Ayeda Husain is a senior teacher and guide in the Inayatiyya, a global organization dedicated to Universal Sufism as taught by Hazrat Inayat Khan, the mystic and musician from Baroda who brought Sufism to the West in the early 1900’s.
A long-time journalist specializing in Sufism with a double masters in Journalism and Near Eastern Studies from NYU, she now teaches Sufi meditation, chanting and philosophy with a special emphasis on Rumi’s poetry as a means of healing and evolving. She has run Sufi centers in her hometown of Lahore, Pakistan, in Dubai, where she once lived, and in Oakville, Ontario where she now lives and works. She has led spiritual retreats worldwide, taught Sufi meditation to Buddhist monks in Tokyo, and been invited to the UN as part of an international delegation of spiritual leaders.
“As I meditated on each card, recreating it in a Sufi context, I was led through a wondrous process of healing and release in my own life. I hope these cards are as comforting and transformational for others as they were for me during this process.”
Ayeda’s Sufi journey started in 1988 when she was initiated into the Chishti school of Sufism. After the death of her teacher, she had a dream that guided her to a Sufi retreat in 2004 where she would meet her current teacher. She has since been a devoted follower of the Inayatiyya where she now serves as a Shaykha, Cheraga, Guide, Representative and Facilitator of the Anjuman-i-Islam group.
In this school, she has been able to weave her strong interests in transpersonal psychology, alchemy, whirling and healing through sound, images and colors with Sufism as well as undertake a deep study of these disciplines within the tradition.
Of all the mysticisms in the East, she was drawn to Sufism because of its emphasis on non-renunciation: balancing the inner and the outer, being in the world but not of the world. She believes that the fact that matter is not viewed as being dark and dismal in Sufism but as a means of connecting with the Divine fosters love, in its followers, for all of Creation.
In her free time, she composes, sings and records Sufi meditational music.
