Part 15 (2/2)
The hoped-for spiritual reinvigoration could perhaps be envisaged as an occasional upward surge of limited scope and duration with respect to the predominant downward movement to which we have just referred. In this case, we would agree wholeheartedly with the author in saying that certain modern and postmodern developments could furnish a basis for a small and discrete reversal. Nevertheless, we cannot concur when the author speculates, for instance, that the scientific revolution operated by quantum mechanics, which may have led certain elite scientists to see through phenomena to their metaphysical origin, could produce such an effect on the general public, even if various vulgarized interpretations within a philosophical holism are disseminated widely by unprecedented means, such as the Internet. While it is certainly true that, for some, the pervasive availability of esoteric knowledge regarding the physical and the spiritual can be a limited heavenly compensation for the overall declivity of the human cycle, it is not at all clear that it could be anything more than that. In other words, whereas one can no doubt predict such a possibility in some relatively rare cases, it is difficult to believe that this could have a far-reaching, durable impact. However, one has no trouble understanding that a ruse of Maya could perhaps convince certain individuals or groups that they may const.i.tute a bridge between the end of the current cycle and the beginning of the next cycle. Be that as it may, such considerations must surely lie in the domain of the imponderable.
In conclusion, notwithstanding a few reservations, we heartily recommend this very wellwritten, informative, insightful, thought-provoking, and engaging book to prospective readers who are interested in the history of Islam, Islam in the modern and postmodern eras, Sufism, and, more generally, to anyone who feels that the world in which we live is sorely in need of a spiritual infusion.
Reviewed by Patrick Meadows
What Do the Religions Say About Each Other?
Christian Att.i.tudes towards Islam,
Islamic Att.i.tudes towards Christianity
COMPILED BY WILLIAM STODDART.
San Rafael, CA: Sophia Perennis, 2008 In this slim but precious volume, William Stoddart provides his readers with a treasury of texts written by Muslims about Christians and Christianity, and vice versa. This collection spans centuries, countries, and cultures. It is a delight, and sometimes a surprise, to read statements that exceed mere tolerance to reach spiritual insight and communion. One thinks, for example, of Pope Pius XI telling his apostolic delegate to Libya in 1934: ”Do not think you are going among infidels. Muslims attain to salvation. The ways of Providence are infinite” (p. 12).
This anthology is a clear argument against the prejudice that exclusively sees the past as a stage for religious intolerance and fanaticism. In fact one of the lessons that contemporary readers may draw from this inspiring book is that something has gone seriously wrong between the two communities in recent times. The ideologization of religion that has resulted from the loss or neglect of the spiritual Center and the science of inner and outer beauty is clearly responsible for this sad state of affairs. As the Emir 'Abd al-Qadir remarks, ”When we think how few men of real religion there are, how small the number of defenders and champions of truth-when one sees ignorant persons imagining that the principles of Islam are hardness, severity, extravagance, and barbarity-it is time to repeat these words: 'Patience is beautiful, and G.o.d is the source of all succor'” (p. 78).
One must be grateful to William Stoddart for having compiled this set of beautiful testimonies to the inner convergence of true faiths. One wonders what effects this volume may have should it become required reading in Christian schools and Muslim madrasat the world over. It is encouraging to hear that the book has already been translated into German, Bosnian, and French, with a Portuguese edition slated for the near future.
Reviewed by Patrick Laude.
Notes on the Contributors.
'Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza'iri (1808-1893) was an Algerian metaphysician and mystic, as well as a political and military leader who led the Algerian resistance against the French in the mid-nineteenth century. The Emir was a major commentator and continuator of Ibn 'Arabi. He is considered by the Algerians as a national hero, and his remains were brought back from Damascus to Algeria in 1962.
Ivan Agueli ('Abd al-Hadi Aqhili) (1869-1917) was a Swedish painter and author. He was the initiator of Rene Guenon into Sufism and an early Western expositor of the metaphysics of Ibn 'Arabi. Aside from his reputation as a creative post-Impressionist painter and as a somewhat eccentric traveler in the tradition of the Malamatiyah, he is credited with expounding similarities between Sufi and Swedenborgian metaphysics.
Amadou Hampate Ba (c. 1900-1991) was a well-known Malian diplomat and author of the last half of the twentieth century. His fiction and non-fiction books in French are widely respected as sources of information and insight on West African history, religion, literature, and culture. From the time of his youth, Ba was a student and disciple of an extraordinary Malian Sufi master, Tierno Bokar. He left a testimonial of his teacher, Vie et enseignement de Tierno Bokar: Le sage de Bandiagara, which has been translated into English and published by World Wisdom as A Spirit of Tolerance: The Inspiring Life of Tierno Bokar.
t.i.tus Burckhardt (1908-1984) was one of the leading Perennialist writers of the twentieth century. His writings showed remarkable scope, covering topics on metaphysics, on tradition and modern science, on sacred art, on history and political science, and on various other aspects of traditional civilizations. Burckhardt was also a translator (from Arabic into French), an editor and publisher, and a respected consultant on restoring traditional cities to their former beautiful states. His main books include Sacred Art in East and West and Introduction to Sufism.
William C. Chittick is one of the most important contemporary translators and interpreters of Islamic mystical texts and poetry. He is a professor in the Department of Comparative Studies at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. Among his publications are The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi, The Psalms of Islam, The Self-Disclosure of G.o.d: Principles of Ibn al-'Arabi's Cosmology, Sufism: A Short Introduction, and The Heart of Islamic Philosophy: The Quest for Self-Knowledge in the Teachings of Afdal al-Din Kashani.
Tayeb Chouiref is a French scholar, translator, and teacher. He is the author of The Spiritual Teachings of the Prophet, an annotated collection of authoritative Prophetic traditions commented upon by masters of Islamic spirituality. He is also the translator of several works of al-Ghazzali.
Michael Oren Fitzgerald is an author, editor, and publisher of books on world religions, sacred art, tradition, culture, and philosophy. He has written and edited many publications on American Indian spirituality, including Yellowtail: Crow Medicine Man and Sun Dance Chief, and was adopted into Yellowtail's tribe and family. Fitzgerald has also taught university cla.s.ses on religious traditions of North American Indians and lectured widely.
eric Geoffroy is an expert on Islam and Professor in Islamic Studies in the Department of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Strasbourg. He also teaches at the Open University of Catalonia, at the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium), and at the International Inst.i.tute of Islamic Thought (Paris). He is a specialist in the study of Sufism and sanct.i.ty in Islam. Among others, his research also extends to comparative Sufism, mysticism, and to issues of spirituality in the contemporary world (spirituality and globalization; spirituality and ecology, etc.). He is the author of Initiation au Soufisme-translated into English and published by World Wisdom as Introduction to Sufism: The Inner Path of Islam-and L'islam sera spirituel ou ne sera pas.
Rene Guenon (1886-1951) was a French metaphysician, writer, and editor who was largely responsible for laying the metaphysical groundwork for the Perennialist or Traditionalist school of thought in the early twentieth century. Guenon remains influential today for his writings on the intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of the modern world, on symbolism, on spiritual esoterism and initiation, and on the universal truths that manifest themselves in various forms in the world's religious traditions.
M. Ali Lakhani graduated from Cambridge University before moving to Vancouver, where he has practiced as a trial lawyer for 25 years. In 1998, he founded the Traditionalist journal, Sacred Web, with the aim of identifying the first principles of traditional metaphysics and promoting their application to the contingent circ.u.mstances of modernity. The bi-annual journal has included contributions by many leading Traditionalists. In the words of Professor Nasr, ”Along with Sophia, Sacred Web is the most important journal in the English language devoted to the study of tradition.”
Martin Lings (1909-2005) was a leading member of the Perennialist or Traditionalist school and an acclaimed author, editor, translator, scholar, Arabist, and poet whose work centers on the relations.h.i.+p between G.o.d and man through religious doctrine, scripture, symbolism, literature, and art. He was an accomplished metaphysician and essayist who often turned to the world's great spiritual traditions for examples, though he is probably best known for his writings on Islam and its esoteric tradition, Sufism. World Wisdom is planning to publish an anthology of his work called The Essential Martin Lings.
Patrick Meadows is professor of French at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. After a brief, early career in music, he earned a B.A. in both French Literature and in English Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz, as well as an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures from Princeton University. His publications include Francis Ponge and the Nature of Things: From Ancient Atomism to a Modern Poetics, while he is one of the authors of Litteratures de la peninsule indochinoise.
Sachiko Murata is a professor of religion and Asian studies at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She received her B.A. from Chiba University in Chiba, j.a.pan, and later attended Iran's Tehran University where she was the first woman ever to study Islamic jurisprudence, and where she received her Ph.D. in Persian literarure. Murata teaches Islam, Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. She is the author of several books including The Tao of Islam, Chinese Gleams of Sufi Light, The Vision of Islam (which she co-auth.o.r.ed with William Chittick) and Temporary Marriage in Islamic Law.
Shankar Nair is a Ph.D. candidate in the Study of Religion at Harvard University. His academic interests include Hindu and Islamic philosophy, Sufism, and Indian religions. His research focuses on Hindu-Muslim intellectual interaction and the exchange between Arabo-Persian and Sanskrit textual traditions in South Asia.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr is University Professor of Islamic Studies at George Was.h.i.+ngton University. The author of over fifty books and five hundred articles, he is one of the world's most respected writers and speakers on Islam, its arts and sciences, and its traditional mystical path, Sufism.
Farid Nur ad-Din is a Swedish scholar. He is a student of Perennialism and Sufism who is currently working on a biography of Ivan Agueli.
Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998) is best known as the foremost spokesman of the Perennialist or Traditionalist school and as a philosopher in the metaphysical current of Shankara and Plato. He wrote more than two dozen books on metaphysical, spiritual, artistic, and ethnic themes and was a regular contributor to journals on comparative religion in both Europe and America. Schuon's writings have been consistently featured and reviewed in a wide range of scholarly and philosophical publications around the world, respected by both scholars and spiritual authorities. Besides his prose writings, Schuon was also a prolific poet and a gifted painter of images that always portrayed the beauty and power of the divine, and the n.o.bility and virtue of primordial humanity.
Reza Shah-Kazemi is a Research a.s.sociate at the Inst.i.tute of Ismaili Studies in London. Dr. Shah-Kazemi writes on a range of topics from metaphysics and doctrine to contemplation and prayer. He is the author of The Other in the Light of the One: The Universality of the Qur'an and Interfaith Dialogue, Paths to Transcendence: According to Shankara, Ibn Arabi, and Meister Eckhart, a look at how three sages-a Hindu, a Muslim, and a Christian-approached the transcendent Absolute, and Common Ground Between Islam and Buddhism.
Note on the Editor.
Patrick Laude teaches theology at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. His interests lie in contemplative and mystical traditions, particularly in their relations.h.i.+p with poetry, as well as in Western representations and interpretations of Islam and Asian religions. He is the author of ten books, including Pray without Ceasing: The Way of the Invocation in World Religion, Divine Play, Sacred Laughter, and Spiritual Understanding, Singing the Way: Insights in Poetry and Spiritual Transformation, and Frithjof Schuon: Life and Teachings. His latest book is Pathways to an Inner Islam: Ma.s.signon, Corbin, Guenon, and Schuon.
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