Psychological Integration and the Religious Outlook by Rama P. Coomaraswamy, M.D. (Presented at the 73rd Annual Meeting of The American Orthopsychiatric Association, May 1–4, 1996 Boston, Mass.) Introduction: Regarding the “self” By philosophical background and training, the majority of health care professionals are prone to view religion and/or spirituality through the eyes of psychiatry. The […]
Recollecting the Spirit of Jihad by Reza Shah-Kazemi “When we think how few men of real religion there are, how small the number of defenders and champions of the truth—when one sees ignorant persons imagining that the principle of Islam is hardness, severity, extravagance and barbarity—it is time to repeat these words: Patience is beautiful, […]
Towards a Traditional Understanding of Sexuality by M. Ali Lakhani “In primordial man sexual ecstasy coincides with spiritual ecstasy, it communicates to man an experience of mystical union, a “remembrance” of the Divine Love of which human love is a distant reflection.” Frithjof Schuon “And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall […]
Understanding “Tradition” by M. Ali Lakhani “Tradition has nothing to do with any “ages”, whether “dark”, “primaeval”, or otherwise. Tradition represents doctrines about first principles, which do not change.” Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Correspondence, 1946 “…there is nothing and can be nothing truly traditional that does not contain some element of a super-human order. This indeed […]
“Fundamentalism”: A Metaphysical Perspective by M. Ali Lakhani “…In religion, What damned error, but some sober brow Will bless it and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?” William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, III.ii.77 History is replete with examples of those who have desacrated and degraded religion, sadly and ironically […]
Tradition and Modernity by Frithjof Schuon [This paper was originally written by Schuon for a congress convened in Japan in 1961, which dealt with the crisis of modernity. The text was subsequently published under the title “No Activity without Truth” in the Penguin anthology titled “The Sword of Gnosis” (edited by Jacob Needleman). A version […]
Mulla Sadra on the Hadith of Awakening
Tafsir Ibn Abbas
Traditional Islam in the Modern World (1987)
The Nature of Man-Universal Man by William C. Chittick
This book is a translation of one of the most important texts on the creed of Islam, the Sharh al-‘Aqa’id al-Nasafiyyah of Imam Sa’ad al-Din al-Taftazani (d. 1389). It is a commentary by Taftazani of Imam Abu Hafs al-Nasafi’s (d. 1177) work al-‘Aqa’id al-Nasafiyyah. Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law: Sharh al-‘Aqa’id al-Nasafiyyah