This volume, the ninth on Islamic material to be published in the Classics of Western Spirituality series, brings to light a highly significant but little known area of Islamic spirituality. Editor John Renard has assembled here a volume of texts, most translated here for the first time, culled from the great Sufi manuals of spirituality, on the theme of the complex and multi-faceted role of knowledge in relation to the spiritual life. He presents excerpts on knowledge from the works of nine major Muslim teachers, most translated from Arabic, but also including important texts from Persian originals. The Introduction offers a survey of the development of Sufi modes of knowing through the thirteenth century in their broader context, and then focuses on the manuals or compendia of Sufi spirituality treated here. Historical notes provide brief identifications of many of the individual sources and personalities mentioned throughout the treatises. +

Sufism and Theology are two major currents in Islamic thought and religious culture, and over the centuries they have displayed immense diversity and intellectual richness. This book takes a flexible and inclusive approach to these trends, revealing both how Sufis approached theological traditions and themes and practised theology themselves, and how theologians approached different aspects of Sufism. Comprising chapters by leading specialists in the field, this volume is the first to explore the historically complex interface between these two major currents, highlighting key points of tension and interaction. Taking us through an array of subjects, including hermeneutics, psychology and metaphysics, light is shed on major intellectual trends and figures from the 12th century up to the modern period. These range from al-Hallaj, Ibn 'Arabi and Ibn Sab'in, to Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, Ibn Taymiyya, Haydar Amuli and Ibn Kemal Pasha, from the Ottoman context to the Safavid, and from Sunnism to Shi'ism

Ibn al-'Arabi is still known as "the Great Sheik" among the surviving Sufi orders. Born in Muslim Spain, he has become famous in the West as the greatest mystical thinker of Islamic civilization. He was a great philosopher, theologian, and poet. William Chittick takes a major step toward exposing the breadth and depth of Ibn al-'Arabi's vision. The book offers his view of spiritual perfection and explains his theology, ontology, epistemology, hermeneutics, and soteriology. The clear language, unencumbered by methodological jargon, makes it accessible to those familiar with other spiritual traditions, while its scholarly precision will appeal to specialists. Beginning with a survey of Ibn al-'Arabi's major teachings, the book gradually introduces the most important facets of his thought, devoting attention to definitions of his basic terminology. His teachings are illustrated with many translated passages introducing readers to fascinating byways of spiritual life that would not ordinarily be encountered in an account of a thinker's ideas. Ibn al-'Arabi is allowed to describe in detail the visionary world from which his knowledge derives and to express his teachings in his own words. More than 600 passages from his major work, al-Futuhat al-Makkivva, are translated here, practically for the first time. These alone provide twice the text of the Fusus al-hikam. The exhaustive indexes make the work an invaluable reference tool for research in Sufism and Islamic thought in general.

Translations and analyses of three Persian Sufi texts, offering a perspective on Islam that is rarely met in modern works.

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This book aims at outlining the fundamental tenets of Sufi Mysticism, which derived its inspiration from the teachings of the Quran and developed as 'a process of spititual culture' within the framework of Islam. Book devoted to delineations of Sufi concepts of God in immanence and transcendence; the worship of God and the descent of the absolute ; inward and outward experience of divine presence; the concepts of good and evil, free will and determinism. The Quranic Sufism is highly acclaimed. It fills the void felt by researchers and scholars as well as general readers.

Islam in Historical Perspective is a general introduction to Islam and the history of Muslim societies. Richly illustrated by quotations and images from Muslim scripture, historical chronicles, artistic works, and theological and juridical treatises, it invites the reader to examine this evidence and to form a comprehensive understanding of Islam’s evolution from its inception in Arabia to the present day. Combining chronological and thematic principles, this book examines Muslims’ political and intellectual struggles over the meaning and practical implications of their faith. Treating Islam as a language that various factions and generations of Muslims have used to express their grievances, aspirations, and personal experiences and preferences, the book shows the religion’s remarkable potency as a social, political, and cultural force and source of identity. It also describes and analyses Muslim devotional practices, emotional responses to the revelation, artistic and intellectual creativity, and patterns of everyday existence. The goal of this book is to help the reader to develop personal empathy for the subject by showing the relevance of the dilemmas faced by Muslims in different epochs and geographical locations to the burning issues of today’s world. A thorough analysis of pivotal events, trends, and personalities of Islamic history is accompanied by witness accounts showing how they were perceived by Muslims themselves. This new edition features a thoroughly revised text, updated bibliography, new illustrations, study questions and chapter summaries, and is an outstanding resource for students of Islam and Muslim civilization.

This book demonstrates how a local elite built upon colonial knowledge to produce a vernacular knowledge that maintained the older legacy of a pluralistic Sufism. As the British reprinted a Sufi work, Shah Abd al-Latif Bhittai's Shah jo risalo, in an effort to teach British officers Sindhi, the local intelligentsia, particularly driven by a Hindu caste of professional scribes (the Amils), seized on the moment to promote a transformation from traditional and popular Sufism (the tasawuf) to a Sufi culture (Sufiyani saqafat). Using modern tools, such as the printing press, and borrowing European vocabulary and ideology, such as Theosophical Society, the intelligentsia used Sufism as an idiomatic matrix that functioned to incorporate difference and a multitude of devotional traditions—Sufi, non-Sufi, and non-Muslim—into a complex, metaphysical spirituality that transcended the nation-state and filled the intellectual, spiritual, and emotional voids of postmodernity.