufi orders in Islam and the Nimatullahi is the largest Sufi order in Iran. The Munawwar Ali Shahi branch, of which Nurbakhsh was master, has more than 10,000 members in Iran and 3,600 in the West.
Nimatullahi Sufis have suffered harassment in Iran over the past 30 years.Nurbakhsh was born in the city of Kerman, southeastern Iran. The son of a successful merchant, he studied medicine at Tehran University and, as a student, undertook spiritual training with the master of his branch. When that master died in 1953, Nurbakhsh, then aged 26, and working as director of a medical clinic in Bam, succeeded him.
Nurbakhsh built 60 khanaqahs in the main cities during the Shah's rule before the Islamic fundamentalist revolution of 1978 that saw the return of Ayatollah Khomeini.These khanaqahs featured libraries with manuscripts and museums of calligraphy, but a large number of them were later expropriated or bulldozed by fundamentalist mobs.
From the 1950s to the 1970s, he worked as the head of the psychiatry department at Tehran University, and was director of the Ruzbih mental hospital in Tehran.
As the ayatollahs clamped down on freedom of religion and expression, it proved too dangerous for him to remain in Iran. In 1979, he fled to the US, where he set up several khanaqahs across the country, and four years later, moved to Britain. Between 1974 and 2008, some 35 Nimatullahi khanaqahs were established outside Iran - in western Europe, Russia, Canada, Mexico, the US, Australia and five west African countries. These centres cater to expatriate Iranians and western Sufi devotees.
In the US, the order published many books by Nurbakhsh on the Sufi view of women, Jesus, spiritual poverty, psychology, the "great Satan" of Islam known as Elbis and even dogs. These were translated into various languages, and his output includes some of the most significant contributions to Islamic Sufi studies in the West.
Disciples held him in fear and awe, yet love was the foundation of his ethics. The expansive joyous rapture (which Sufis call inbisat) was the hallmark of his character. He would resolve a conflict by telling a proverbial joke, followed by peels of boisterous laughter.
In 1993, Nurbakhsh retired from his khanaqah in Notting Hill Gate, London, to a Sufi retreat in Banbury, Oxfordshire, where he composed biographical studies of great Sufi masters. An inveterate smoker, he suffered a heart attack in September 2007, and his health went into decline. He is survived by his wife Parvaneh, three sons and two daughters.
Javad Nurbakhsh: born December 10th, 1927; died October 10th, 2008