Cemalnur Sargut

Cemalnur Sargut was born in 1952 in Istanbul, Turkey; her mother was a disciple of Sufi master Ken'an Rifa'i. She studied chemical engineering and worked as a chemistry teacher for two decades before dedicating herself to Sufi scholarship and leadership. She is a leader of the Rifa'i order and a scholar of Ken'an Rifa'i's teachings, though she never met him personally; her own primary teacher was Samiha Ayverdi, a renowned Sufi mystic and writer. She has extensively studied classical Islamic philosophers including Ibn 'Arabi, Rumi and Ahmad al-Rifa'i.

She leads the Istanbul branch of the Turkish Women's Cultural Association (TÜRKKAD) and has endowed academic chairs in Sufi studies at institutions including the University of North Carolina, Peking University and Kyoto University. She has authored more than a dozen books on Islam and Sufism, including Beauty and Light: Mystical Discourses by a Contemporary Female Sufi Master (2018), and continues to teach and lecture internationally.