Name Kabir Helminski | Role Author | |
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Books Living Presence: A Sufi Wa, The Knowing Heart, The Pocket Rumi Reader, The Beliefnet Guide to I, The Book of Language Similar People Rumi, Rahmi Oruc Guvenc, Muhammad Asad, Charles le Gai Eaton |
Kabir Helminski on the Refugee Crisis
Kabir Helminski is the Co-Director of the Threshold Society, a non-profit educational foundation that has developed programs that provide a structure for practice and study within Sufism and spiritual psychology. He has translated many volumes of Sufi literature, including many works of Rumi, and is the author of two books on Sufism: Living Presence and The Knowing Heart. His most recent book is Love's Ripening, Rumi and the Journey of the Heart.
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Kabir began the study of Sufism with Suleyman Loras Dede of Konya and was officially recognized as a Shaikh of the Mevlevi Order of Sufism in 1990, by the late Celalettin Celebi, Head of the Mevlevi Order. From 1980 until 1999 he was the director of Threshold Books, one of the foremost publishers of Sufi literature.
For more than thirty years, Mr. Helminski's focus has been developing and sharing a contemporary approach to Islamic concepts and practice, both within the Islamic community and outside of it. In 2001 he was the first Muslim to deliver the prestigious Harold M. Wit Lectures on Spirituality in Contemporary Life at Harvard Divinity School. Helminski lives with his family near Santa Cruz, California, and now focuses on Sufi music, writing and teaching
Kabir was the music director for the award-winning, PBS-broadcast documentary Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet (2002), produced by Unity Productions Foundation. In 2009 Kabir was named as one of the 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center in association with Georgetown University.