URS: February 18th, 2022
Ô Zamir,
No words can express my immense gratitude for having been your lover, wife and life companion.
Throughout these 33 years, I have witnessed your courage and integrity in your responsibilities; your devotion to Pir Vilayat; your inspiration for new projects, pilgrimage; I witness your inner struggles; the tenderness of your soul that led you to look at our humanity with compassion and, at most, your immense love for Anna, and Léa, your daughter, and granddaughter.
Thank you for having supported me unfailingly in my doubts, for having always believed in our couple.
Yes, your sharp tongue sometimes confused me, yes we struggle with our temperaments but we learn to whisper to each other in difficult times, it was beautiful to open to each other in such moments.
Yes, I was impressed by the power of your tender heart who could listen to the soft song of the souls of so many.
Thank you for these Zikrs where you always invited us to more sweetness.
Ô Zamir, my dear life companion, my tears are not of despair, my tears are pearls for a river of joy singing along your new journey in the high spheres of light and pure love.
Alima
A Tribute to Zamir Martin Roehrs by Huzur Nigel Hamilton
Zamir was a truly loyal, honest, and trusted friend. He had a funny mischievous side, blended with a loving compassion for people, particularly those who struggle. Participants and teachers who attended the Alps summer camp will certainly remember Zamir, his presence, holding everything together.
Zamir made a tremendous contribution to the growth and development of our Order, spanning a period of well over 40 years. He was much loved and respected as a teacher, leader, organizer, one who was not afraid of taking responsibility or of speaking out when others were silent. He gave his time generously in helping spread the Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan.
Zamir was initiated in 1973 at the Alps camp in Chamonix. He become a devoted follower of Pir Vilayat Khan and our Sufi path. After moving to the Abode community, he returned home to resume his involvement in the European Sufi Order, taking on different roles as Cherag, Centre leader and guide.
In 1988, he was asked by Pir Vilayat to take over the Alps camp as Director. Typically, he committed himself to this task, organizing, restructuring, and revitalizing everything. The camp began to attract several hundred people every year with programs involving speakers and presenters from our Sufi Order European and American centers and beyond the Sufi Order as it was known then. As personal secretary to Pir Vilayat and European Sufi Order secretary, he revitalized our communication and organization of events.
He was a tremendous support for Pir Vilayat helping him to explore the wonders of new technology – the Internet!
During this period Zamir was involved in easing the difficult relationship/situation that existed between the Sufi Order and the Sufi Movement (S.M) by establishing a good, open relationship with Professor Witteveen, then S.M head. This helped pave the way for negotiation towards a settlement.
During this period, Zamir and Alina took up residence at Fazl Manzil to help maintain it and oversee events there. He redesigned, renovated, and expanded the Khanqa which enabled many more people to attend the leaders’ trainings and other gatherings held there. He was made Vice-President of the Universel in 1991 and trustee of both the Inayat Stichting and the Nekbakt Foundation.
When Pir Vilayat’s cancer spread, Zamir and Alima helped to look after him right up to his death, supporting Mary in her last years.
Ever enterprising, Zamir founded Zenith on the Road, taking groups on pilgrimages to many Middle Eastern and Far Eastern countries.
Zamir was also a trustee of the Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy Education for 17 years, keeping and preparing our accounts. His advice was always sound, sober, and very clear.
In his last years, Zamir was a role model for many of us, facing his terminal illness with great courage and dignity.
Our heartfelt appreciation goes to Alima for looking after him through thick and thin.
He is survived by Alima, daughter Anna and his granddaughter Leah.
We shall miss him, and we wish him well on his journey home.
Huzur Nigel Hamilton
A light warm, powerful and yet also sometimes edgy like a crystal which reflected the entire spectrum of light.
Beside other activities, his contribution to the camps in Switzerland was something which he fulfilled uniquely over many years.
I will miss his light and wish him a good journey.
Safed
A real Friend from the very beginning… We met him on various occasions, among which at the Embassy of India, Paris where I was working whenever he needed his visa to go to India ! My son François met him also at several occasions after he worked for the Hope Project.
He was a real humble and noble person, a very reliable and also inspired person, a beautiful soul.
God has already welcomed him among the great souls….
Love for ever, Tasnim, Rashid and François
We worked closely together for many years in the service of The Hope Project, when Pir Vilayat installed an International Board. Zamir’s position was being representative of Pir Vilayat in that board, and he had a heart connection to Hope and gave us so many valuable insights and comments, and often challenging quarrels in our biannual and later on annual meetings. After Pir Vilayat’s transition, Zamir gradually withdrew from the board but remained with us in his heart connectedness. The AlpsCamp was the other place where we met each other regularly. Zamir, we will miss you. Our feelings are with Alima, Lea and grandchild.
Heiko
Thankyou Zahir for being you , being authentic , bright , dark ,clear , loving ,generous ,inspired ans so present at the camp the whole time I went .Thanks for your beautiful radiance and light that was sometimes daunting and mostly encouraging!Zahir who became As I remember Zamir thru his generosity I was able to go to camp for many years His role as organiser enabled me to share wonderful workshops with teenagers at the Zenith camp , I also give thanks for the enormous and diverse collection of so much beautiful music that he shared which was heart warming May you keep dancing Joy Azima
Dear Zamir,
what a privilege to have met and got to know you. For many years we walked together “Towards the One”. Now you are on the other side and I am sitting here in memories. It all began with a meeting at Munir‘s. There you opened the door for me to a place at the Camp. You gave me a space in which I could develop. You always supported me in my tasks, you challenged me and encouraged me. I am infinitely grateful for this. We worked together, discussed, laughed, been silent, listened to each other, celebrated the neighborhood of our caravans and over the years a friendship has grown. You and Alima often gave me shelter in Suresnes. You shared your home and I always felt welcome and at home with both of you…. so many rich memories. When I think of you there is warmth and love in my heart.
Zamir, you have supported, moved, challenged and inspired so many people and moved them to grow. I am sure that many prayers will accompany you on your onward journey.
I wish you a blessed journey home.
Majida
Hey, I hear a ney. Is that you?
Zahir, as I knew him for so many years, Zamir in the new age, was a very close friend of the Hope Project and very much involved in the shaping and developing of the Project, which is situated right at the burial places of Hazrat Inayat Khan and of Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan. Zamir was there, right from the beginning. In the early years of the millennium, he served on the Projects board for an intense transition time and brought his wisdom, energy and spirit especially also as direct representative of Pir Vilayat to the Project. Thus, helped in the shaping of this organisation to grow over the years into a strong support to the marginalized communities wherever it reaches out today, to light the vision of Love, Harmony and Beauty.
Although I was not in close physical contact with him over the last years, I was always close to him, connected through the Hope Project and his true well-wishing always.
I love Zahir dearly for his fierce, cut through fire energy, burning through to the point and for his love and dedication to Pir Vilayat. Praying for your peaceful onward journey united with all the illuminated souls…
With Love
Carmen
Delhi on 23rd February 2022
Dear Zamir,
Now that you are gone from us,
already I can see you smiling to us from the other side!
Peace, love and light to you!
For having accompanied Pir Vilayat and standing strong at his side,
for having organized our beloved Camp and holding it all together,
with this kind of weight on your shoulders,
you have been so courageous and at the same time playful,
and truly, a kind of hero!
Having known you for so many years,
over time you became a friend to me,
and I discovered many different levels of your being,
Hidden, covered under the mantle of the strict role you had to play,
there is your big heart, your hospitality,
and a “Zahir”, a bright shining star!
Thank you for being all of this, to all of us.
Blessings, peace, love and light to you!
Nirtan
Zamir’s sense of humor was sharp but exquisite. Sometimes a bit scary, on the edge.
He could not suffer hypocrisy, false sweetness, megalomania, insincerity.
And he could be merciless when he met it.
7 years ago we thought we had to say goodbye for this life
I went with Ulrike to Paris, after he had heavy surgery,
Dreading this was our goodbye from him..
But he was tough, survived several crises.
We stayed in touch, in spite of health problems we both had to deal with.
During the last few years we had frequent meetings on Skype, keeping essential contact.
Sharing the worries, the love and the joy about our children.
Sharing the health questions, but certainly also the bigger and smaller joys of being alive.
I see Zamir as one of my oldest, closest and most precious friend,
and for me it’s deeply painful he is traveling on
I feel deep gratitude for having had him so close in my life
And in a way he stays near.
At the same time I am so happy for him he is freed from suffering.
Dear Zahir – you who are the very epiphany of Light that continues to shine with so much beauty in our hearts forever ….
To you, who has been such a presence in my life since the old Chamonix days with Pir Vilayat…since nearly every summer camp in the Swiss Alps…through all of the messy and chaotic organizational meetings in Suresnes with the then Sufi Order…through the infrequent but intense arguments we had…since the first Urs of Pir Vilayat in India…
Words fail me to convey the deep emotion of my heart and soul as I think of you today.
Even after the arduous journey to Suresnes to participate in the Universal Worship for you, then to your and Alima’s countryside home to see you one last time in the holy sanctuary she had so lovingly created for you, and then getting lost with Tajalli as we drove from there to finally arrive in Sance to participate in the beautiful memorial service and gathering afterwards with your friends and family ….
Words fail me.
Instead, I can only post here what you had placed as one of your last Facebook posts which says it all:
The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.
– From Elizabeth Kubler Ross –
I’m sure we will meet again, just as I now imagine you and Pir Vilayat communing together once again, in friendship that endures forever…
Remembering Zamir
Hafis: Stay close to anything that makes you glad you are alive
With these words of the great Persian Poet and mystic I want to honour my dear friend and fellow traveller Zamir. His spirit until the end couldn’t be described in a more profound way. This is what he did, he whole-heartedly stayed close to what made him fully alive.
He knew how to be a friend, his loyalty is beyond words, he took me on many journeys in the outer and inner world, I feel such gratitude to have known and grown with him for decades.
Our most intimate moments were when we sat silently next to each other teaching like in the small tent in the camp. We liked to use the old black board. Once I had written on it: let yourself reach into the inner space where you have contact with all beings.
I trust he resides in this space now, this where I can reach him, over and over again.
Thank you for everything, Zamir, dearest friend, you are loved.