The present master of the Nimatullahi Order is Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh.

Dr. Nurbakhsh was born in Kerman, Iran in 1926. He attended medical school at the University of Tehran, receiving his medical doctor diploma in 1952. He specialized in psychiatry, first in practice at Tehran's Ruzbeh hospital and then as Professor of the University. Towards earning the professor's chair, completing a course of study abroad was required. In 1962, Dr. Nurbakhsh earned the highest examination score for this placement. Subsequently, he was invited to undertake post-graduate studies at the Sorbonne in Paris. After obtaining the diploma as Assistant étranger, Dr. Nurbakhsh returned to Tehran where he continued his teaching and clinical work.

In 1974, Dr. Nurbakhsh received an additional doctorate, "Honoris Causa" from the World Psychiatric Association and was elected president of the Society of Iranian Psychiatrists. He continued to write and publish numerous works of psychiatry in both Iranian and Western journals. In 1977, Dr. Nurbakhsh was named Head of the Department of Psychiatry in Tehran University (1977) and Director of the Ruzbeh hospital. It was during this tenure as Director that Iran, for the first time, hosted the World Congress of Psychiatry under the supervision of Dr. Nurbakhsh.

 
In parallel to this exceptional professional, academic career, Dr. Nurbakhsh was committed to an intense, personal involvement in spiritual activity. At the age of sixteen years he was initiated into the Nimatullahi Sufi tariqat. From that time forward, he spent much of the time not occupied in classroom studies in the presence of the Master of the Order, Munis 'Ali Shah.

At the age twenty, he was appointed by his master to the position of Shaikh (spiritual director), and was conferred with the spiritual name of Nur 'Ali Shah. After the death of Munis in 1953, Dr. Nurbakhsh became Master of the Nimatullahi Order. He was then twenty-six years old.

For more than 50 years, Dr. Nurbakhsh established more than one hundred khaniqahs and numerous libraries and museums throughout Iran and the greater world. During the period of guidance under Dr. Nurbakhsh, the Nimatullahi order has flourished, despite some disapproval from religious authority in its native Iran.

Dr. Nurbakhsh cites the fraternity and equality of all human beings, with all respect for all religions of the world, as well as love and service to all humanity and without regard towards creed, culture or nationality.