Alan ‘Abd al-Haqq Godlas, PhD, is authorized to teach Sufi contemplative practice in the Shadhili tradition of Sidi Shaykh Muhammad al-Jamal of Jerusalem and the naqshbandi tradition of Hazret Ibrahim Jan of Kokand, Uzbekistan. He has been practicing both American and traditional Islamic forms of Sufism since 1973. First initiated into Sufism in the Chishti tradition of Hazrat Inayat Khan through the lineage of Murshid Sam Lewis, Dr. Godlas subsequently encountered the naqshbandi-Shattari Sufi way, as taught by Idris Shah, through study under Dr. Claudio naranjo. From 1974 to 1977, he lived and practiced in the nimatullahi Sufi center in Tehran. He received his PhD, concentrating in Islamic Studies and Sufism, from the University of California–Berkeley in 1991, and began teaching as a professor of Religion, Islamic Studies, and Arabic at the University of Georgia. In addition to teaching at numerous Sufi and Islamic venues, he has taught and lectured about contem- plative Sufi practice at the Sivananda Yoga ashram in the Bahamas as well as at the Tibetan Buddhist Mangalam Center in Berkeley. His current research investigates resources of the world’s religions (in particular, Islam) for enhancing emotional intelligence. as a part of this work, Dr. Godlas became autho- rized to test emotional intelligence by David Caruso of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. He has delivered scholarly papers about Sufism in 14 countries, including Turkey, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, egypt and Morocco. Dr. Godlas’ website, “Sufism, Sufis, and Sufi orders: Sufism’s Many Paths” is the leading comprehensive academic website for Sufism.
