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First published in 1993. This is a collection of Selected Verses
from Nasir-i Khusraw's Dzvan. The work of the Persian author in
both its philosophical and poetical aspects has been known in the
West for more than a century. The outward political and religious
events of the first half of the eleventh century were the canvas on
which Nasir-i Khusraw's poetry and prose developed.
First published in 1993. This is a collection of Selected Verses
from Nasir-i Khusraw's Dzvan. The work of the Persian author in
both its philosophical and poetical aspects has been known in the
West for more than a century. The outward political and religious
events of the first half of the eleventh century were the canvas on
which Nasir-i Khusraw's poetry and prose developed.
This account of the Sufi order of Mevlevi dervishes and its
founder, the poet and mystic Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, presents the
esoteric wisdom of the Sufis as it has been handed down from the
great teachers of the past without alienating the modern reader. In
addition to Rumi's life story, accounts of dervishes past and
present are included. Featured are excerpts from Rumi's poetry,
teachings of other Sufi masters, descriptions of the dervish lodges
and the symbolism of the dervish ceremony, and an overview of the
music that accompanies the Mevlevis' dances. Haunting, evocative
pictures of the order's dancers clad in traditional dress provide a
glimpse of ceremonies usually closed to the public.
"In these critical times nothing could be more valuable for the
West than a rediscovery of its true spiritual heritage: books which
were once the treasures of people, now rare and little-known."
Seyyed Hossein Nasr Director, Imperial Iranian Academy of
Philosophy, Tehran Ibn 'Ata' Illah/Kwaja Abdullah Ansari: The Book
of Wisdom translation, introduction and notes by Victor Danner. "My
God, You have commanded me to return to created things, so return
me to them with the raiment of lights and the guidance of inner
vision, so that I may return form them to You just as I entered You
from them..." Ibn "Ata" Illah, c. 1250-1309 This highly treasured
book embodies the essence of spiritual life in the Islamic
tradition. Its author, a well known Sufi saint and sage of 13th
century Egypt, lived during the flowering of new Sufi Orders.
Muslims of every age have been drawn to the simple, aphoristic
nature of The Book of Wisdom and have learned its practical poetry
by heart. This Arabic work is in three parts-the maxims, the
treatises and the intimate conversations. Victor Danner's new
translation maintains the timeless quality of this work as an
ever-fresh affirmation of the life in the spirit. Kwaja Abdullah
Ansari, Intimate Conversations translation, introduction and notes
by Wheeler M. Thackston. "O God , if the night of separations is
dark, we still rejoice, for the morning of union is nigh... O God,
what grace is this that you have bestowed on your friends? Whoever
recognizes you finds them and whoever finds you recognizes them."
Kwaja Abdullah Ansari, 1006-1089 One of the major early writers of
Persian mystical literature, Ansari is best loved for this
collection of simple flowing sentences long used as a devotional
handbook. In these very human dialogues with God, Ansari speaks of
a love and longing for his Creator as well as the frustration at
his own human frailty.
Clear and concise, this introduction to Sufism familiarizes readers
with the diverse and multifaceted nature of Sufism, a dimension of
Islam. The author provides an examination of the fundamental
concepts, origins, important figures, orders, sectors, and symbolic
texts of Sufism that is both thorough and highly accessible.
"Clara, amena y concisa, esta introduccion al sufismo familiarizara
a los lectores al caracter multifacetico de esta dimension del
Islam. La autora aclara los conceptos fundamentales del sufismo,
examina sus origenes, destaca las figuras mas representativas y
presenta sus ordenes, fraternidades y textos emblematicos en una
manera rigurosa y asequible."
This book offers an examination of the sources and evolution of
personal authority in one Islamic society.""Sufi Heirs of the
Prophet"" explores the multifaceted development of personal
authority in Islamic societies by tracing the transformation of one
mystical sufi lineage in colonial India, the Naqshbandiyya. Arthur
F. Buehler isolates four sources of personal authority evident in
the practices of the Naqshbandiyya - lineage, spiritual traveling,
status as a Prophetic exemplar, and the transmission of religious
knowledge - to demonstrate how Muslim religious leaders have
exercised charismatic leadership through their association with the
most compelling of personal Islamic symbols, the Prophet Muhammad.
Buehler clarifies the institutional structure of sufism, analyzes
overlapping configurations of personal sufi authority, and details
how and why revivalist Indian Naqshbandis abandoned spiritual
practices that had sustained their predecessors for more than five
centuries. He looks specifically at the role of Jamacat cAli Shah
(d. 1951) to explain current Naqshbandi practices.
Annemarie Schimmel, one of the world's foremost authorities on
Persian literature, provides a comprehensive introduction to the
complicated and highly sophisticated system of rhetoric and imagery
used by the poets of Iran, Ottoman Turkey, and Muslim India. She
shows that these images have been used and refined over the
centuries and reflect the changing conditions in the Muslim world.
According to Schimmel, Persian poetry does not aim to be
spontaneous in spirit or highly personal in form. Instead it is
rooted in conventions and rules of prosody, rhymes, and verbal
instrumentation. Ideally, every verse should be like a precious
stone--perfectly formed and multifaceted--and convey the dynamic
relationship between everyday reality and the transcendental.
Persian poetry, Schimmel explains, is more similar to medieval
European verse than Western poetry as it has been written since the
Romantic period. The characteristic verse form is the ghazal --a
set of rhyming couplets--which serves as a vehicle for shrouding in
conventional tropes the poet's real intentions. Because Persian
poetry is neither narrative nor dramatic in its overall form, its
strength lies in an ""architectonic"" design; each precisely
expressed image is carefully fitted into a pattern of linked
figures of speech. Schimmel shows that at its heart Persian poetry
transforms the world into a web of symbols embedded in Islamic
culture. |Schimmel provides a comprehensive study of the
complicated and highly sophisticated system of rhetoric and imagery
used by the poets of Iran, Ottoman Turkey, and Muslim India. She
shows that images in Persian poetry have been used and refined over
the centuries and reflect changing conditions in the Muslim world.
The devotional and mystical literature of the Ismailis in the
Indo-Pakistan subcontinent is a little known but rich seam of
creativity in the cultural heritage of Islam. This book focuses on
the ginans - a large corpus of hymns and poems composed in a
variety of Indic languages and attributed to a series of
preacher-saints who propogated the Ismaili form of Islam in the
subcontinent over several centuries. Situating the gians in the
larger context of Sufi, Bhakti and Sant poetry in medieval India,
the author explores their history, characteristics, themes and
prosody, as well as the unique Khojki script in which they were
recorded. He also highlights the continuing vitality of this
tradition in the religious life of Nizari Ismaili communities of
South Asian origin.
This text presents the complicated story of how a poetic tradition
evolved in a number of different languages over a period of
twelvehundred years. It involves the history of Sufism, the
tensions between mysticism and orthodoxy in Islamic thought and the
problem of interpreting a poetic language which is both sensual and
sacred. The first three chapters consider initially the development
of mystical poetry in Arabic from the 9th century, including the
work of Hallaj, and then move on to discuss Persian poetry in a
similar manner, with particular focus on the work of Rumi. The
diffusion of Arabic and Persian literary influence in the many
other languages spoken in the vast area affected by Islam is the
subject of the final two chapters, which cover firstly folk poetry
and, subsequently, poetry in praise of the Prophet.
Born in 1004, Nasir-i Khusraw was the major poet and philosopher of
the early Ismailiyya. The outward political and religious events of
the first half of the 11th century were the canvas on which Nasir-i
Khusraw's poetry and prose developed. It is a poetry that teaches
the importance of wisdom, of reason, of the right word and the
right faith. Nasir-i edifice of religio-philosophical thought with
its constant emphasis on the true faith and, as importantly, on
reason and its role. Unique and important for our understanding of
the times in which it was written Nasir-i Khusraw's ideas and
expressions appeal strongly to readers of today. . The interest in
Nasir-i Khusraw's poetry lies first in its contents and, from the
purely formal viewpoint, in its consummate artistry. Through the
poet's descriptions of gardens and stars, and his technical skill
in the use of language and metre, the book offers an insight in to
the poet's learning in all areas of Islamic and scientific topics.
Above all, the poet successfully combines poetical skill with a
deep religious conviction. The work of the Persian author in both
its philosophical and poetical aspects has been known in the West
for more than a century, but until now a full evaluation of Nasir-i
Khusraw's poetry - his Divan - has not been attempted. This volume
is intended as a step toward a better understanding of the poet's
thought. In it, the noted Islamic scholar Annemarie Schimmel
presents her translations of Nasir-i Khusraw's qasidas along with a
detailed study of the poet and his work.
This book (previously published as "I Am Wind, You Are Fire ")
celebrates the extraordinary career of Persia's great mystical
poet, Rumi (1207-1273), through the story of his life, along with
an enlightening examination of his ecstatic verse. Rumi lived the
quiet life of a religious teacher in Anatolia until the age of
thirty-seven, when he came under the influence of a whirling
dervish, Shams Tabriz, and was moved to a state of mystical
ecstasy. One of the results of this ecstasy was a prodigious output
of poems about the search for the lost Divine Beloved, whom Rumi
identified with Shams. To symbolize this search, Rumi also invented
the famous whirling dance of the Melevi dervishes, which are
performed accompanied by the chanting of Rumi's poems. Professor
Schimmel illuminates the symbolism and significance of Rumi's vast
output and offers her own translations of some of his most famous
poems.
Although a large body of the great poetry of the Islamic world has
been translated into English, except for a few fragments, the
poetry of the Isma'ilis is still only accessible in the original.
This anthology should enable lovers of devotional and mystical
poetry to sample the great range and depth of Isma'ili poetry. The
selection spans 1000 years of Isma'ili history, from the time of
the Fatimid caliphate to the present day. It includes both
sophisticated and popular verses from the Isma'ili poets of Arabia,
Africa, Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, China, India and Pakistan
composed in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Burushaski and Urdu. In
addition to the theme of divine love and the virtues of the prophet
and the Immans, the poems present some of the central ideas of the
Isma'ilis and their esoteric interpretation of Islam.
'This is one of Schimmel's most important books. It sums up a
lifetime of scholarship on Islam and, more importantly, it puts her
understanding of Islam into a phenomenological framework that will
readily be appreciated by scholars and students of other religious
traditions. It will be looked back upon as a landmark in bringing
Islamic Studies into the mainstream of religious studies.' -William
C. Chittick
The important role of the Prophet Muhammad in the everyday lives of
Muslims is usually overlooked by Western scholars and has
consequently never been understood by the Western world. Using
original sources in the various Islamic languages, Annemarie
Schimmel explains the central place of Muhammad in Muslim life,
mystical thought, and poetry. She sees the veneration of Muhammad
as having many parallels in other major religions.
In order to understand Muslim piety it is necessary to take into
account the long history of the veneration of Muhammad. Schimmel
discusses aspects of his life, birth, marriage, miracles, and
heavenly journey, all of which became subjects for religious
devotions. By using poetic texts and artistic expressions and by
examining daily Muslim religious practices, Schimmel shows us the
gentler side of Islamic religious culture, providing a much-needed
understanding of religion as it is experienced and practiced in the
Islamic world.
This is the first book in English to deal with all aspects of the
veneration of the Prophet Muhammad. It is an expanded version of
Schimmel's "Und Muhammad Ist Sein Prophet," originally published in
German in 1981.
This title is translated by Corinne Attwood. The Mughal empire
(1526 1857) has long been viewed as a wonderland of unimaginable
treasure; it was in fact the mightiest Islamic empire in the
history of India. In this comprehensive cultural history, now
available in paperback, Annemarie Schimmel describes the political,
military and economic rise of the Mughals, their system of rule,
the incredible unfolding of their power and splendour, and their
gradual collapse, finally supplanted by the British colonial empire
in 1857. Beginning with a concise historical overview, she paints a
detailed picture of life at court: of rank and status in this
strictly hierarchical society; of the life of women; of the various
religions, languages and literatures of the Mughal era; of the
patronage of the arts by the rulers; and the remarkable
accomplishments and techniques of artists at the Mughal court. Who,
for example, has not heard of the Taj Mahal, the renowned mausoleum
that the emperor Shah Jahan constructed for his wife in the Indian
city of Agra? This amazing edifice of white marble, inlaid with a
filigree of precious stones, is an impressive demonstration of the
refined sense of beauty of the Mughal rulers. Building and
landscape architecture, painting and literature, indeed, the entire
court culture of the Mughals, all testify to an aesthetic
sensibility within which they strove to harmonise all aspects of
life. "The Empire of the Great Mughals" is a richly illustrated and
fascinating portrait of an advanced civilization, the historical
and cultural legacy of which still inspires universal admiration
today.
Thirty-five years after its original publication, "Mystical
Dimensions of Islam" still stands as the most valuable introduction
to Sufism, the main form of Islamic mysticism. This edition brings
to a new generation of readers Annemarie Schimmel's historical
treatment of the transnational phenomenon of Sufism, from its
beginnings through the nineteenth century.
Schimmel's sensitivity and deep understanding of Sufism--its
origins, development, and historical context--as well as her
erudite examination of Sufism as reflected in Islamic poetry, draw
readers into the mood, the vision, and the way of the Sufi. In the
foreword, distinguished Islam scholar Carl W. Ernst comments on the
continuing vitality of Schimmel's book and the advances in the
study of Sufism that have occurred since the work first appeared.
A fascinating tour of the history of numbers showing that numbers have been filled with mystery and meaning since the earliest times and across every society. This book covers the origins of numbers, the symbolism of numbers, the source of this symbolism, and examines individual numbers from one to ten thousand. Schimmel proves to us that from literature to folklore to superstitions, numbers play a conspicuous and significant role in our lives.
Incorporating her personal experience with yoga into her
provocative philosophical thinking on sexual difference, Irigaray
proposes a new way of understanding individuation and community in
the contemporary world, and an ethic of sexual difference
predicated on a respect for life, nature, and the feminine.
An internationally acclaimed scholar, who has dedicated more than
fifty years of her life to understanding the Islamic
world.Annemarie Schimmel examines a much-misunderstood feature of
Islam: the role of women. Schimmel is critical of those--especially
Western feminists--who take Islam to task without taking the time
to comprehend the cultures, language, and traditions of the many
societies in which Islam is the majority religion.Shattering
stereotypes, Schimmel reconstructs an important but little-known
chapter of Islamic spirituality. With copius examples, she shows
the clear equality of women and meni nthe conception of the Prophet
Muhammad, the Quran, the feminine language of the mystical
tradition, and the role of holy mothers and unmarried women as
manifestations of God.This work is studded with luminous texts from
Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and particularly Indo-Muslim cultures,
which reveal how physical love can give expression to the highest
forms of mysticism.
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