Sufism: Love and Wisdom (Perennial Philosophy) - Softcover

Jean-Louis Michon; Roger Gaetani

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0941532755 ISBN 13: 9780941532754

Publisher: World Wisdom, 2006

Synopsis

For hundreds of years, the inner spiritual core of Islam has been the focus of Sufi thinkers. These essays allow the reader to understand the wisdom and history of Sufism.

About this title

From the Publisher:

The present work is one of the most valuable anthologies devoted to Sufism in a Western language and is in fact unique in its authenticity combined with diversity. In order to understand the value of this work, it is necessary to turn briefly to the history of the study of Sufism in the Occident. In contrast to the fields of theology, philosophy, and the sciences, there were no translations of Sufi texts into Latin during the Middle Ages. The knowledge received about Sufism in the West by such men as Dante and, somewhat later, St. John of the Cross came from vernacular languages, oral transmission, and personal contact. The first work to use the term "Sufism," as ta'awwuf has come to be known in the West, was in fact written in 1821 by a German scholar by the name of August Tholuck, who wrote a study of the subject entitled Sufismus: sive Theosophia Persarum pantheistica. The later eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries were also witness to the translations of Sufi texts from both Persian and Arabic into English, German, French, and some other European languages. The works of such translators as Sir William Jones, von Hammer Purgstall, and Rückert began to be read in literary and even philosophical circles and attracted major figures such as Goethe and Emerson. But the influence of Sufism during the Romantic Movement remained for the most part literary, and not philosophical and metaphysical, at least not as these terms are understood in a traditional context.

About the Author:

Roger Gaetani is an editor and long-time student of Sufism. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana.

Jean-Louis Michon is a traditionalist French scholar and art consultant who specializes in Islam in North Africa, Islamic art, and Sufism. His works include Autobiography of a Moroccan Sufi: Ahmad Ibn ‘Ajiba (1747-1809) and Lights of Islam: Institutions, Cultures, Arts, and Spirituality in the Islamic City. He lives in Switzerland.

About this edition

• Publisher: World Wisdom
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0941532755
• ISBN 13: 9780941532754
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 280