Imam Adeyinka Mendes is a spiritual counselor, meditation teacher, rites of passage facilitator, author, and Muslim religious leader based in Houston, Texas. He has been a student of the mystical traditions of Islam as well as indigenous and West African spiritual traditions for over 30 years after a life changing journey to Jerusalem at the age of 16. His focus as a teacher is on conveying the wisdom of our ancestors in ways that address the challenges and opportunities of the modern world. He is the founding director of Marhama (Arabic for ‘expressing mutual compassion’) Village, a community focused on building sustainable institutions through empowering service, prophetic spirituality, traditional knowledge, indigenous wisdom, and the arts. He has studied Classical Arabic, Islamic Sciences, sacred meditation, and the science of peace-building with sages and scholars from the United States, Syria, Sudan, Morocco, Mauritania, Nigeria, Egypt, Haiti, Senegal, and The Gambia. He imagines a world in which spiritual seekers from every tradition work together to establish a world of sacred service, compassion, and justice for every life.