Ian Dallas(1930-2021)
- Writer
- Script and Continuity Department
- Actor
After a brief career in acting, Ian Dallas, a native-born Scotsman,
later reverted to Islam and joined the Shadhili-Darqawi Order of Sufis
in Morocco. Upon the death of his Shaykh, Shaykh Muhammad Ibn al-Habib,
Dallas became the Shaykh of the Order under the name Shaykh Abdulqadir
as-Sufi, the name he was given by his Shaykh. He is still active today
(2004) as the leader of the worldwide Murabitun movement of Sufis. He
wrote a fictionalized account of his journey into Sufism in a novel,
"The Book of Strangers." It is also said that, while living in London
in the 1960s, he was friends with Eric Clapton, and gave Clapton a copy
of the ancient Persian Sufi parable "Layla and Majnun," which later
became the basis for Clapton's song "Layla" about his own ill-fated
romance.
