Companionship and Virtue in Classical Sufism

Companionship and Virtue in Classical Sufism
Author: Jason Welle
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2024-06-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0755652282

Al-Sulami (d. 412/1021) was an influential classical Sufi master whose works espoused companionship as a way for believers to experience God's guidance and cultivate religious virtues. This book provides a historical reconstruction of Sufi companionship in Khurasan in the period, arguing that al-Sulami's concept of suhba (companionship) envisioned the transformation of society as whole, not just the master-disciple relationship. Bringing debates in contemporary virtue ethics to bear on al-Sulami's spiritual method, the book offers an original analysis of the latter's thought that will be of interest to scholars of early Islam and classical Sufism as well as moral theologians interested in virtue ethics, character and friendship.

A Ṣūfī Apologist of Nīshāpūr

A Ṣūfī Apologist of Nīshāpūr
Author: S. Z. Chowdhury
Publisher: Monographis in Arabic and Islamic Studies
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019
Genre: Sufis
ISBN: 9781781795224

A study of Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Sulamī (d.412/1021) who was a leading defender of the cardinal tenets of Sufism from accusations of heresy.This study demonstrates that al-Sulamī was an accomplished mystic. It outlines his life and times, and surveys in full all his works as far as they can be identified.

Islamic Theology and the Problem of Evil

Islamic Theology and the Problem of Evil
Author: Safaruk Chowdhury
Publisher: American University in Cairo Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2021-04-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 164903055X

A rigorous study of the problem of evil in Islamic theology Like their Jewish and Christian co-religionists, Muslims have grappled with how God, who is perfectly good, compassionate, merciful, powerful, and wise permits intense and profuse evil and suffering in the world. At its core, Islamic Theology and the Problem of Evil explores four different problems of evil: human disability, animal suffering, evolutionary natural selection, and Hell. Each study argues in favor of a particular kind of explanation or justification (theodicy) for the respective evil. Safaruk Chowdhury unpacks the notion of evil and its conceptualization within the mainstream Sunni theological tradition, and the various ways in which theologians and philosophers within that tradition have advanced different types of theodicies. He not only builds on previous works on the topic, but also looks at kinds of theodicies previously unexplored within Islamic theology, such as an evolutionary theodicy. Distinguished by its application of an analytic-theology approach to the subject and drawing on insights from works of both medieval Muslim theologians and philosophers and contemporary philosophers of religion, this novel and highly systematic study will appeal to students and scholars, not only of theology but of philosophy as well.

The Comfort of the Mystics

The Comfort of the Mystics
Author: Gerhard Böwering
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 732
Release: 2015-01-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004233628

This critical Arabic text edition of Salwat al-ʿārifīn wa-uns al-mushtāqīn, a manual of early Sufism by Abū Khalaf al-Ṭabarī (d. ca. 470/1077), is based on a very old manuscript preserved in Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣrīya of Cairo, Egypt and copied in 459/1067. It is introduced by a detailed analytical study of the author and his work. Salwat al-ʿārifīn forms an integral part of Sufi literature and reflects Islamic developments in Nishapur in northeastern Iran. This crucial Arabic text, published for the first time, is especially valuable because of its great philological accuracy and sound textual tradition. It represents an essential source for the intellectual history of Islam during the middle of the 4th/10th to the middle of the 5th/11th century.

Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-Century Iran

Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-Century Iran
Author: George E. Lane
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 670
Release: 2003-09-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1134431023

An account of the re-emergence of Persia as a world player and the reassertion of its cultural, political and spiritual links with Turkic Lands, this book opposes the way in which, for too long, the whole period of Mongol domination of Iran has been viewed from a negative standpoint. Though arguably the initial irruption of the Mongols brought little comfort to those in its path, this is not the case with the second 'invasion' of the Chinggisids. This study demonstrates that Hülegü Khan was welcomed as a king and a saviour after the depredations of his predecessors, rather than as a conqueror, and that the initial decades of his dynasty's rule were characterised by a renaissance in the cultural life of the Iranian plateau.

Sufism and Early Islamic Piety

Sufism and Early Islamic Piety
Author: Arin Shawkat Salamah-Qudsi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2019
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108422713

Explores aspects of the private lives and interpersonal ties, between the personal and communal domains of early Sufis.

Esoteric Traditions in Islamic Thought

Esoteric Traditions in Islamic Thought
Author: Leonard Lewisohn
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 508
Release: 2024-09-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0861548655

The notion of esoteric knowledge is one of the pillars of Islamic intellectual tradition. Though most visible in Sufism, it also dominated the first three and a half centuries of Shi‘ite thought. In this rich anthology, Leonard Lewisohn explores Islamic esotericism through the works of eleven authors who flourished in Persia, Central Asia and Asia Minor from the eleventh to the nineteenth centuries. He presents excerpts from each text in translation, accompanying these with introductions to the author’s life, works and thought. In the course of his erudite and enlightening commentary, he explores the common ground of esoteric thought and terminology, revealing a unity of perspective among Muslim thinkers.

Studies in Islamic Mysticism

Studies in Islamic Mysticism
Author: Reynold A. Nicholson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 312
Release: 1921
Genre: History
ISBN:

Professor Nicholson examines the life, work and teaching of three of the most important of the early Súfís. These great mystics were almost legendary figures whose tombs became holy shrines. Súfism, as Professor Nicholson suggests, lies at the heart both of the religious philosophy and the popular religion of Islam.