The triple aim of Hamadhani in this work, first translated into English in 1915, appears to have been to amuse, to interest and to instruct; and this explains why, in spite of the inherent difficulty of a work of this kind composed primarily with a view to the rhetorical effect upon the learned and the great, there is scarcely a dull chapter in the fifty-one maqamat or discourses.
his second compelling volume includes an introduction to the heart and its dynamics, as well as detailed examination of such concepts as freedom, altruism, wisdom, sainthood, intoxication and sobriety, wakefullness, and the universal man.
Jalaloddin Rumi's Masnavi-ye Ma'navi, or 'Spiritual Couplets', composed in the 13th Century, is a monumental work of poetry in the Sufi tradition of Islamic mysticism.
It has been argued that the mystical Sufi form of Islam is the most sensitive to other cultures, being accommodative to other traditions and generally tolerant to peoples of other faiths.
This book, based upon a Jordan Lecture in Comparative Religion of 1959, traces the development of mystical thought during the formative periods of the Hindu and Muslim traditions.
Translated for the first time from the original Persian into English, these selected treatises from Aziz O-Din Nasafi's thirteenth-century work The Perfect Being provide a fascinating and rare, yet applicable, introduction to Sufism.
In Arguing Sainthood, Katherine Pratt Ewing examines Sufi religious meanings and practices in Pakistan and their relation to the Westernizing influences of modernity and the shaping of the postcolonial self.
Sufis and Salafis in the Contemporary Age explores the dynamics at play between what are usually understood as two very different forms of Islam, namely Sufism and Salafism.
This book, first published in 1958, examines the life and works of Avicenna, one of the most provocative figures in the history of thought in the East.
The "e;Scholastic Problem"e; was the focus of much debate in Islam for some centuries before it became the chief crux of learned discussion in medieval Christianity.
Reveals the secret teachings of the Khwajagan, the Masters of Wisdom of Turkish Sufism *; Provides biographies for the entire lineage of teachers in the Naqshbandi order, such as Yusuf Hamdani, the first recognized Khwajagan, and Baha' al-Din Naqshband, from whom the Naqshbandi order of Sufis took its name *; Shows that this spiritual path focuses on expanding awareness of the heart to reach God-consciousness *; An essential guide for understanding Itlak Yolu, the Sufi path of Absolute Liberation, and fana', Annihilation in God Almost one thousand years ago a new and powerful nexus of spiritual transmission emerged in Central Asia and lasted for five centuries, reaching its culmination in the work of the Khwajagan, or ';Masters of Wisdom.
Drawing on first-hand sources which had been inaccessible to Western readers at the time this book was originally published in 1961, this book gives a vivid picture of life in an order of Muslim mystics or Sufis.
Women Mystics and Sufi Shrines in India combines historical data with years of ethnographic fieldwork to investigate women's participation in the culture of Sufi shrines in India and the manner in which this participation both complicates and sustains traditional conceptions of Islamic womanhood.
This thematic introduction to classical Islamic philosophy focuses on the most prevalent philosophical debates of the medieval Islamic world and their importance within the history of philosophy.
The surprising similarities in the rise and fall of the Sunni Islamic and Roman Catholic empires in the face of the modern stateCoping with Defeat presents a historical panorama of the Islamic and Catholic political-religious empires and exposes striking parallels in their relationship with the modern state.
Purification of the soul is a principle that is central to understanding Islamic spirituality but despite this, relatively little has been written explicitly in the Islamic tradition regarding this discrete method of spiritual purification.
Based on two years of ethnographic research in the southern suburbs of Beirut, An Enchanted Modern demonstrates that Islam and modernity are not merely compatible, but actually go hand-in-hand.
