Sufism through the eyes of a legal scholar In The Requirements of the Sufi Path, the renowned North African historian and jurist Ibn Khaldūn applies his analytical powers to Sufism, which he deems a bona fide form of Islamic piety. Ibn Khaldūn is widely known for his groundbreaking work as a sociologist and historian, in particular for the Muqaddimah, the introduction to his massive universal history. In The Requirements of the Sufi Path, he writes from the perspective of an Islamic jurist and legal scholar. He characterizes Sufism and the stages along the Sufi path and takes up the the question of the need for a guide along that path. In doing so, he relies on the works of influential Sufi scholars, including al-Qushayrī, al-Ghazālī, and Ibn al-Khaṭīb. Even as Ibn Khaldūn warns of the extremes to which some Sufis go—including practicing magic—his work is essentially a legal opinion, a fatwa, asserting the inherent validity of the Sufi path. The Requirements of the Sufi Path incorporates the wisdom of three of Sufism’s greatest voices as well as Ibn Khaldūn’s own insights, acquired through his intellectual encounters with Sufism and his broad legal expertise. All this he brings to bear on the debate over Sufi practices in a remarkable work of synthesis and analysis. An English-only edition.

The material in The Nature of the Sufi Path consists of 70 commentaries on a book entitled Sufism: A Short Introduction by Professor William C. Chittick. Many, if not most, of the paragraphs that comprise the 163 pages (preface plus text) of Professor Chittick’s book contain problems, errors, misleading statements, and/or incorrect understandings concerning Islam, in general, and the Sufi path, in particular. This is both surprising and disturbing since the author is someone who, apparently, enjoys a considerable reputation in North America -- and, perhaps, elsewhere in the world -- as an expert on, and scholar of, the Sufi mystical tradition. I do not claim that what I say in this book is a definitive, exhaustive, ‘incapable-of-being-improved-upon’ treatment of the Sufi path. Rather, my hope is that the present book might move a person closer to the truth concerning the nature of that path than Professor Chittick’s aforementioned introduction to Sufism does and, as such, would represent an improvement over his work.

This is the most accessible work in English on the greatest mystical poet of Islam, providing a survey of the basic Sufi and Islamic doctrines concerning God and the world, the role of man in the cosmos, the need for religion, man's ultimate becoming, the states and stations of the mystical ascent to God, and the means whereby literature employs symbols to express "unseen" realities. William Chittick translates into English for the first time certain aspects of Rumi's work. He selects and rearranges Rumi's poetry and prose in order to leave aside unnecessary complications characteristic of other English translations and to present Rumi's ideas in an orderly fashion, yet in his own words. Thorough, nontechnical introductions to each chapter, and selections that gradually present a greater variety of terms and images, make this work easily accessible to those interested in the spirituality of any tradition.

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.

This collection of articles by artists, philosophers, psychologists, and social scientists explores the Sufi tradition and its best-known teacher, Rumi, a 13th-century poet, jurist, and philosopher. Setting aside the standard account of Rumi as a poet of mystic love, these contributors view his writings in a historical context, investigating Sufism''s ties to Islam and the teachings of the Prophet Mohammad and tracing Rumi''s influence on Persian and Turkish literature. The reasons why Sufism has transcended national boundaries and sectarian strife so successfully are also debated, and several contributors recommend the Sufi message of faith, love, and tolerance as a useful common ground for dialogue between religious groups.

"An eleventh-century satire in the form of a novella, set in a medical milieu, [in which] a young doctor from out of town is invited to dinner with a group of older medical men, whose conversation reveals their incompetence"--

DISCOURSES ON THE SUFI PATH is the complete collection of informal, heartful talks delivered by Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh to a group of his disciples several years ago, along with the collected aphorisms. The meanings of numerous key Sufi terms, such as "sincerity," "love," "chivalry," "attraction and "social conduct," "pain and cure," and "master disciple," are explained clearly and powerfully, providing a source of guideance and inspiration for anyone on a spiritual path. Several years ago, Dr. Nurbakhsh for the first time began to deliver a series of discourses on Sufism directly to a group of his disciples in London. The purpose of these speeches was to present the basic practices and principles of Sufism in such simple language and such a straightforward manner that all sufis, no matter what their background, would be able to follow and understand them. Discourses on the Sufi Path is a collection of 40 of those speeches.

Liu Zhi (c1662-c1730), a well-known Muslim scholar writing in Chinese, published outstanding theological works, short treatises, and short poems on Islam. While traditional Arabic and Persian Islamic texts used unfamiliar concepts to explain Islam, Liu Zhi translated both text and concepts into Chinese culture. In this erudite volume, David Lee examines how Liu Zhi integrated the basic religious living of the monotheistic Hui Muslims into their pluralistic Chinese culture. Liu Zhi discussed the Prophet Muhammad in Confucian terms, and his work served as a bridge between peoples. This book is an in-depth study of Liu Zhi's contextualization of Islam within Chinese scholarship that argues his merging of the two never deviated from the basic principles of Islamic belief.

Omar Khayyam’s Secret: Hermeneutics of the Robaiyat in Quantum Sociological Imagination, authored by Mohammad H. Tamdgidi, is a 12-book series of which this is the 4th volume, subtitled Khayyami Philosophy: The Ontological Structures of the Robaiyat in Omar Khayyam’s Last Written Keepsake Treatise on the Science of the Universals of Existence. Each book, independently readable, can be best understood as a part of the whole series. Having confirmed in the prior three books of the series the true dates of birth and passing of Omar Khayyam, his pen name origins, and his authorship of a robaiyat collection, Tamdgidi explores in this fourth book the origins, nature, and purpose of such a collection by applying the series’ quantum sociological imagination method to hermeneutically explore the ontological structures of the Robaiyat in Khayyam’s last written treatise. Khayyam’s treatise, found in the early 20th century and still largely ignored or misread, radically challenges the mythical narratives built over the centuries about him as one who thought existence is unknowable, having died not solving its riddles. Strangely, his treatise instead offers a logically coherent and brilliant worldview of someone who has found his answers as far as human existence is concerned. Khayyam even goes so far as confidently saying he hopes his peers would agree that his brief treatise is more useful than volumes. Offering the Persian text and his new English translation of the treatise, Tamdgidi undertakes in this book a detailed clause-based hermeneutic study of the treatise. He also explores its broader intellectual and historical contexts by examining its relation to the book “Savior from Error” by Khayyam’s junior (by more than three decades) contemporary foe, Muhammad Ghazali, while questioning the long-held belief that the treatise was requested by and addressed to Fakhr ol-Molk, a son of the famous vizier Nezam ol-Molk. Tamdgidi finds instead that the treatise was written in AD 1095-96, a few years earlier than thought, for another son of Nezam ol-Molk, Moayyed ol-Molk, who served at the time Soltan Muhammad, Malekshah’s son. The treatise was intended as a philosophical foundation to move the post-Malekshah Iran in a more independent direction by way of influencing his son, Muhammad. Ghazali in his book, likely written to please Ahmad Sanjar (Malekshah’s younger son who disliked Khayyam) and his vizier at the time, Fakhr ol-Molk, anonymously chastised Khayyam as a philosopher, duplicitously feeding the cynical metaphors that some theologians and Sufis hurled at Khayyam down the centuries. Khayyam’s treatise unveils his vision of existence as a participatory universe where the subject has objective status, shedding a new light on the ontological structures of the Robaiyat. His “succession order” thesis of existence is an alternative Islamic creationist-evolutionary worldview that offers a prescient quantum conceptualist vision of the universe as a unitary, relatively self-reliant, self-knowing, and self-creative, substance lovingly created by an absolutely good God in His own image. Existence is essentially good but, due to its good volitionally self-creative nature, can be potentially subject to incidental defects that are nevertheless knowable and curable to build both a spiritually fulfilling and a joyful life in this world. Other than God’s Necessary Existence there is no “another world”; judgment days, heavens, and hells are definitely real this-worldly, not after-worldly, existents. In Khayyam’s view, human existence can be what good we artfully make of it, starting here-and-now from our own personal selves in our this-worldly lifetimes. It is to creatively realize such an existence that the Robaiyat must have been intended. CONTENTS About OKCIR—i Published to Date in the Series—ii About this Book—iv About the Author—viii Notes on Transliteration—xvii Acknowledgments—xix Preface to Book 4: Recap from Prior Books of the Series—1 Introduction to Book 4: The Unique Significance of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on the Science of the Universals of Existence, His Last Written in Persian for Keepsake—7 CHAPTER I—The Persian Text and A New English Translation of Omar Khayyam’s “Treatise on the Science of the Universals of Existence” (Resaleh dar Elm-e Kolliyat-e Vojood)—17 CHAPTER II—Hermeneutic Analysis of Clauses 1-19 of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on the Science of the Universals of Existence: Descending the Succession Order—45 CHAPTER III—Hermeneutic Analysis of Clauses 20-50 of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on the Science of the Universals of Existence: Ascending the Succession Order—121 CHAPTER IV—Understanding the Succession Order and Its Active Intellect: Comparative Notes on Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on the Science of the Universals of Existence—179 CHAPTER V—The Foe Who Wrongly Spoke: How Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on the Science of the Universals of Existence Compares to Muhammad Ghazali’s Book “Savior from Error”—207 CHAPTER VI—Moayyed ol-Molk or Fakhr ol-Molk?: Who Requested Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on the Science of the Universals of Existence and When Was It Written?—249 CHAPTER VII—Interpreting Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on the Science of the Universals of Existence in Light of Its Intellectual and Historical Contexts As a Whole—279 CHAPTER VIII—The Ontological Structures of the Robaiyat in Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on the Science of the Universals of Existence—321 Conclusion to Book 4: Summary of Findings—347 Appendix: Transliteration System and Book 4 Glossary—375 Book 4 Cumulative Glossary of Transliterations—388 Book 4 References—397 Book 4 Index—401