The Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship does not care what religion you are. In fact, they do not care if you have any religion at all. The fellowship accepts all.
Located in a stone mansion at 5820 Overbrook Ave. in Wynnefield, nestled behind an expanding Saint Joseph’s University, the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship is a meeting place for people to worship, no matter what god. They worship under the recorded instructions of their late teacher, Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, a Sufi mystic from Sri Lanka.
Muhaiyaddeen moved to the United States in 1971 and then to Philadelphia in 1973, taking residence in the mansion that today bears his name. Until his death in 1986, Muhaiyaddeen shared his wisdom with people of every religion and race, who would pilgrimage to his Wynnefield home. Patrick Andrews, the fellowship’s deputy secretary, said this wisdom was about god and unity. Andrews, a student of Muhaiyaddeen, remembered the comfort people received upon reaching the fellowship and meeting the Sufi master.
“People would sit with him to talk about life and what it takes to be a good person,” Andrews said. “He gave a universal teaching of patience, compassion, tolerance and accepting all lives as your own life. From 1973 to 1980, people from all over the world would move to Philadelphia and then move to Wynnefield because they wanted to stay near him.”
In 1984, Muhaiyaddeen saw a need for a place for the vast amount of people visiting him to pray. With the help of 200 of his supporters, one of Philadelphia’s first mosques was built next to the stone mansion. Today, the mosque is used for prayer as well as a meeting ground for interfaith organizations.
Fellowship member Rehana Hamid said the mosque does not define the people of the fellowship as Muslim, nor does praying in the mosque mean they are adhering to the Islamic religion.
“I think the mosque is a gathering place,” Hamid said. “I don’t think that people do things as representatives of the mosque. I just think it’s such an eclectic gathering of souls and that you’re going to find everyone there.”
A City Council citation hangs on the wall of the fellowship. Dated in 2002, 16 years after Muhaiyaddeen’s death, the citation was awarded to the fellowship by Mayor Michael Nutter, who was simply Wynnefield’s Councilman Nutter at the time. The citation recognizes Muhaiyaddeen as a reputable man of wisdom and an asset of the community.
The document calls Muhaiyaddeen’s teachings the embodiment of brotherly love. Today, his children, as they call themselves, continue to share Muhaiyaddeen’s lessons of love by keeping their doors open to anyone who wants to come inside.
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