Nooruddeen Durkee - Biography

Biography

Abdullah Nooruddeen Durkee was born 1938 in Warwick, New York, as Stephen Durkee. He grew up with his grandmother, a devout Catholic and herbalist, at Greenwood Lake, New York. During this time he made periodic trips to war-time NYC where his mother taught school, his father was in hotel business and his grandfather worked as ship chandler and cargo consolidator for the North Atlantic convoys.

In 1944-1952 he was a student at Corpus Christi, a Roman Catholic Grade School in NYC with a broad interfaith exposure, after which he studied at religious and secular high schools in New York.

In 1957-1960 he studied with Robert Lowe, Professor of the Fine and Applied Arts, Teachers’ College, in Columbia University.

In 1960-1966 he worked as an artist and creator of environments in NYC and San Francisco. Paintings in various private collections as well as the Guggenheim and the Museum of Modern Art, NYC. Along with Gerd Stern and Michael Callhan, founded USCO and created first multimedia lightshows. Began lengthy correspondence with Meher Baba. Traveled and exhibited at universities and museums throughout the northeast; large exhibition at the Tibetan Museum in NY City; articles on work appeared in various publications in ArtNews and Life Magazine.

1965-1967 lived in California with Richard Alpert (later known as Ram Dass) and lectured with him throughout the West. Worked for and found land in New Mexico while Alpert went to study in India.

In 1967-1970 he initiated the Lama Foundation in New Mexico which was one of the first centers in North America for Spiritual Realization and Interfaith Studies. During this time he served as Coordinator and Director of Programs and initiated contacts with teachers of many traditions, including Kalu Rinpoche, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi leading to his first contacts with nominal sufism through the writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan, in person Murshid Samuel Lewis and later Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan. Organized, edited and produced Ram Dass' book Be Here Now, an international best-seller.

In 1970-1971 he coordinated the International Work Camps in the Alps conducted by Pir Vilayat Khan in the summers of 70-71. He also began a set of travels in the autumn and spring in the desert regions of North America coupled with excursions to the Subcontinent and Middle-East where he first came into contact with Muslims. Edited Pir Vilayat's book Towards the One.

In 1972 he lived on Jabal Zaytun outside of al-Quds ash-Sharif in Occupied Palestine where he embraced 'Islam at the Madrasah of the Masjid al-'Aqsah. During this period he studied Tasawwuf with Muhammad al-Jamal, Na'ib of the Mufti of al-Quds, Hazim Abu-l-Ghazali of Amman, Jordan, and Abu Mutalib ash-Sharif of al-Khalil all, of whom were shaykhs of the Shadhdhuliyyah Order. He also received benefit from the teaching of Noor-i-Muhammad, a Naqshbandi from Bokharah who lived and taught within the precincts of the old Islamic city of al-Quds ash-Sharif (Jerusalem).

In 1973-1976 he designed and built the Intensive Studies Center (also known as the I.S.C. or Islamic Sufi Center) in the mountains above San Cristobal, New Mexico. This center (which burned to the ground in a forest fire in the 90’s) contained the first mosque in Northern New Mexico and at this center many people came to hear for the first time about Islam from the perspective of Tasawwuf. Many young American people embraced Islam in this setting and went on to stay at the Center where they learned the rudiments of Islam and began to live as Muslims.

During the years 1976-1979 he lived and studied in Makkah al-Mukarramah in the 'Ashrafiyyah area of al-Jiyad and attended the Markaz al-Lugahat-al-Arabiyyah, Kulliyat ash-Shari'ah, what was then Jami'at Malik 'Abdu-l-'Aziz and is now known as Jami'at Ummu-l-Qurra. During this time he developed the idea of a Muslim school and community in United States, and was able to begin raising funds for the project.

1980-1988 on the first day of new Hijri 1400 century he was the sole signatore on incorporation papers for the Dar al-Islam foundation in Abiquiu, New Mexico which he co-founded in 1979. Nooruddeen Durkee served from 1980-1988 as President of Dar al-Islam. During his term of Office the Foundation grew from an idea to a physical reality that, at the time of his leaving office, had assets of US$7 million, was debt-free and in full operation which included a mosque, a school, a number of residences and small businesses. Its purpose was to add as a living, artistic, social and cultural center for Islam in America. It drew visitors from all over the world, and residence, particularly but not exclusively from among Muslim reverts from America. The Foundation is operative and remains debt free with a limited summer teaching program.

During this period he also studied Islamic Architecture with world renowned Islamic architect Dr. Hasan Fathy, who made the original drawings of Dal al-Islam. In 1985 he was awarded the degree of Master of Islamic Architecture by the al-Sabbah Institute of Appropriate Technology in Kuwait.

During 1988-1993 after a conference on Islamic Education in Cambridge, England he moved with his family to Alexandria, Egypt. There he worked with his spiritual teacher, developed a circle of students, deeply involved in the Shadhdhuliyyah, and produced volume one, Orison of Shadhdhuliyyah and collected volume two, Origins of the Shadhdhuliyyah. He also began the first work on the Tajwidi Qur'an.

During this same period he also studied the Shadhdhuliyyah Shari'ah Way for Lovers of Qur'an and Sunnah with Ibrahim Muhammad al-Batawi, who was a Professor of Islamic Philosophy for over 25 years at al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt.

In 1986 Nooruddeen was appointed by Ibrahim al-Batawi as his Khalifah in the Western Hemisphere. He also studied the science of Muraqabah (inner contemplation) with the Mujaddidi Naqshabandi Shaykh, Dr. Seyed 'Ali Ashraf, professor of Islamic Education at King Abdu-l-Aziz University in Jeddah and later Professor of Education at Oxford University in the UK, who granted him an 'Ijaza (certificate to teach) the Muraqqabah. In 1983 he was granted an 'Ijaza in Islamic Calling (da’wa) from Umar Abdullaah, a Ba'Alawi shaykh from the Commoro Islands who served as the Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States in the 80’s and 90’s. In 1999 he was granted an 'Ijaza and given 'Idhn to teach from Muhammad al-Jamal, of the High Council of Sufism in al-Quds ash-Sharif, Occupied Palestine, and in 2004 was granted a Khilafah by Hazrat Quttubuddin Yar Fardi of the Nizamiyya/Chistiyyah in Rahim Yar Khan in Pakistan, after a series of lectures he gave to large gatherings in the spring of that year.

From 1994 till the present: He returned to America and settled in Charlottesville, Virginia, working full-time on the Tajwidi Qur'an which was published in 2003. During this time he founded the Green Mountain School as a conduit for teaching Qur'an and publishing of other books and lectures. He also established the an-Noor foundation, a non-profit 501(c)(3), specifically for the publication of the Tajiwidi Qur'an and for the propagation of traditional moderate Islam.