Murshid Hidayat remembers a moving moment from his childhood. The previous post is here.

The Initiation of Pirani Ameena Begum

One day our Father called our Mother, asking her to come to the Oriental Room, together with us four children. At that special occasion our Father gave our Mother the blessing saying; “As of this day you are the Pirani.” And he added: “Without your unceasing help, day and night, it never would have been possible to have brought the Sufi Message to the Western world.”

Then, while holding our Mother’s hand, our Father said to us children, with so much tenderness in his loving voice, “Children, do congratulate your Amma (Mother) on this very special occasion. I want you, as well as the future generations, to know that your Amma is the first and the only Pirani of your Abba’s Sufi Message of Love, Harmony and Beauty. You are never to forget that as long as you live, and it is your most sacred duty to make sure that this historical ceremony to which you have assisted shall never ever be forgotten.”

After we had all hugged our Father and Mother, with our hearts beating with happiness, our Father wrote down on paper the word Pirani, and explained to us that it is the feminine equivalent of the Pir-o-Murshid, only to be used by the Begum of the Bringer of the Message.

(This document is in the collection of the Sufi Museum in Den Haag.)