Islam and The Perennial Philosophy

DESCRIPTION:

This is Frithjof Schuon’s third book on Islam. The opening chapters leave us with a much clearer understanding of the relationship between the great religions and their necessary diversity on the plane of forms. Among particular matters dealt with are certain spiritual and psychological problems relating to the Companions of the Prophet. In this connection, an altogether new light is thrown on the origins of Shi'ism – a light which, strange to say, may “achieve the impossible” and satisfy both Sunnis and Shi'ites'.

The central section of the book is largely concerned with metaphysical questions, which the past has handed down to us unanswered or badly answered. The author pleads for a general use, in expounding religion, of “arguments of a higher order, intellectual rather than sentimental,” and he himself leads the ways. Particularly striking is his treatment of the age-old stumbling block; how can we explain the existence of evil in the light of the truth that God is both Good and Omnipotent?

The final chapters are on the Afterlife, one of them being in part a commentary on the Qur’anic promise that for each blessed soul there shall be two Paradises– a much neglected doctrine which contains a solution to more than one enigma.

DETAILS:

ITEM CODE: TAP01044
AUTHOR: Frithjof Schuon (Shaykh ‘Īsa Nūr al-Dīn)
TRANSLATOR: J. Peter Hobson
BINDING: Hardback
PAGES: 219
DIMENSIONS: 15 x 22 CM
WEIGHT: 0.44 KG
PUBLISHER: Suhail Academy
CATEGORIES: Original Works, Religion – Doctrines, Practices, History, Contemporary Relevance

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Frithjof Schuon (Shaykh ‘Īsa Nūr al-Dīn, 1907 - 1998) was born in Basel, Switzerland. At sixteen, he interrupted his classical education to earn a living as a designer in Paris, where he studied Arabic and Arabic calligraphy. Subsequent visits to North Africa and the East, prompted by his profound interest in the great religions of the world, resulted in many contacts with Sufi, Hindu and Buddhist authorities, in addition to important links he established with representatives of the spiritual legacy of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches; and two visits to the North American Plains Indians (he was officially adopted by the Lakota tribe) won him a number of close friends, particularly among the Sioux and the Crow.

Of his first book, The Transcendent Unity of Religions, which has been published in six different languages, T. S. Eliot wrote: “I have met with no more impressive work in the comparative study of Oriental and Occidental religion.” In addition to his books, he was a regular contributor to Studies in Comparative Religion, and also contributed to Studies in Traditionalism for over twenty years.