"This work traces the development of mystical thought during the formative periods of the Hindu and Muslim traditions and provides comparisons between the two streams of mysticism. The author's discussion includes the classical Upanishads, the Yogasutras, the Bhagavad-Gita and their commentaries. His study of the Islamic tradition includes the Monastic revolution introduced by Abu Yazid, which the author traces to the influence of Indian thought and the later writings of Ghazali."Bloomsbury Publishing.
This book, based upon a Jordan Lecture in Comparative Religion of 1959, traces the development of mystical thought during the formative periods of the Hindu and Muslim traditions. The religions are discussed separately but comparisons are offered wherever appropriate. The part on Hinduism focuses on the classical Upanishads, the Yogasutras, the Bhagavad-Gita, and Ramanuja's commentary on them. For Islam, the focus is on the monistic revolution introduced by Abu Yazid, which Zaehner traces to the influence of Indian thought and through Junayd's restoration of the theistic balance to the monism of the late writings of Ghazali.
As a non-dogmatic religion, paganism is a spiritualty that is variously interpreted in terms of nature worship, this-worldliness, the valuing of the physical, and multiple understandings of the sacred. Like most religions, pagan spirituality also entertains the experience of mystical ecstasy as an intense state of psycho-spiritual consciousness that radically diverges from ordinary waking awareness. This volume addresses two fundamental questions, namely: ?Ç£how do the world?ÇÖs religions understand the mystical and its pursuit??Ç¥, and ?Ç£how and why does paganism offer something different??Ç¥ Proverbially, the mystical quest is an ultimate human endeavour. The re-emergence of pagan thought in contemporary times challenges the obsolete and unlocks both innovation and available forms of transpersonal emancipation.
Hinduism and Islam are usually considered to be poles apart, especially on religious grounds. But in this work, the author has endeavored to demonstrate that in spite of sharp differences between them, they met on religious, commercial, intellectual and political levels both in and outside of India. Although orthodox Hinduism and orthodox Islam could hardly reconcile, it is shown here that they were bound to accommodate each other. However, the real fusion took place with the coming to India of a host of Sufis; especially the lives and conduct of the left wing mystics of both religions made the two peoples to come closer through Bhakti mysticism. Of the many Bhakta-Mystics who strove in this direction, Dr. Hedayetullah made a special study of kabir (d. 1518) who dedicated his whole life to the achievement of Hindu-Muslim unity on socio-religious levels. So far Kabir has not only been denied his rightful credit as an apostle of Hindu-Muslim unity, but he has also been misunderstood by many. In the present work, he is shown to have gained the place of honor between the two religions as a mediator and a harmonizer. His efforts were crowned with success-the resultant Indo-Islamic culture and civilization is a living proof.
Islam is often described as abstract, ascetic, and uniquely disengaged from the human body. Scott Kugle refutes this assertion in the first full study of Islamic mysticism as it relates to the human body. Examining Sufi conceptions of the body in religious writings from the late fifteenth through the nineteenth century, Kugle demonstrates that literature from this era often treated saints' physical bodies as sites of sacred power. Sufis and Saints' Bodies focuses on six important saints from Sufi communities in North Africa and South Asia. Kugle singles out a specific part of the body to which each saint is frequently associated in religious literature. The saints' bodies, Kugle argues, are treated as symbolic resources for generating religious meaning, communal solidarity, and the experience of sacred power. In each chapter, Kugle also features a particular theoretical problem, drawing methodologically from religious studies, anthropology, studies of gender and sexuality, theology, feminism, and philosophy. Bringing a new perspective to Islamic studies, Kugle shows how an important Islamic tradition integrated myriad understandings of the body in its nurturing role in the material, social, and spiritual realms.
The first teacher to bring Islamic mysticism to the West presents music’s divine nature and its connection to our daily lives in this poetic classic of Sufi literature. Music, according to Sufi teaching, is really a small expression of the overwhelming and perfect harmony of the whole universe—and that is the secret of its amazing power to move us. The Indian Sufi master Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882–1927), the first teacher to bring the Islamic mystical tradition to the West, was an accomplished musician himself. His lucid exposition of music's divine nature has become a modern classic, beloved not only by those interested in Sufism but by musicians of all kinds.
