Bawa Muhaiyaddeen - Legacy

Legacy

In May, 1984, the Mosque of Shaikh M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen was completed on the grounds of the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship, 5820 Overbrook Avenue, Philadelphia. The building of the mosque took 6 months and nearly all the work was done by the members of the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship under the direction of Bawa Muhaiyaddeen.

The Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship Farm is 100 acres (0.40 km2) of farmland located in Chester County, Pennsylvania just south of the small city of Coatesville at 99 Fellowship Drive. The center point of the farm is Bawa Muhaiyaddeen's mausoleum or mazar. It was begun shortly after his death and completed in 1987. It is a place of pilgrimage for Sufis and their Sheikhs, as well as Muslims and followers of other religions.

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen established vegetarianism as the norm for the community and meat products are not permitted at the Fellowship center in Philadelphia or at the Fellowship Farm.

He was an artist and created paintings and drawings that symbolized the relationship between man and God. He described his art work as "heart's work." Two examples are reproduced in his book titled Wisdom of Man and another is the front cover of the book Four Steps to Pure Iman. In 1976, Bawa Muhaiyadeen recorded and released an album of meditation, on Folkways Records entitled, Into the Secret of the Heart by Guru Bawa Muhaiyaddeen.

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen authored over twenty-five books. These books were created from over 10,000 hours of transcriptions of audio and video recordings of his discourses and songs in the United States from 1971 to 1986. Some titles originated from Sri Lanka before his arrival in the U.S. and were transcribed later. The Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship continues to study and disseminate this repository of his teachings. It has not appointed a new leader or Sheikh to replace his role as teacher and personal guide.

In "Blue-Eyed Devil", Michael Muhammad Knight attempts to receive a message from Bawa Muhaiyaddeen in a dream, in a Sufi practice called istikhara. He travels to the mazar and attempts to sleep on the cushions, but is woken up by the groundskeeper and his attempt at istikhara is unsuccessful.