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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Aspects of religions (non-Christian) > Religious experience > Mysticism
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Mystic Bonfires
(Paperback)
Kevin Op Goodrich; Foreword by Bryan Froehle
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R613
R499
Discovery Miles 4 990
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Divine Light
(Hardcover)
Michael H. Mitias
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R816
R665
Discovery Miles 6 650
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Martin Buber's embrace of Hasidism at the start of the twentieth
century was instrumental to the revival of this popular form of
Jewish mysticism. Hoping to instigate a Jewish cultural and
spiritual renaissance, he published a series of anthologies of
Hasidic teachings written in German to introduce the tradition to a
wide audience. In "Aesthetics of Renewal," Martina Urban closely
analyzes Buber's writings and sources to explore his interpretation
of Hasidic spirituality as a form of cultural criticism. For Buber,
Hasidic legends and teachings were not a static, canonical body of
knowledge, but were dynamic and open to continuous
reinterpretation. Urban argues that this representation of Hasidism
was essential to the Zionist effort to restore a sense of unity
across the Jewish diaspora as purely religious traditions
weakened--and that Buber's anthologies in turn played a vital part
in the broad movement to use cultural memory as a means to
reconstruct a collective identity for Jews. As Urban unravels the
rich layers of Buber's vision of Hasidism in this insightful book,
he emerges as one of the preeminent thinkers on the place of
religion in modern culture.
Offering new perspectives on the relationship between Shi'is and
Sufis in modern and pre-modern times, this book challenges the
supposed opposition between these two esoteric traditions in Islam
by exploring what could be called "Shi'i Sufism" and "Sufi-oriented
Shi'ism" at various points in history. The chapters are based on
new research in textual studies as well as fieldwork from a broad
geographical areas including the Indian subcontinent, Anatolia and
Iran. Covering a long period stretching from the early post-Mongol
centuries, throughout the entire Safawid era (906-1134/1501-1722)
and beyond, it is concerned not only with the sphere of the
religious scholars but also with different strata of society. The
first part of the volume looks at the diversity of the discourse on
Sufism among the Shi'i "ulama" in the run up to and during the
Safawid period. The second part focuses on the social and
intellectual history of the most popular Shi'i Sufi order in Iran,
the Ni'mat Allahiyya. The third part examines the relationship
between Shi'ism and Sufism in the little-explored literary
traditions of the Alevi-Bektashi and the Khaksariyya Sufi order.
With contributions from leading scholars in Shi'ism and Sufism
Studies, the book is the first to reveal the mutual influences and
connections between Shi'ism and Sufism, which until now have been
little explored.
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