Tosun Bayrak
Tosun Bayrak al-Jerrahi al-Halveti (January 21, 1926 – February 15, 2018) was a Turkish author, artist, translator and Sufi sheikh. He was born in Istanbul and grew up in a secular home. He first encountered Islam while studying in college and began a lifelong journey of spiritual study.
He studied Biological Sciences at Robert College, graduating in 1945. He then studied art, architecture and art history in Paris, and later at the University of California, Berkeley and the Courtauld Institute in London. He earned a Master of Fine Arts from Rutgers University. In 1970, he met his spiritual teacher Muzaffer Ozak at the Jerrahi Lodge in Istanbul and became a Sufi master in the Halveti-Jerrahi order.
Bayrak moved to the United States and became the Sheikh of the Jerrahi Order in America. He guided the Jerrahi Order of the Americas from 1977 and founded the order’s main mosque in Chestnut Ridge, New York, in 1990. He also served in government roles in Turkey and was the Honorary Consul of Turkey in Morocco. He taught art and art history at Fairleigh Dickinson University and was named a Guggenheim fellow in 1965. In the 1970s he stepped back from the art world to focus on Islam and Sufism.
As a writer and translator, Bayrak produced many works on Islamic spirituality, especially the writings of Ibn Arabi. Notable translations include Ibn Arabi: The Tree of Being, Abdul Qadir Gilani's Secret of Secrets, al-Sulami's The Book of Sufi Chivalry, Futuwwah, Suhrawardi: The Shape of Light, and compilations from Ghazali, Ibn Arabi, Djili and Imam Birgivi.
He was married to Jean Linder Bayrak. Tosun Bayrak passed away in New York in 2018 at the age of 92.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 12:31 (CET).