Kabir Helminski is a Shaikh of the Mevlevi Order and is the Co-Director of the Threshold Society, a non-profit educational foundation that has developed programs that provide a structure for practice and study within Sufism and spiritual psychology. He has translated many volumes of Sufi literature, including the works of Rumi, and is the author of two books on Sufism: Living Presence and The Knowing Heart.

From 1980 until 1999 he was the director of Threshold Books, one of the foremost publishers of Sufi literature. Between 1994 and 2000 he toured with the Whirling Dervishes of Turkey, bringing the spiritual culture of the Mevlevis to more than 100,000 people. His books have been translated into Spanish, Italian, Dutch, German, and Turkish. He has an M.A. in psychology and an (honorary) Ph.D. in literature from Selcuk University, Konya, Turkey.

For more than twenty years Kabir's focus has been developing and sharing a contemporary approach to Islamic concepts and practice both within the Islamic community and outside of it. In 2001 he was the first Muslim to deliver the prestigious Wit Lectures on spirituality at Harvard Divinity School, which will be published as a book by The Paulist Press. Living with his family in Santa Cruz, Kabir now focuses on Sufi music, writing, teaching, and developing a program of spiritual education with an international team of scholars.