On Khaneqah of the Sufis

According to Bastani Parizi, the book revolves around a few quotations decorating the façade
of the khaneqah of Sheikh Hassan Kharaqani, the famous Sufi leader: “Whoever comes to
this house, feed him and do not question him about his faith. For whoever is given life by
God, deserves to eat from the table of Abul Hasan.” The quotation has much to teach: ‘feed
him and ask not about his faith,’ in a time of fierce sectarian internecine wars and violence
which allowed Sunnis to slaughter an unfortunate Shi’ite only few feet from the temple of
this great Sufi master. The temple, or simply four walls erected in the middle of the vast
expanse of desert, received all sorts of people, coming to pilgrimage and crossed the
wastelands of the surrounding desert. But Bastani does not seeks to provide a history of the
temple; rather, the social mission and the vision of such spiritual centres such as the
khaneqah and of their masters who had been pillars and axes around whom followers and
disciples circumambulated, to assert their lasting effect in history of celebrating humanity.
Bastani Parizi uses the metaphor of a large clock, hours being a temple of Sufis in the desert.
In different times, the clock stops in one of many temples. The first hour ticks from Bastam
(modern Shahroud). Along with the clock ticking, Bastani Parizi gives an account of the fate
of the temples of Sufis during different dynasties. Bastani’s work is a comprehensive list of
great Sufis and their khaneqahs in the edge of the central desert of Iran: Bayazid Bastami,
Abu Saeid Abu al-Kheir, Abu al-Hassan Kharaqani down to Shah Nematollah Vali from the
Sufi order Nematollahi and the most recent successor to these masters, Sultan Alishah
Nematollahi. Bastani’s beginning is his end, which is a circular motion from khaneqah to
khaneqah and completes a spiritual journey from where the murid once began. The book on
Sufism addresses important topics of the place and contribution of Sufism and its spiritual
teachings in the modern times of electronic and digital age; with tracing the great masters of
Sufi in the history of Iran, he comes to this conclusion that mysticism and spiritual values are
the most valued remedy for modern man seeking happiness out of his life of a machine.