Download or read book The Sufi and the Friar written by Minlib Dallh and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2017-07-19 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation of the spiritual encounter between a twentieth-century Dominican friar and an eleventh-century Afghani Sufi master. This book explores the profound spiritual encounter between Serge de Beaurecueil (19172005), a twentieth-century French Dominican friar and Christian mystic, and the eleventh-century ?anbal? Sufi master Khw?ja Abdull?h An??r? of Her?t (10061089). De Beaurecueil lived much of his Christian discipleship in Cairo and Afghanistan, where he became the foremost expert on the life and thought of An??r?. His mystical conversation and scholarly engagement with An??r?, his experience of Islamic hospitality, and the transformation of his own practical spirituality or praxis mystica through his experience of dwelling in the abode of Islam provide us with not only a magnificent and luminous meditation on the hidden and abiding presence of God among Muslims but also a contemplation on the quandary of genuine engagement with and openness to the religious other. To place a French Dominican friar who died in 2005 and a Sufi who died in 1089 in juxtaposition in the same book is not the most obvious path in comparative religious scholarship. Yet Dallh has not only done precisely that, but he has also produced a brilliant monograph in the process which makes for a fascinating read. Dallhs work exhibits painstaking scholarship which illuminates two notable figures in Christianity and Islam respectively and makes an original contribution to the study of these two great faith traditions. Ian Richard Netton, author of Islam, Christianity and Tradition: A Comparative Exploration
Download or read book Sufi Women and Mystics written by Minlib Dallh and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-11-07 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on women’s important contribution to Sufism by analysing the lives and seminal contributions of six mystic Sufi women to Islamic spirituality. To help reverse the sidelining of Sufi women in the recorded academic literature, the author has selected a representative sample of figures from diverse Islamic dynasties with varying backgrounds, social status, and devotional contributions. Taking a historical approach attentive to specific political contexts, readers will be introduced to the contributions of Umm Ali al-Balkhi and Fātima of Nishāpūr in the ninth-century Khurāsān, Aisha al-Mannūbiyya of the Hafsid dynasty in Afriqya, Aisha al-Bā‘únīyya of the Mamlūk dynasties of Egypt and Syria, the Mughal princess Jahan Ara Begum, and the daughter of the Caliph of Sokoto, Nana Asma’u. It is argued that these ascetic and Sufi women were recognized by their male and female peers, became political leaders in their communities, and were honored as examples of sanctity and erudition. Their works influenced mystical discourse, hagiographical writings, religious language and models of religious authority to secure legacies of Islamic orthopraxis. The book will appeal to anyone interested in Sufism and Sufi history, as well as to those wishing to delve into the understudied topic of Muslim women’s spirituality.
Download or read book Sufi Civilities written by Annika Schmeding and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2023-11-28 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite its pervasive reputation as a place of religious extremes and war, Afghanistan has a complex and varied religious landscape where elements from a broad spectrum of religious belief vie for a place in society. It is also one of the birthplaces of a widely practiced variant of Islam: Sufism. Contemporary analysts suggest that Sufism is on the decline due to war and the ideological hardening that results from societies in conflict. However, in Sufi Civilities, Annika Schmeding argues that this is far from a truthful depiction. Members of Sufi communities have worked as resistance fighters, aid workers, business people, actors, professors, and daily workers in creative and ingenious ways to keep and renew their networks of community support. Based on long-term ethnographic field research among multiple Sufi communities in different urban areas of Afghanistan, the book examines navigational strategies employed by Sufi leaders over the past four decades to weather periods of instability and persecution, showing how they adapted to changing conditions in novel ways that crafted Sufism as a force in the civil sphere. This book offers a rare on-the-ground view into how Sufi leaders react to moments of transition within a highly insecure environment, and how humanity shines through the darkness during times of turmoil.
Download or read book Wal yah in the F imid Ism l Tradition written by Elizabeth R. Alexandrin and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2017-07-19 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the relationship between revelation and reason in medieval Islamic intellectual history. In this original study, Elizabeth R. Alexandrin examines the complex relationships that can be inscribed between medieval Ismā'īlī thought as an intellectual tradition with a devotional practice of reliance on the imām, and as a politico-esoteric system that redefined governance during the Fāṭimid caliphate in the eleventh century. Alexandrin's work is a departure from recent Western scholarship that focuses on similarities among early Islamic traditions. She argues instead that, under the guidance of the Fāṭimid Ismā'īlī chief missionary al-Mu'ayyad fī al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī (d. 1078 CE), the concept of walāyah (divine guidance) became closely associated with religio-political authority, on the one hand, and the perfection of the individual human being, on the other. By signaling and affirming how the Fāṭimid caliph-imām's were the heirs of walāyah and by proposing new definitions of the "seal of God's friends" (khātim al-awliyā' Allāh), al- Mu'ayyad broadened the contexts of making esoteric knowledge public and shifted the apocalyptic frameworks of Islamic messianism.
Download or read book Emotion in Christian and Islamic Contemplative Texts 1100 1250 written by A. S. Lazikani and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-06-07 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a comparative study of emotion in Arabic Islamic and English Christian contemplative texts, c. 1110-1250, contributing to the emerging interest in ‘globalization’ in medieval studies. A.S.Lazikani argues for the necessity of placing medieval English devotional texts in a more global context and seeks to modify influential narratives on the ‘history of emotions’ to enable this more wide-ranging critical outlook. Across eight chapters, the book examines the dialogic encounters generated by comparative readings of Muhyddin Ibn ‘Arabi (1165-1240), ‘Umar Ibn al-Fārid (1181-1235), Abu al-Hasan al-Shushtarī (d. 1269), Ancrene Wisse (c. 1225), and the Wooing Group (c. 1225). Investigating the two-fold ‘paradigms of love’ in the figure of Jesus and in the image of the heart, the (dis)embodied language of affect, and the affective semiotics of absence and secrecy, Lazikani demonstrates an interconnection between the religious traditions of early Christianity and Islam.
Download or read book Women s Literary Cultures in the Global Middle Ages written by Kathryn Loveridge and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2023-04-04 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Initiates a wider development of inquiries into women's literary cultures to move the reader beyond single geographical, linguistic, cultural and period boundaries. Since the closing decades of the twentieth century, medieval women's writing has been the subject of energetic conversation and debate. This interest, however, has focused predominantly on western European writers working within the Christian tradition: the Saxon visionaries, Mechthild of Hackeborn, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Gertrude the Great, for example, and, in England, Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe are cases in point. While this present book acknowledges the huge importance of such writers to women's literary history, it also argues that they should no longer be read solely within a local context. Instead, by putting them into conversation with other literary women and their cultures from wider geographical regions and global cultures - women from eastern Europe and their books, dramas and music; the Welsh gwraig llwyn a pherth (woman of bush and brake); the Indian mystic, Mirabai; Japanese women writers from the Heian period; women saints from across Christian Europe and those of eleventh-century Islam or late medieval Ethiopia; for instance - much more is to be gained in terms of our understanding of the drivers behind and expressions of medieval women's literary activities in far broader contexts. This volume considers the dialogue, synergies, contracts and resonances emerging from such new alignments, and to help a wider, multidirectional development of this enquiry into women's literary cultures.
Download or read book Islam written by compiled form Wikipedia entries and published by Dr Googelberg and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Literary Orientalism Postcolonialism and Universalism written by Abdulla Al-Dabbagh and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2010 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A number of the greatest classics (both old and modern) of English literature, extending from Antony and Cleopatra to A Passage to India, contain a sympathetic portrayal of the East, which connects them to each other in a way that justifies the term «literary orientalism». Literary Orientalism, Postcolonialism, and Universalism describes this clearly discernable tradition and examines certain key texts of oriental literature for the strong impact that they have had on English literature and for the striking manner in which they have been absorbed and appropriated into British culture. The Arabian Nights stands foremost among these works, which include the Maqamat, Ibn Tufayl's Hayy Bin Yaqdhan, as well as the oriental sources of courtly love. Literary Orientalism, Postcolonialism, and Universalism then moves from literary orientalism to a discussion of postcolonialism and postcolonial discourse. It argues, principally, that the time has come to go beyond orientalism and postcolonialism to a more universalist approach. The inadequacies of the term «postcolonial», in particular, and the Eurocentric and Westernist perspective it implies, affirm the need for a renewed, modern form of humanism, a new humanist universalism.
Download or read book Shakespeare the Orient and the Critics written by Abdulla Al-Dabbagh and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2010 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Previous criticism has not adequately discussed oriental aspects of the content of Shakespearean drama. In addition to his portrayal of oriental figures (such as Cleopatra, Othello, and Shylock) and his use of literary genres and motifs that have roots in oriental tradition (such as that of the tragic romance in Romeo and Juliet, there are certain key elements in Shakespeare's thought and outlook that can only be properly understood within the larger contribution of the oriental legacy. This legacy has clear relevance not only to the exemplary fate of the lovers in Romeo and Juliet, but also to the destinies of such major Shakespearean heroes as Hamlet and Lear. Shakespeare, the Orient, and the Critics investigates the boundaries of oriental framework within works such as Hamlet, King Lear, and The Tempest. Stylistically, at the heart of Shakespeare's orientalism are two long-recognized features of his dramatic art: his predilection for reversing stereotypes and his sympathy and identification with the alien and the «other.» This can be most clearly seen in the love tragedies of Othello and Anthony and Cleopatra as well as the romantic comedy of The Merchant of Venice. Ultimately, the philosophic underpinning of such works is a special expression of Renaissance humanism that transcends the boundaries of class, race, and culture.
Download or read book A Popular Dictionary of Islam written by Ian Richard Netton and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Both a dictionary and a glossary of terms, this work attempts to cover the entire field of Islam - religious, ethical and philosophical. Features include the use of terms most likely to be encountered in current reading, and biographies of eminent Muslim and Islamic scholars throughout the ages.
Download or read book Pathways for Inter Religious Dialogue in the Twenty First Century written by Vladimir Latinovic and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Without question, inter-religious relations are crucial in the contemporary age. While most dialogue works on past and contemporary matters, this volume takes on the relations among the Abrahamic religions and looks forward, toward the possibility of real and lasting dialogue. The book centers upon inter-faith issues. It identifies problems that stand in the way of fostering healthy dialogues both within particular religious traditions and between faiths. The volume's contributors strive for a realization of already existing common ground between religions. They engagingly explore how inter-religious dialogue can be re-energized for a new century.
Download or read book The Sufi Mystery written by Nathaniel P. Archer and published by Octagon Press, Limited. This book was released on 1980 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mystery of the Sufis, in the ancient usage of the word, is the experience of self-realization taught by traditional schools of "mysticism." In English, too, the word "mystery" also stands for an art or craft, a skill; and this sense is also preserved in the Sufic usage of the word "Work," or science of the Sufi: "Knowledge without action is like wax without honey." The Sufi Mystery brings together writings by Ameer Ali, the Islamic historian; Professor E. G. Browne, the Orientalist; Sir Richard Burton; Robert Graves; Idries Shah; and many others. It deals with authentic and mutated schools and orders and their literature over a very wide area of geography and belief. Sufi theories and practices are examined, visits to Sufi centers are described, the relationships of master and disciple investigated, and links with other systems noted.
Download or read book The Sufis written by Idries Shah and published by Octagon Press Ltd. This book was released on 1999 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work offers coverage of the spiritual and psychological tradition of Sufism. It shows that Sufism is not the preserve of ecstatic religionists, but has a contribution to make to human culture and philosophy.
Download or read book The Sufis written by Idries Shah and published by . This book was released on 1964 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents the "secret teaching within all religions", the philosophy of Sufism, and the Sufist viewpoint as expressed in literature.
Download or read book The Archetypal Sunn Scholar written by Aaron Spevack and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2014-09-09 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a rare study of a late premodern Islamic thinker, Ibrahim al- Bājūrī, a nineteenth-century scholar and rector of Cairo's al-Azhar University. Aaron Spevack explores al- Bājūrī's legal, theological, and mystical thought, highlighting its originality and vibrancy in relation to the millennium of scholarship that preceded and informed it, and also detailing its continuing legacy. The book makes a case for the normativity of the Gabrielian Paradigm, the study of law, rational theology, and Sufism, in the person of al- Bājūrī. Soon after his death in 1860, this typical pattern of scholarship would face significant challenges from modernists, reformers, and fundamentalists. Spevack challenges beliefs that rational theology, syllogistic logic, and Sufism were not part of the predominant conception of orthodox scholarship and shows this scholarly archetype has not disappeared as an ideal. In addition, the book contests prevailing beliefs in academic and Muslim circles about intellectual decline from the thirteenth through nineteenth centuries.
Download or read book Thomas Harriot written by Robyn Arianrhod and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-04 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Robyn Arianrhod shows in this new biography, the most complete to date, Thomas Harriot was a pioneer in both the figurative and literal sense. Navigational adviser and loyal friend to Sir Walter Ralegh, Harriot--whose life was almost exactly contemporaneous to Shakespeare's--took part in the first expedition to colonize Virginia in 1585. Not only was he responsible for getting Ralegh's ships safely to harbor in the New World, he was also the first European to acquire a working knowledge of an indigenous language from what is today the US, and to record in detail the local people's way of life. In addition to his groundbreaking navigational, linguistic, and ethnological work, Harriot was the first to use a telescope to map the moon's surface, and, independently of Galileo, recorded the behavior of sunspots and discovered the law of free fall. He preceded Newton in his discovery of the properties of the prism and the nature of the rainbow, to name just two more of his unsung "firsts." Indeed many have argued that Harriot was the best mathematician of his age, and one of the finest experimental scientists of all time. Yet he has remained an elusive figure. He had no close family to pass down records, and few of his letters survive. Most importantly, he never published his scientific discoveries, and not long after his death in 1621 had all but been forgotten. In recent decades, many scholars have been intent on restoring Harriot to his rightful place in scientific history, but Arianrhod's biography is the first to pull him fully into the limelight. She has done it the only way it can be done: through his science. Using Harriot's re-discovered manuscripts, Arianrhod illuminates the full extent of his scientific and cultural achievements, expertly guiding us through what makes them original and important, and the story behind them. Harriot's papers provide unique insight into the scientific process itself. Though his thinking depended on a more natural, intuitive approach than those who followed him, and who achieved the lasting fame that escaped him, Harriot helped lay the foundations of what in Newton's time would become modern physics. Thomas Harriot: A Life in Science puts a human face to scientific inquiry in the Elizabethan and Jacobean worlds, and at long last gives proper due to the life and times of one of history's most remarkable minds.
Download or read book Contemporary Sufism written by Meena Sharify-Funk and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-12-22 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is Sufism? Contemporary views vary tremendously, even among Sufis themselves. Contemporary Sufism: Piety, Politics, and Popular Culture brings to light the religious frameworks that shape the views of Sufism’s friends, adversaries, admirers, and detractors and, in the process, helps readers better understand the diversity of contemporary Sufism, the pressures and cultural openings to which it responds, and the many divergent opinions about contemporary Sufism’s relationship to Islam. The three main themes: piety, politics, and popular culture are explored in relation to the Islamic and Western contexts that shape them, as well as to the historical conditions that frame contemporary debates. This book is split into three parts: • Sufism and anti-Sufism in contemporary contexts; • Contemporary Sufism in the West: Poetic influences and popular manifestations; • Gendering Sufism: Tradition and transformation. This book will fascinate anyone interested in the challenges of contemporary Sufism as well as its relationship to Islam, gender, and the West. It offers an ideal starting point from which undergraduate and postgraduate students, teachers and lecturers can explore Sufism today.
