At a burial shrine set in the rolling farmland of Pennsylvania, a group of Sufi devotees swayed in prayer, chanting the many names of God. The women, heads covered in loose shawls, sat on one side; the men, some clutching prayer beads, on the other. One woman, overcome with emotion, wept openly.
At the center of the domed room lay the casket that holds the entombed body of their sheikh, a Sri Lankan Sufi mystic named Bawa Muhaiyaddeen. David Katz, raised in a Reform synagogue in Wisconsin, was among the pilgrims gathered here last week, to celebrate their late leader’s arrival in America 45 years ago.