Shaykh Manzoor Alam

Shaykh Manzoor Alam was born in 1936 into a traditional family of Jaunpur in India. In his lifetime until 2015, he was considered one of the greatest living saints by many of his disciples and contemporary mystics that spanned various religions and paths. He authored many books on spirituality, mysticism, poetry and Sufi traditions. His teachings in traditional Indian dialects were kind and comprehensible to all levels of minds and heart, unravelling subtle mystical Persian and Arabic precepts for the common person. Manzoor Alam projected the full luster, the joy, the ecstasy of the remarkable Chishti Sufi order, while preserving the outer conformity to the deep courtesy required therein. The prayer and zikr he taught was an inner cleansing for walking the path to enlightenment. He often selected stories from Hazrat Jalaluddin Rumi's famous Masnavi as a means of spiritual instruction which are pertinent to the guidance and upliftment of all levels of consciousness within a traveler. A common form of Sufi education is the study of the lives of Sufi masters of the past, which Shaykh Manzoor Alam frequently narrated in his conversations and lectures to his students. Rumi and the Masters of light is the first of his story-based instructions that guides a seeking heart into deep surrender to the One Divine Beloved, the source of all longing and love.