Jeffery-Street/Ibn 'Arabi, 2. The Beshara Trust

The present chapter traces the evolution and the activities of the Beshara Trust and its school from Bulent Rauf’s arrival in England in 1967, to the Trust’s inception at the time of the purchase of Swyre Farm in 1971. It describes how the foundational study text of the school was produced, and gives a summary account of the early participants. It also situates and relates the Trust to other scholars and teachers, such as Titus Burckhardt and J.G. Bennett, who were active in promoting Sufi ideas in the West in the early half of the twentieth century. This chapter, like the previous one, provides some prime examples of unusual spiritual circumstances in the emergence of the Trust. These I have set out through the usual approach of phenomenological students of religion who are familiar with these types of incidences and apparent co-incidences during the emergence of new spiritual movements in all historical settings and traditions.