Many practitioners of Western Sufism follow the legacy of Inayat Khan and may identify with a variety of Sufi traditions, some of which have evolved to be pluralistic and not exclusively Islamic.
[6] The scion of a family of Indian mystics and musicians of Central Asian origin, Inayat Khan was trained and authorized in the Chishti, Suhrawardi, Qadiri, and Naqshbandi lineages of Sufism.
The Chishti order had for centuries engaged with Hindu spiritual traditions, thus exemplifying a broader Indian cultural phenomenon popularly known as ganga-jamni tahzib.
[7] In a similar fashion, Inayat Khan saw his mission as the spiritual unification of the Abrahamic (Jewish, Christian and Islamic) and Vedic traditions of monotheism.
[9] At the time of his death in India in 1927, Sufi centers had been established in the United States, England, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland.
[11][12] His lineage, traced via his elder sister Noor Inayat Khan (d. 1944) and now represented by his eldest son and successor Zia Inayat-Khan, is known today as the Inayatiyya.
Another disciple of Inayat Khan, Samuel Lewis (Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti, d. 1971), left with her, but subsequently broke from her when she affiliated herself with Meher Baba.