Javad Nurbakhsh
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Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh is the present master of the Nimatullahi Sufi Order.
[edit] Biography
Dr. Nurbakhsh was born in Kerman, Iran. He attended medical school at the University of Tehran and received his medical doctor diploma in 1952. In 1962, he was invited to undertake post-graduate studies at the Sorbonne in Paris. He then returned to Tehran where he completed his studies in psychiatry and later became professor and Head of the Department of Psychiatry at the Tehran University until his retirement in 1977.
Dr. Nurbakhsh was initiated into the Nimatullahi Sufi Path at age 16. At age 20 he was appointed by his master, Munis 'Ali Shah, to the position of Shaikh (spiritual director), and after the death of Munis became Master of the Nimatullahi Order. He was then 26 years old.
- "Through Love, I have reached a place
- where no trace of Love remains,
- where "I" and "we" and the painting of existence
- have all been forgotten and left behind."
- Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh
For more than 50 years, Dr. Nurbakhsh has established over one hundred khanqahs and numerous libraries and museums throughout Iran.
In the 1970's a number of Americans and Europeans came to Iran and were initiated into the Nimatullahi Order. On their return to their respective countries they needed a place to congregate. Accordingly, the first khaniqah outside Iran was founded in San Francisco in 1975. Since that time more khaniqahs in the United States, Western Europe, Africa and Australia have been established.
