Tag Archive for: Sufi Art

Fallen in Love:Ayn  al-Qudat on Satan as Tragic Lover (updated 2024) – Mohammed Rustom

Ayn  al-Qud~t on Satan as Tragic  Lover

Abstract:

Like every student of Sufism, I have always benefited from Professor Danner’s scholarship, particularly his
pathbreaking translation of and commentary upon Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh’s Ḥikam or Aphorisms. I also spent a good deal
of time as a graduate student reading his 1970 Harvard University PhD thesis on Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh, and since then have had many opportunities to delve into his writings, such as his still unmatched survey article on the development of Sufism that was published in 1987 in the first volume of Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s excellent edited collection of articles entitled Islamic Spirituality. One of the motifs recurrent in Professor Danner’s thoughtful and carefully documented research is the role of the spiritual master along the Sufi path. This makes perfect sense, given how much time he spent reading the great masters of the Sufi tradition and meditating on the significance of the student-teacher relationship in various traditional and modern Sufi contexts. In one of his articles going back to

Fallen In Love (Danner Memorial Lecture Series, 2024)Download

Qur’anic Narrative and Sufi Hermeneutics: Rumı’s Interpretations of Pharaoh’s Character – A Dissertation Presented by Amer Latif

Abstract:

“This dissertation examines Jalal al-din Rumi (d. 1273) hermeneutics of the Qur’an by focusing on his interpretations of the Qur’anic character of Pharaoh. Although Rumı did not write a commentary in the traditional genre of tafsır by commenting on the Qur’an in a linear verse by verse fashion, significant portions of his poetry are explicitly devoted to Qur’anic interpretation. This study proposes that poetical writings, such as Rumı’s, deserve a prominent place in the field of Qur’anic interpretation. Chapter one gives a broad overview of Rumı’s hermeneutics of the Qur’an. It shows that while Rumı posits multiple levels of meaning within the Qur’anic text, his interpretations of Qur’anic verses are informed by a binary distinction between an outer and inner meaning”

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Review of Rabia from Narrative to Myth – Atif Khalil

Abstract:

“Ever since Margaret Smith (d. 1970) published the Mystic A.D. 717- 801 and Her Fellow Saints in Islam almost a century ago, Rabi’a has remained a figure of abiding interest in the study of lslam in the West. For Muslims, she has often embodied the archetype of the selfless lover of God, the devotee whose sole desire is neither to be saved from Hell nor to be granted Paradise, but to receive the Beloved’s acceptance. Rabi’a Yet, how many of the stories and accounts of Rabi’a that have been recorded and repeated for more than a millennium of lslamic history actually took place? How much of what has been bequeathed to us about her by countless generations is historically accurate? This is one the guiding aims of the book: to disentangle, as much as possible, the “real” Rabi’a from the one of legend and lore. In this archival endeavor, which involved closely scrutinizing more primary sources than any other study on her thus far, Rkia Cornell left virtually no stone unturned. And in the process of doing so, she produced a theoretically rich 400+ page tome, not only on Rabi’a, but also on the unfolding and development of early Islamic ascetical, mystical”

Review Of Cornell By Khalil PDFDownload

“if I must die” Japanese translation of Refaat Alareer’s poem written in traditional Japanese calligraphy – Naoki Yamamoto

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  1. Source: https://twitter.com/NaokiQYamamoto ↩︎

Creating an Islamicate Fiction: Futuwwa Samurai Art – Dr Qayyim Naoki Yamamoto

Decolonizing Quranic Studies –  Joseph E. B. Lumbard

Abstract:

The legacy of colonialism continues to influence the analysis of the Quran in the Euro-American academy. While Muslim lands are no longer directly colonized, intellectual colonialism continues to prevail in the privileging of Eurocentric systems of knowledge production to the detriment and even exclusion of modes of analysis that developed in the Islamic world for over a thousand years. This form of intellectual hegemony often results in a multifaceted epistemological reductionism that denies efficacy to the analytical tools developed by the classical Islamic tradition. The presumed intellectual superiority of Euro-American analytical modes has become a constitutive and persistent feature of Quranic Studies, influencing all aspects of the field. Its persistence prevents some scholars from encountering, let alone employing, the analytical tools of the classical Islamic tradition and presents obstacles to a broader discourse in the international community of Quranic Studies scholars. Acknowledging the obstacles to which the coloniality of knowledge has given rise


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An Interview with Abdel Baki Meftah,Algerian Master of Akbarian Teachings

Abstract: This interview seeks to introduce English-speaking audiences to the life and work of Abdel Baki Meftah, a major contemporary interpreter of Ibn ʿArabi and his school. To date, he has published nearly thirty books in Arabic on Ibn ʿArabi, which include expositions of his life, in-depth studies of particular themes and concepts in Ibn ʿArabi’s writings, com- mentaries upon some of Ibn ʿArabi’s key works, and a four-volume compilation and discussion of Ibn ʿArabi’s Sufi readings of verses from the Quran. In addition to writing more than ten other books on Sufi concepts, important Sufi orders and practices, and the thought of Amir ʿAbd al-Qadir al-Jazaʾiri, Meftah has also translated into Arabic ten of René Guénon’s writings and compiled two collections of his essays. The interview, which is presented here in condensed form, was conducted in Arabic by Hany Ibrahim and Mohammed Rustom in August 2021 and translated into English by Omar Edaibat.

Interview With Abdel Baki Meftah (JMIAS 72, 2022)Download

Atonement, Returning, and Repentance in Islam – Atif Khalil

Abstract:

“The aim of this article is to demonstrate how in Islam the principle mechanism for atonement lies in tawba(returning, repentance). Divided into four sections, and drawing primarily on the literature of classical Sufism, the analysis begins by defining some key terms related to the idea of atonement, with special attention to the language of the Quran. Then it outlines three conditions of returning, repentance, and atonement, delineated by classical Muslim authorities, before turning to a brief overview of the concept of amending wrongs or settings matters aright. It concludes with some final remarks about the possibilities of atonement available until death, and the soteriological role divine mercy is believed to play in the posthumous states of the soul“

Atonement_Returning_and_Repentance_in_IsDownload

The Sufi Path of Light Translated by Khalid Williams & Yousef Casewit

Abstract:

“Our Lord is Light; our holy Prophet is Light; our unswerving Islamic faith is Light; our Holy Qurʾān is Light; and our prayer is Light. Why then do you wish to live in darkness? Why do you aloofly imagine, with your delimited and narrow mind, that the Light is merely an abstract concept that cannot be seen?” inquires Shaykh Mohamed Faouzi al-Karkari. Divine Light, luminous vision (mushāhada), and mystical experience are central to the Qurʾānic revelation, the Hadith corpus, and the Sufi tradition. In this major contemporary treatise on Islamic spirituality, Shaykh al-Karkari provides a detailed esoteric commentary on the Light Verse (āyat al-nūr) as well as other verses concerning Light in the Qurʾān. He then highlights the centrality of luminous vision in the teachings of renowned Sufis of the Shādhiliyya order and beyond, including Abū Madyan and Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī. The book concludes with a commentary on Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Illāh al-Iskandarī’s aphorisms on luminous vision. Throughout the treatise, the Shaykh identifies popular questions pertaining to contemporary Sufi practice and invites us to consider the challenges we face along the spiritual path. He proclaims, “You know Islam with your bodily idol, yet your spirit does not recognize it, for you are absent from witnessing the Lights of the Real and the Lights of His holy Messenger. You say, “I bear witness,” yet your insight is blotted out, your heart blind, and your inner heart rusted over. Your testimony is mere speech, not witnessing. Come with me, then, upon a voyage into the depths of pure meaning. Let us travel from one verse to another, until you come to know that the road has been one from the Messenger of God until today-the road named the Radiant Path, whose night is as bright as its day, from which none stray but those bound for”

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