Biography for
Ian Dallas (I) More at IMDbPro »

Nickname

Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi

Mini Biography

After a brief career in acting, Ian Dallas, a native-born Scotsman, later reverted to Islam and joined the Shadhili Order of Sufis in Morocco. Upon the death of his Shaykh, Shaykh Al-'Arabi Ad-Darqawi, Dallas became the Shaykh of his own Order and assumed the name Shaykh Abdalqadir. 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.

IMDb Mini Biography By: John Morgan