The following brief anecdotes of Hazrat Inayat Khan visiting New York communicate something of his subtle atmosphere and interactions in daily life; they come to us from Kismet Stam, one of his secretaries who was accompanying him during the journey.

When in the first act of Ansky’s play, “The Dybbuk,”* the young student of the Kabbala has died, the sage who appears on the scene utters the words: “He saw beyond.”

Murshid said: “These are the most beautiful words of the whole play.”

***

After the interviews during the afternoons in New York Murshid used to take a ride in ‘Buraq,’** as Murshid had baptised the motor-car of one of the mureeds. One day that mureed showed Murshid a church on Fifth Avenue, saying, “This is the church where the fashionable people go.”

Since then Murshid always recognised this distinction by asking her on seeing a church-building, “Is it a fashionable church?”

***

On one of the last days in New York, Murshid visited Khalil Gibran, the famous author of ‘The Prophet.’ He seemed to be so absorbed in the world within his mind that he was not quite aware of what was going on around him. He asked, “What has brought you to the Wester world, sir?”

Murshid said, “A little service.”

Adapted from “Rays” by Kismet Dorothea Stam

*”The Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds” was a play written between 1913-1916 by S. Ansky, that tells of the possession of a young woman by the spirit of her dead beloved. ‘Kabbala’ is an esoteric method and school of thought of Judaism.

**’Buraq’ was the name of the animal on which the prophet Mohammed rode when he journeyed to heaven.