Three Muslim Sages – Avicenna, Suhrawardi, Ibn ‘Arabi

DESCRIPTION:

Three Muslim Sages is an introduction to important intellectual and spiritual perspectives in Islam through the lives and ideas of particularly eminent representatives of three Islamic scholars: Avicena of the philosopher scientists, Suhrawardi of the Illuminationists, and Ibn ‘Arabi of the Sufis. Since in the Islamic world an individual has been most often the representative of a school and particular point of view, special emphasis is given to the relation between the particular figure and the school to which he belonged. The book is a structural as well as historical study of Islamic intellectual life. The author says: “the three personalities whose doctrines form the subject of our present study are of course of great importance in their own right and play a particularly significant role in the school with which they are connected. But, in addition, they each speak for a perspective, which has been lived, and a worldview, which has been contemplated by generations of sages and seers over the centuries. Moreover, although these schools are not the only ones to have existed in Islam, they are among [he most important to have come into being after this early period, and they demonstrate in their totality a very significant aspect of Islamic intellectuality, revealing horizons which have determined the intellectual life of many of the great sages of Islam.” He concludes that these perspectives in Islam have for the most part subsisted to the present day and that the ideas of the medieval figures studied became a permanent heritage of the Islamic world.

DETAILS:

ITEM CODE: TAP2014
AUTHOR: Seyyed Hossein Nasr
BINDING: Hardback
PAGES: 179
DIMENSIONS: 15 x 22 CM
PUBLISHER: Suhail Academy
CATEGORIES: Life of the Prophet, Biographies, History, Original Works

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Seyyed Hossein Nasr was born in Tehran, where he received his early education. He studied in the West and gained his BS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his MA and PhD from Harvard University, where he studied the History of Science and Learning with special concentration on Islamic science and philosophy. In 1958, he returned to Iran to teach at Tehran University, where he was Professor of the History of Science and Philosophy. In 1962 he was visiting lecturer at Harvard University, and he taught there during the summer of 1965. During 1964-65, he was the first holder of the Agha Khan Chair of Islamic Studies at the American University of Beirut. He also served as Vice Chancellor of Tehran University and Chancellor of the Arya-Mehr University of Technology in Iran. He was the founder and first President of the Iranian Academy of Philosophy and is presently University Professor of Islamic Studies at the George Washington University, Washington D. C. and President of the Foundation for Traditional Studies. Professor Nasr has lectured in America, Europe, the Middle East, Pakistan, India, Japan, and Australia and was the first Muslim Scholar to deliver the Gifford Lectures. He is the author of over twenty-five books and five hundred articles in Persian, English, Arabic and French. His works have appeared in more than ten languages. His important contribution is three generations of scholars he has trained in the course of his fifty-year scholarly career in Iran and the West.