31/05/2025
AsSalaamu aliekum,
A review of a recent publication from Magribine Press.
https://www.amazon.com/Power-Silence-White-Carnation/dp/B0DYQCP6XY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2SMLMWCP8QFRK&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ZmGPYULDB75cyflT9jTT7Q.XCnpQNZooIj_Kp8OMUgEs_Cj6pr_gG4qHb1JuXkaNz8&dib_tag=se&keywords=power+of+silence+hazrat+ismet+ali&qid=1748668952&sprefix=power+of+silience+hazrat+ismet+ali%2Caps%2C148&sr=8-1
Hazrat Ismet Ali and Madame Cajzoran Ali (authors), Dr. Muhammed A. Al-Ahari (editor), The Power of Silence and the White Carnation: The Hidden Story of a Sufi Shaykh from Trinidad, Magribine Press: Chicago, copyright 2024, 270 pages, Paperback, $15.95, ISBN: 9798335462471.
The Power of Silence and White Carnation is essentially a fascinating collection of works consisting of four disparate sections. The first part is written by Muhammad Abdullah Ahari, the book’s editor and himself an American Muslim convert. Ahari magically transports his readers to the first few decades of America's twentieth-century alternative spiritual marketplace teeming with Eastern-centric, New Thought, and Occult religious practitioners. In particular, Ahari-El has adeptly reconstructed the career highs and lows of an intriguing inter-racial religious duo, Ghulam Ismet Ali, a Sufi “Hindoo” mystic, and Cajzoran Ali, a white-Iowan yogini. In the 1920s, the Alis found fame, fortune, and following through their Temple of Consciousness, Himayat Society, Society of Transcendent Science in Chicago, and eventually the Kaaba Aliff Society in New York, Detroit, Michigan, and Cleveland, Ohio. One year after the Great Depression of 1929, the pair fell afoul of the law on charges of conning their clientele, and their religious careers were seemingly in tatters. While Ismet Ali fled to Trinidad and mysteriously disappeared in the Caribbean, Cajzoran Ali eclipsed her ex-husband’s spectacular career. Cajzoran Ali reinvented herself as a spiritual guru in her own right in France as Madam Zorah Williams in the 1930s. Ahari-El continues to trace the trajectory of Cajzoran Ali’s legacy through a study of her French initiates who amplified her teachings to a whole new audience in Western Europe.
The second section, Power of Silence (1927) was written by Cajzoran Ali under the pen-name of “Mdm Corrine Ali”. The bulk of this literature conveys her esoteric teachings of “Personal Magnetism”. Through her 12 steps-book advising on psychology, sociology, and communication techniques, Mdm Ali hoped males could successfully access the social benefits of power, influence, and wealth, while females could obtain love, satisfaction, and popularity. Apart from securing advantages in the secular realm, Ali also shared methods of mental visualization, strategic breathing techniques, and mental muscular meditation to help devotees achieve an exalted state of communicate with God called – the Power of Silence. Even at this nascent juncture of her spiritual odyssey, Cajzoran Ali exhibited traits of vast knowledge of Hindu spiritual exercises that later on cemented her as a trailblazer in introducing yoga in the West.
The third part, the White Carnation (1928), consists of almost one hundred poems poured out from the yearning hearts of Ismet Ali and Cajzoran Ali’s devotees. While the book was authored by Ismet Ali- “the Master”, the focus of the students’ writings (and love) was also targeted and centred on the figure of Cajzoran Ali, metaphorically dubbed “White Carnation clad in the Virgin Cloak of White”. Its diverse themes range from the declaration of their purity of their love for their masters, divine breathing, spiritual ecstasy, subliminal meditations, mystical healing, cosmic love, as well as their earthly lamentations and sorrows. Louise Hoyt, one of the young writers, compared her misery as a student vis-à-vis the White Carnation’s joy, “and you’re happy all the day, while I have to study so. Why is it I do not know?”. Though seemingly abstruse, these writings provide unique windows of insight, unveiling the mystical relationship between Ismet Ali, Cajzoran Ali, and their faithful followers. Through this collection, Cajzoran Ali, who by “piercing the veil, pointing the way with the voice of flame,” serves as the vital spiritual intermediary through which devotees hoped to achieve divine communication with the Master. Largely written by white female residents of Manhattan, New York, in the late 1920s, poetry served as a vital medium to put some distance between themselves and the problems they faced.
The fourth and final section of the book comprises a collection of rarely seen primary sources, newspaper articles, and literature from the 1920s and 1930s that dwell on this elusive couple. These include a rare statement from Ismet Ali where he disclosed the source of his Eastern wisdom as derived from Cabir Premel el Adoros from another Hindoo Occult movement named the Society of Transcendent Science in 1924, Chicago. Other interesting pieces include a sworn set of statements from several professional doctors who attested to the authenticity of Ismet Ali’s squeamish physical demonstrations, including consuming red-hot cigarette ashes and driving steel needles through various parts of his body.
At its core, this is a tale of alternative spirituality, religious performances, and the contrasting fortunes of two unique-but-marginalized characters. Interestingly and in stark contrast to conventional stereotypes of females as passive victims within male-dominated New Religious Movements (NRM), it is Cajzoran Ali, the female yogini, who emerges triumphant from the packed cast of esoteric characters and captures the imagination of readers. This is a meticulously researched, compelling, and luridly written book that will serve as a useful addition to those interested in American religious and social history.
Fathie B. Ali Abdat
Historian, Researcher on American Islam
" magically transports readers to the first few decades of America's twentieth-century alternative spiritual marketplace teeming with Eastern-centric, New Age, Occult religious practitioners. This work has adeptly reconstructed the career highs and lows of an intriguing inter-racial religiou...
