He has been succeeded by his son, Alireza Nurbakhsh, a doctor in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin and a practising lawyer in London. Nurbakhsh died in his retreat in the English countryside near the town of Banbury, Oxfordshire, where he spent his final years, and is buried there. Many more were set up outside Iran after his flight into exile in 1979. A great number of these have since been expropriated under the current regime." The first of the Order's Sufi centres outside Iran was set up in San Francisco in 1975. Prior to 1979, according to biographical material on the Order's web site, "he established 70 Sufi centres in most of the major cities and towns of Iran, all set up as charitable organisations according to civil and Islamic law. He wrote the two part article What is Sufism? Sufism and Psychoanalysis, published in The International Journal of Social Psychiatry, which fall into the category of Sufi psychology, bringing together his twin interests in the fields of Sufism and psychiatry. By 1979, when he left Iran, he had published some eighty books. Shāh Ni'matullāh Walī, Bayazid Bastami, Abū-Sa'īd Abul-Khayr, Attar of Nishapur, Rumi, SanaiĪccording to the Islamic scholar Henry Corbin, Nurbakhsh was known for his "prodigious activity" in the publication of classical Sufi texts.He produced 37 scientific works in the field of psychiatry, as author, editor and translator, along with many articles in scientific journals and a compendium of instructional brochures for the use of researchers, professors and students. Nurbakhsh also supervised the World Congress of Psychiatry for the World Psychiatric Association when it was for first hosted in Iran. He was also an honorary member of the American Psychiatrists' Association. Nurbakhsh's work in reviving and organizing Sufism through the Nimatullahi order continued until his death in Britain in 2008.Īfter obtaining his psychiatric degree from the Sorbonne, Nurbakhsh was appointed professor of psychiatry at the Tehran University school of medicine, a position which he held until he retired, along with that of director of the Iranian Medical Council, president of the Iranian Association of Psychiatrists, and head of the Ruzbeh Psychiatric Hospital. Nurbakhsh left Iran following the Iranian revolution in 1979, first for the United States, where he established several Sufi centers known as khanaqahs, then moved to Britain in 1983 and settled there. According to his obituary in Payvan's Iran news, he "promoted the creed of fraternity and equality of all human beings, regardless of gender, race, nationality and religion." Emigrating to the West Nurbakhsh believed that all are equal in love. Īs well as his revival of the Nimatullahi Sufi Order and his many written works, Nurbakhsh became one of Iran's foremost psychiatrists. In the following year he succeeded his master, Mo'nes 'Ali Shah Zo'r-Riyasateyn, as master of the Nimatullahi, taking the Sufi sobriquet of Nur 'Ali Shah.
#Dr. javad sajan professional#
He began his professional career as a medical doctor at the age of 26 when he became head of a local hospital in the southeastern town of Bam, Iran. Nurbakhsh studied at University of Tehran's medical school, receiving his doctorate in psychiatry in 1952, from the Sorbonne. He was initiated into the Nimatullahi Sufi order at the age of sixteen and appointed its sheikh at twenty. Nurbakhsh was born in the city of Kerman, Iran on 10 December 1926. 4 Selected Statements by Nurbakhsh on Sufism.