Tag Archive for: metaphysics

Life after life: Mulla Sadra on death and immortality – Muhammad U. Faruque

Abstract:

The purpose of this article is twofold: first, I will reconstruct Mullā Ṣadrā’s complex arguments for the soul’s immortality based on its immaterial nature. Second and finally, I will briefly probe and assess various epistemological and metaphysical objections against Ṣadrā’s immaterialist conception of the soul. Ṣadrā contends that our bodily death marks an awakening to the reality of our con- sciousness on the plane of the imaginal realm (the imaginal world is an isthmus between the sens- ible world and the world of intelligible forms). For Ṣadrā, ‘death’ does not mark an end or discontinuity in human consciousness, rather it signifies an awakening to a new mode of existence in which the soul, having once been the active principle controlling the actions of the physical body, now manifests itself as the passive recipient of the form given to it by its imaginal reality – a reality shaped by the actions it had performed in its earthly, embodied state. Thus, death is seen as the passage of the soul from the sensible to the imaginal world, until the soul unites with the intelligible world (ʿālam al-ʿaql).

Keywords: soul; death; immateriality; Mullā Ṣadrā; imaginal world; materialism

Life After Life (Faruque)Download

Ibn ʿ⁠Arabī on the Circle of Trusteeship and the Divine Name al-Wakīl – Atif Khalil

Abstract:

With special reference to chapters 119 and 558 of the Meccan Revelations, the article draws out Ibn ʿ⁠Arabī’s (d. 638/1240) understanding of the divine Name al-Wakīl (“The Trustee”) and the nature of trusteeship (wakāla). In the process, it demonstrates how for our mystic trusteeship forms a circle that begins with the human being entrusting his affairs to God, and returns to its point of origin with God entrusting him to be His vicegerent (khalīfa). Trusteeship, which finds its archetypical perfection in the divine Wakīl, descends through various degrees of perfection, to all levels and strata of human society. The capacity to embody and manifest the Name al-Wakīl is, for Ibn ʿ⁠Arabī, itself made possible by the theomorphic nature of the human being, a child of the primor- dial Adam fashioned in the image of God.

Ibn ‘Arabi On The Circle Of Trusteeship (Khalil)Download

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

Islamic Thought and the Art of Translation Texts and Studies in Honor of William C. Chittick and Sachiko Murata Edited by Mohammed Rustom

Abstract:

I have known William Chittick and Sachiko Murata for over half a century as their teacher, friend, colleague, and scholarly collaborator. It was in 1964, when I was the Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Studies at the American University of Beirut, that I first met a young American student named Chittick in one of my classes and during a public lecture I gave at the University. He drew my attention as a gifted student and potentially a serious scholar. During that year he also visited historical Islamic cities in Syria and became deeply attracted to the Islamic intellectual and spiritual tradition. After returning to America for his senior year and having received his bachelor’s degree, he came to Iran where he spent the next dozen years finishing his doctorate at the University of Tehran, becoming later an instructor at Aryamehr University of Technology and the Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy when I headed both institutions.

Front Matter (1)Download
Al-Tasawwuf Al-falsafiDownload

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”

The_Sufi_Path_of_LightDownload