Nekbakht Furnée and Inayat Khan

Nekbakht Furnee - from Paul Ketelaar
Inayat Khan met vina
Nekbakht outside her house, summer 1954

Nekbakht (Sakina) Furnée

Nekbakht was a Dutch mureed of Hazrat Inayat Khan (Murshid). She bought the house at 34 Rue de la Tuilerie opposite Murshid’s house, Fazal Manzil in Suresnes, France. Murshid would visit her there when he was in Suresnes to give her papers and documents for the Biographical Department. Her first Sufi name was Sakina (Tranquil), which is the name used in the Complete Works. However Murshid gave her the new name, Nekbakht (Fortunate), in 1926 and she gave this name to the Foundation she set up in Holland to finance the upkeep of the Biographical Department. For more detailed information go to Archives. 

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Hazrat Inayat Khan (5th July 1882 – 5th February 1927) came to the West as a representative of the highest musical traditions of his native India, and brought with him a message of love, harmony, and beauty that was both the quintessence of Sufi teaching and a revolutionary approach to the harmonizing of Western and Eastern spirituality. His nephew, Shaikh al-Mashaik Mahmood Khan, describes him as “poet-philosopher and musician-mystic”. Inayat Khan was born in Baroda (now Vadodera), Gujerat and his early life primarily revolved around music. His grandfather, known as Moula Bakhsh, was a great musician who founded a music school, the Gayanshala, which is still flourishing today. Inayat Khan dedicated his early life to the mastery of the subtle intricacies of classical Indian music, winning the high title of Tansen from the Nizam of Hyderabad, a powerful ruler and renowned patron of the musical arts.