perennialism (Nasr, Ling etl)

Discussion in 'Aqidah/Kalam' started by izz al-Din, Jun 9, 2017.

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  1. abdarrashid

    abdarrashid Active Member

  2. abdarrashid

    abdarrashid Active Member

  3. abdarrashid

    abdarrashid Active Member

    These comments seem to imply that any objection to Schuon is baseless, primarily emotional and/or irrational. This, however, is not the case. Simply put, it is essentially untenable that a man who:

    - Takes as his “point of departure” the aqeedah of the Hindus
    - Declares Jesus to be God
    - Is obsessed with nudity (both his own and one of the most honored woman in our Din)
    - Declares himself “more or less independent” of the Shariah

    would be in a position to offer any reliable or valuable insights (to put it mildly) into the character of the Best of Creation (Salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa Sallam). And his “views” are then solemnly compared to the true giants of Islamic spirituality???

    For the non-perennialists reading this thread, I would refer you to this document, which I recently came across: http://dossierschuon.jimdo.com/ (also available on google books at http://books.google.ae/books?id=vqsx...page&q&f=false) to get a better idea of Shuonic perennialism in action (be warned – you’ll need a strong stomach to digest the images and statements). Also be quick to view/save it before the perennialists get the site closed down.

    Perennialists are desperate to prevent the true picture of Schuon and his cult emerging because, among other things, it will destroy the reputation of perennialists like Nasr himself who has spent a lifetime promoting Schuon as a “spiritual genius”. Is it credible that every critic that emerged from Schuon’s inner circle was “insane”?

    The fact that people who consider themselves traditional Muslims are (willfully?) blind to all of this and continue to rationalize any belief or behavior of this man is both baffling and depressing. I believe a previous poster referred to the presence of sihr in these- superficially attractive but essentially deviant- writings and this is beginning to sound like a plausible explanation.

    http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/sho...faji-amp-Kashmiri/page20&highlight=al+khafaji
     
  4. abdarrashid

    abdarrashid Active Member

    another perenialist trying to prove his religion from the following:

    According to ‘Abd Allah ibn Tahir Azdi:


    I was quarreling with a Jew in the market of Baghdad, and I blurted out “dog!” Passing then by my side [Hallaj] regarded me with an angry air and told me: “Don’t make your dog bark so!” and he withdrew in haste. My quarrel ended, I went to find him and entered his home; but he looked away from me. I apologized and he calmed down. The he said to me “My son, the religious faiths, all of them, arise from God the Most High; He assigned to each group a creed, not of their own choice, but of His choice imposed on them…I would have you know that Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the other religious denominations may be different names and contrasting appellations, but that their Goal, Himself, suffers neither difference nor contrast.”

    Trans. Louis Massignon, Hallaj: Mystic and Martyr, p. 104.
    Then Mansur Hallaj recited the following poem:


    Earnest for truth, I thought on the religions:
    They are, I found, one root with many a branch.
    Therefore impose on no man a religion,
    Lest it should bar him from the firm-set root.
    Let the root claim him, a root wherein all heights
    And meanings are made clear, for him to grasp.

    Diwan al-Hallaj, trans. Martin Lings, Sufi Poems, p. 34.
    Farid al-Din 'Attar writes (and this is very mild compared to other parts of the poem),


    They left the Ka'bah for Rome’s boundaries.
    A gentle landscape of low hills and trees,
    Where, infinitely lovelier than the view,
    There sat a girl, a Christian girl who knew
    The secrets of her faith’s theology.
    A fairer child no man could hope to see—
    In beauty’s mansion she was like the a sun
    That never set—indeed the spoils she won
    Were headed by the sun himself, whose face
    Was pale with jealousy and sour disgrace
    The man about whose heart her ringlets curled
    Became a Christian and renounced the world…
    In turn the Shaykh’s disciples had their say,
    Love has no cure, and he could not obey.

    Mantiq al-tayr, trans. by Afkham Darbandi and **** Davis, pp. 58-60.
    Jalal al-Din Rumi writes:


    Having the same tongue is kinship and affinity,
    With those with whom no intimacy exists, a man is in prison.
    There are many Hindus and Turks with the same tongue,
    And oh, many a pair of Turks, strangers to each other.
    Hence the tongue of intimacy is something else,
    It is better to be of one heart than of one tongue.
    Without speech, without oath, without register,
    A hundred thousand interpreters from the heart arise.

    Mathnawi, trans. by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, The Pilgrimage of Life and the Wisdom of Rumi, pp. 96-97.
    Muhyi al-Din ibn Arabi writes:


    Receptive now my heart is for each form;
    For gazelles pasture, for monks a monastery,
    Temple for idols, Ka’bah to be rounded,
    Tables of Torah and script of Quran.
    My religion is love’s religion; where’er turn
    Her camels, that religion my religion is, my faith.
    An example is set us by Bishr, lover
    Of Hind and her sister, and likewise the loves
    Of Qays and Layla, of Mayya and Ghaylan.

    Tarjuman al-ashwaq, trans. by Martin Lings, Sufi Poems, p. 62.

    Mahmud Shabistari writes:


    I have seen that Christianity’s aim is real detachment;
    I’ve seen it as the breaking of the bonds of imitation.
    Sacred Unity’s courtyard in the monastery of Spirit
    where the Simurgh of the Everlasting makes Its nest.
    From God’s Spirit, Jesus, this work of detachment appeared,
    since he was manifested from the sacred Spirit.
    There is also a spirit from God within you;
    in which is found a trace of the Most Holy.
    If you should seek extinction of the earthly self,
    come into the chamber of the Holy Presence.
    Anyone who, angel-like, has detached from the earthly soul
    Will be risen, Jesus-like, to the fourth celestial realm.

    Gulshan-i raz, trans. Robert Darr, pp. 106-107.
    And finally, the eminent Amir ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza’iri:


    “Your God is One God; there is no god but He.” (Quran 2:163)

    “Say: It has been revealed unto me that you God is One God.” (Quran 21:108)

    “Say: I am only a man like you; it is revealed to me that your God is One God.”
    (Quran 18:110)
    “Proclaim that there is no god but Me.” (Quran 16:2)

    In these verses and in other analogous verses, God addresses all those who have been reached by the Quranic revelation or earlier revelations—Jews, Christians, Mazdeans, idolaters, Manicheans and other groups professing varied opinions and beliefs with respect to Him—to teach them that their God is One is spite of the divergences of their doctrines and creeds concerning Him. For His Essence is unique, and the divisions in relation to Him do not involve divisions of His Essential Reality. All the beliefs which are professed about him are for Him just different names. Now, the multiplicity of names does not imply multiplicity of the Named! He has a Name in all languages, which are infinite in number, but that does not affect His unicity.

    The preceding verses allude to that which is taught by the elite—that is, the Sufis—namely the transcendent unity of Being (wahdat al-wujud) and the fact that He is the Essence of everything “worshipped’ and that, consequently, whatever he may take as the object of his worship, every worshipper worships only Him, as is proved by the following verse: “And your Lord has decreed that you will worship only Him.” (Quran 17:23)…

    If what you think and believe is the same as what the people of the Sunnah say, know that He is that—and other than that! If you think and believe that He is what all the schools of Islam profess and believe—He is that, and He is other than that! If you think that He is what the diverse communities believe—Muslims, Christians, Jews, Mazdeans, polytheists and others—He is that and He is other than that! And if you think and believe what is professed by the Knowers par excellence—prophets, saints and angels—He is that! He is other than that! None of His creatures worships Him in all His aspects; none is unfaithful to Him in all His aspects. No one knows Him in all His aspects; no one is ignorant of Him in all His aspects…

    All of this is part of the secrets which it is proper to conceal from those who are not of our way…

    Kitab al-mawaqif, trans. by Michel Chodkiewicz, The Spiritual Writings of Amir ‘Abd al-Kader, pp. 130-132.

    It is possible to supply you with numerous other sources of this nature. However, due to time constraints, I would recommend that the person who really wants to discover the pre-modern exposition of the perennial philosophy in Islam and among Muslims read:

    1) The Universal Spirit of Islam: From the Koran and Hadith edited by Judith and Michael Fitzgerald
    2) The Other in the Light of the One: The Universality of the Qur’an and Interfaith Dialogue by Reza Shah-Kazemi
    3) “Islam and the Encounter of Religions” in Sufi Essays by Seyyed Hossein Nasr
    4) Universal Dimensions of Islam edited by Patrick Laude
    5) The Religious Other: Towards a Muslim Theology of Other Religions in a Post-Prophetic Age edited by Muhammad Suheyl Umar

    http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/sho...faji-amp-Kashmiri/page19&highlight=al+khafaji
     
  5. abdarrashid

    abdarrashid Active Member

    As perennialists claim that their perspective allows them to “understand” why “exoteric” or “average” Muslims believers think the way they do (which they illustrate for us very politely), I thought maybe it would be a fun idea to apply some reverse-psychology, so to speak.

    It seems that the situation for the perennialist of Muslim background is that he is constantly exposed to the potentially destabilizing effects of cognitive dissonance (i.e. simultaneously holding two contradictory beliefs). On the one hand he believes himself to be a traditional Muslim, who follows strictly orthodox beliefs and the dictates of the Shari’ah. On the other hand, he has taken, directly or indirectly, Schuon as his Spiritual Master, who tells him that his own aqeedah is the Advaita Vedanta and paints colourfully realistic pictures with content that “departs” from the Shari’ah of the Din of which Haya’ is an essential element.

    To overcome the effects of the situation he finds himself in, the perennialist becomes mentally adept at switching between “exoteric” mode (when in the mosque and hearing the Imam’s khutba of “exclusivist” content, meeting his “exoteric” Muslim friends and family) and “esoteric” mode (when beholding the works of his Master which powerfully symbolize the absolute, naked truth (in a literal way, if you know what I mean) or when appreciating the subtleties of the doctrine of the Trinity or Hindu metaphysics).

    This constant mental switching probably becomes tiring after a while, though, so another way to relieve the tension is self- justification, which may explain the frequency of long (this seems to be a very common characteristic), elaborately reasoned and copiously referenced perennialist posts on forums such as this one to prove that, despite appearances to the contrary, perennialism truly, really, actually is a legitimate Islamic belief.

    The dangers of cognitive dissonance may be further exacerbated for the perennialist of Muslim background if he also raises his family on perennialist principles and inculcates in them, as encouraged by Schuon, the love and respect of all traditional religious forms and “manifestations of the Logos”- of which he counts the Prophet of Islam as one but who, for the true esoterist, is not really superior to others such as Krishna (and, in case you’re in any doubt, he’s especially not superior to Christ-geddit?). As previously pointed out, Schuon has helpfully clarified the orthodox Islamic belief of the status of the Prophet as being an “illusion” of exoteric Muslims .

    After some time growing up in this traditional home environment, the perennialist’s oldest son announces that he is “settling into” (perennialists do not convert) Orthodox Christianity, which Schuon had praised so effusively in his books. He also develops a taste for French red wine and bacon sandwiches, which as an Orthodox Christian, he can now happily indulge in (in moderation, of course). Although the father does feel a tinge of unease at this development (and at the strange smells that now emanate from his kitchen in the morning) he quickly switches into “esoterist” mode and convinces himself to rejoice in the fact that his son has seen through the “transparency of forms” to the common transcendent truth that underlies all.

    Then, a few months later, the perennialist’s teenage daughter confesses that she is so touched by the teachings in the Buddhist Pali Canon, which she found(next to the Quran) in the “Traditional Scriptures” section of her father’s library, she will “settle into” Buddhism (while, like a good perennialist, still equally loving and not rejecting the traditional Islam her father raised her in). She also feels her daily morning meditation would be much improved if her male school friend, who also happens to be a practicing Buddhist, moves in with her (they have a mutually loving relationship and would not dream of harming any living being). Again, the father dismisses from his mind any awkward feelings by recollecting how Coomaraswamy’s forceful arguments had compelled Guenon to correct his initial error regarding Buddhism where he had mistakenly classified Buddhism as heterodox in relation to Hinduism; imagine that!)

    Not to be outdone by his older siblings, the perennialist’s youngest son- his mind and temperament from childhood moulded by the rich and diverse metaphysical doctrines and sacred art of traditional cultures he had imbibed from his surroundings- finds himself irresistibly attracted to the world’s most primordial religion, Hindusim, and especially to practice of the Tantra Yoga, for which he keeps a statue of the goddess Kalli in his room (for the purposes of darshan). At this point, the father wistfully recalls how Schuon had so much wanted to be a Hindu at first, but his plans were cruelly thwarted and he “settled” into (for?) Islam. Was this act of his youngest son full of some kind of mysteriously symbolic, esoteric meaning?

    To protect against syncretism or the “mixing of forms” so vehemently disliked by Schuon (who kept his own statue of the Virgin Mary in a different room to the zawiyyah in which he as a Shadhili Shaykh led dhikr sessions of his fuqara) the father strictly instructs his children to confine their respective Hindu, Buddhist and Christian rituals to their bedrooms, while the living room was the place where the father could offer his salat - thankful that none of his children had strayed from the path(s) of perennialism, which, Schuon had assured him, all led to the same place anyway.

    Is the above sketch of a perennialist family an absurd scenario or a realistic consequence of “applied perennialism”? My view? Nowadays, don’t be surprised by anything….
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2012
  6. abdarrashid

    abdarrashid Active Member

    The Swiss-German philosopher Frithjof Schuon, also known as Shaykh `Isa Nur al-Din Ahmad to his followers, is perhaps the foremost representative of the mystical perennialist school*. He is the founder of "The path of Mary" (Tariqah Maryamiyyah) and among his well-known disciples are people like Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Martin Lings and Rama Coomaraswamy.

    The following should be enough proof of his deviance from the religion of our Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. This is Frithjof Schuon speaking on the topic of "sacred nudity":


    Sacred nudity -- which plays an important role not only with the Hindus but also with the Red Indians -- is based on the analogical correspondence between the "outmost" and the "inmost": the body is then seen as the "heart exteriorized," and the heart for its part "absorbs" as it were the bodily projection; "extremes meet." It is said, in India, that nudity favors the irradiation of spiritual influences; and also that feminine nudity in particular manifests Lakshmi and consequently has a beneficial effect on the surroundings. In an altogether general way, nudity expresses -- and virtually actualizes -- a return to the essence, the origin, the archetype, thus to the celestial state: "And it is for this that, naked, I dance," as Lalla Yogishvari, the great Kashmiri saint, said after having found the Divine Self in her heart. To be sure, in nudity there is a de facto ambiguity because of the passional nature of man; but there is not only the passional nature, there is also the gift of contemplativity which can neutralize it, as is precisely the case with "sacred nudity"; similarly, there is not only the seduction of appearances, there is also the metaphysical transparency of phenomena which permits one to perceive the archetypal essence through the sensory experience. St. Nonnos, when he beheld St. Pelagia entering the baptismal pool naked, praised God for having put into human beauty not only an occasion of fall, but also an occasion of rising towards God.


    Know that Frithjof Schuon was a man who practiced what he preached. He claimed to have had several visions of the mother of sayydina 'Isa [​IMG], the Virgin Mary, and he describes one of these visions in his Memoirs as follows:


    "On my way to Morocco in 1965, when I was suffering from asthma and feeling ill to the point of death - owing to causes of a moral order - there occurred on the ship...a blessed contact with the Heavenly Virgin. And this had as its immediate result the almost irresistible urge to be naked like her little child; from this event onwards I went naked as mush as possible, indeed, most of he time...it was as if the contact with the Virgin had sanctified my body...A few years later - in the summer of 1973 - this mystery came upon me once again, and it did so in connection with the irresistible awareness that I am not a man like other men...


    This degenerate cultist was also quite fond of painting nude women and even made a nude painting of the Umm al-Masih (this is a well-known fact and can easily be documented, but I know you understand my hesitation in posting the relevant links).

    May Allah [​IMG] give Schuon and his admirers their just deserts.


    * Followers of Perennialism or "Integral traditionalism" claim that that a variety of religions present today, like Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and even Hinduism, share the same Divine origin and are based on the same metaphysical principles, sometimes called philosophia perennis.​


    http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/sho...-The-Messenger-of-Perennialism&highlight=nasr
     
  7. abdarrashid

    abdarrashid Active Member

    In fact often they do not promote Islam.
    There are istances in which people asking one organization of theirs for help in embracing Islam, have been told to rather start re-attending the church and strenghten one's knowledge of one's "originary religion" without having to embrace another religion. This - ironically - was said by "converts" themselves (converts to perennialism, not to Islam, even if they call themselves muslims).

    http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/sho...about-Seyyed-Hosein-Nasr/page3&highlight=nasr
     
  8. abdarrashid

    abdarrashid Active Member

    Al-Qaadi ‘Ayyaad said: hence we regard as a kaafir everyone who follows a religion other than the religion of the Muslims, or who agrees with them, or who has doubts, or who says that their way is correct, even if he appears to be a Muslim and believes in Islam and that every other way is false, he is a kaafir

    (Al-Shifaa’ bi Ta’reef Huqooq al-Mustafaa, 2/1071)

    http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/sho...about-Seyyed-Hosein-Nasr/page2&highlight=nasr
     
  9. abdarrashid

    abdarrashid Active Member

    As I tried to explain in my previous post, for Perennialism’s claims to be taken seriously within Islam, the Islamic credentials of Schuon have first to be established. Schuon’s biographer and disciple P Aymard has confirmed, based on Schuon’s own writings and life, that Schuon was an “outsider” to Islam. Another disciple, R Fabbri, again based on Schuon’s own writings and life, concluded that Schuon’s “connection” to Islam was “not essential”. Martin Lings, one of Schuon’s earliest and foremost disciples, reverently informs us that Mr. Schuon had apparently discovered a way to “enter” Islam without leaving Christianity. I have previously pointed out that Schuon believed in, defended, and propagated the divinity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity at the same time as appearing/claiming to be a “Muslim”. Schuon himself freely and proudly proclaimed that his own “aqeedah” and that of his “Tariqah Maryamiyyah” was the Advaita Vedanta of Hinduism. He cited, as the decisive sign that he was chosen by God, seeing visions of the naked Virgin Mary, who he then proceeded to represent in dozens of paintings (“icons”)-sometimes with himself also present, likewise in his “birthday suit”. Such “icons” were contemplated by the “fuqara” to absorb the “barakah” of Shaykh Schuon. He apparently married the already married wife of a disciple in a “vertical” marriage. He also stated that Satan had largely succeeded in taking over Islam from within. All of these beliefs and actions of Schuon were justified by… the Perennialism of Schuon, - how convenient!

    In view of the above, to compare the Perennialist school of Schuon, who by his own statements and actions clearly struggled to understand-to put it mildly- even the basic beliefs and requirements of being a Muslim, to compare such an individual to a personality such as the great Imam Malik (r.a) and his eponymous madhab-quite apart from the question of proper adab- involves such a momentous a leap of faith and imagination, which, I at least, do not have the strength or daring to attempt!

    Admittedly, what does puzzle me is the repeated insistence by certain Perennialists for Muslims to accept Schuon/Perennialism within Islam while at the same time claiming that his personality and message are too great and universal to remain confined within the “limitations” of Islam. If such is indeed the case, the obvious question is: why are they so desperate to secure Islamic acceptance in the first place?

    To summarise, while I am aware that some (i.e. Schuon himself and his own disciples) have variously labeled Schuon as an Avatar, the Qutb of his time, a jivanmukta, the Cosmic Intellect, a saint of the first magnitude, the Messenger of the Perennial Philosophy, the Seal of the Sages, and so on, the fact remains that Schuon has absolutely no standing as an authority, spiritual or otherwise, within Islam. And that is what matters for Muslims. Therefore, his speculations on notions such as the supposed “Transcendent Unity of Religions”, the role and status of the “Intellect”, Plato’s theory of forms applied to religions, etc., however interesting and amazing some may find them, do not in themselves qualify Schuon as an Islamic authority and no Muslim is under the obligation to subject the Revelation of Islam to such speculations any more than he is obliged to subject and interpret Islam according to the opinions of Karl Marx or the Pope.


    As regards the Faivre/Hanegraaf quote, I still think it captures the Perennialist attitude as exemplified in the predictable way in which you dismissed the fatwa of the Ulema rejecting Perennialism, who you assumed did not “understand” Perennialism (because, of course, no one who understands Perennialism could possibly reject it). I am also perfectly aware that a strict “empiricist” by definition would not accept the “metaphysical” premises of Islam any more than those of Perennialism. However, the point is that, unlike you, I do not equate the Revelation of Islam with the philosophical speculations of the Perennialists, where rejection of one implies the rejection of the other.

    The rest of your post contains the usual arguments and justifications based on the Perennialist assumptions of Schuon. I appreciate the trouble and length you have gone to explain the Perennialist position, but I had already gleaned as much from what I have read myself from Schuon’s writings and those of his followers. So apologies for not providing a long list of objections, which it seems that you were looking forward to!

    http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/sho...nialist-is-there-any-reliability-in-him/page6
     
  10. abdarrashid

    abdarrashid Active Member

    As regards the Faivre/Hanegraaf quote, regardless of whatever is assumed about their personal philosophical premises, I think their conclusion is spot on as regards the Perennialists. The Perennialist views his own perspective as THE perspective compared to which all other "exoteric" perspectives (e.g. Islam and other "orthodox" religions) are necessarily "lesser" or "limited". (Incidentally, A Faivre's being, in your words, an "empiricist", was certainly no impediment for another Perennialist, the Christian James Cutsinger, as he asked Faivre to write the Foreword to a book on Schuon's writings).

    In fact, the Perennialist does not consider his views as one perspective among others; rather, in his eyes, it simply corresponds to "the nature of things" (as the Perennialists are wont to say) similar to the sun rising from the East and setting in the West. Faced with such a phenomenon, the only choice for a person "with eyes to see" is acceptance. Rejection of Perennialism, in this context, is seen by the Perennialists as a limitation of vision and understanding.

    As regards Islam, the Perennialist denies its universality as a religion for all of mankind (and by extension denies the universal role of the Beloved Prophet (May ALLAH shower him with His choicest blessings!) - the "Mercy for the Worlds") and considers Islam as appropriate only for a people with certain mentality and living in a certain territory. For other people with different mentalities/dispositions in different parts of the world, other "orthodox" religions are more appropriate and equally valid as paths to salvation.

    The Perennialist therefore accords current religions such as Christanity, Buddhism, Confucianism and Hinduism at least the same status as Islam (I say "at least" because Schuon considered Hinduism, being the "oldest" religion, to have certain advantages over other religions in terms of the supposed metaphysical directness of its doctrines; it should then come as no surprise that Schuon, initially, wanted to become a Hindu and only "settled" for Islam because he could not, for various reasons, convert to his first choice Hinduism).

    Similarly, the Perennialist accords personalities such as Rama, Krishna, and the White Buffalo Cow Woman of the Red Indians the same status as the Seal of the Prophets (May ALLAH shower him with His choicest blessings!) - all supposedly being particular manifestations of the Universal Logos; and books such as the Vedas and the Bible are accorded the same status as the Quran - all being "Scripture".

    Interestingly, Perennialists do not compare the historical fact of the existence of the Prophet of Islam (May ALLAH shower him with His choicest blessings!), the reliability of his hadith which we have access to today, and the absolute certainty of the text of the Quran being the unaltered word of ALLAH SubhanaHU wa Ta'aala with what is the situation with other supposed "Avatars", their sayings and holy books. They simply assume that all previous messengers/’sages”, together with the sayings, religions and scriptures attributed to them- in whatever form they exist in at the present time-are all equally authentic and reliable, of the same status and saying essentially the same thing.

    Now, for a Muslim faced with such Perennialist claims, the basic question to ask (assuming he takes such claims seriously in the first place, which he should not be blamed for if he doesn't) is what is the authority for these claims? The answer is pretty straightforward. Essentially, for the Perennialist (at least of the Martin Lings and SH Nasr variety), the ultimate authority lies in the assertions of Frithjof Schuon, who Muslims are also asked to accept as an Islamic spiritual authority because he claimed to be a Shadhili Sufi Shaikh.

    However, such claims of Schuon's Islamic authority are put into serious doubt when we learn things like although Schuon entered Islam, he actually did not leave his previous religion (Christianity) and continued to love it, to defend its traditional doctrines, to assert that it was a "historical fact" that Jesus had a divine nature, that Jesus was God and through him it was possible to achieve deification!!! He also insisted that his starting point-as the Shaykh of a supposedly Islamic Tariqah- was the doctrine of the Advaita Vedanta (a belief of a school of Hinduism).

    Muslims obviously do not require a fatwa to show that such beliefs have nothing to do with Islam. Also, it goes without saying that a Muslim cannot accept a person holding such beliefs (or any of his followers who hold similar beliefs) as being an Islamic authority whose arguments can have a persuasive, binding or decisive nature as to the true beliefs and doctrines of Islam and Tasawwuf. Of course, if one rejects-on Islamic grounds-the authority of Schuon, one also has no compulsion of accepting or applying to Islam Schuonic/Perennialist metaphysical speculations or the definitions of "exoteric", "esoteric", "religio perennis", etc.

    Nevertheless, someone may not care for whether or not Schuon's views have any Islamic sanction, and continue to take an interest in his writings (and those of the Perennialist school), as one may have a similar interest in other spiritual/philosophical writings of figures such as Plato, Plotinus, Shankara, Meister Eckhart, etc. All such writers made various metaphysical/philosophical claims and statements; however, they do not concern us or have any authority for us as regards our beliefs and practices as Muslims because obviously no extra-Islamic authority can in any way equal, much less overrule, the authority and status of the Prophet (May ALLAH shower him with His choicest blessings!), the Guidance vouchsafed to him by ALLAH subhanauHU wa Ta'aala, the Prophet's blessed family, the Sahaba, the Awliya and the true Imams -the "best community raised for mankind" .

    Considering the nature of Perennialist beliefs, however, one question does arise, which is: in what context, and for what purpose, are they being justified and discussed on a forum such as this?

    http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/sho...re-any-reliability-in-him&p=484395#post484395
     
  11. abdarrashid

    abdarrashid Active Member

    Discussions between Perennialist and non-Perennialist Muslims typically revolve around the idea of salvific exclusivity: whether Islam is the only acceptable way to Allah in this day and age. I do wish to discuss that, but my heart is pulling me in another direction.
    Yesterday, I asked Sidi Isa:

    “Do you agree with Schuon's statements:
    ‘. . .is an imitation of the Prophet founded on the religious illusion that he is intrinsically better than all the other Prophets, including Jesus . . .’

    and his comment on al-Shaykh al-Akbar's statement the the maqam of mahbubiya is exclusively for the Rasul (salla Allah 'alayhi was sallam):
    ‘. . .The extenuating circumstance for this abrupt and unintelligible denominationalism is the fact that for each religion the Prophet who founded it is the sole personification of the total, not the partial, Logos. . .’”
    In his response, Isa remarked that he did in fact agree with Schuon on these points. Oddly, this comment of Isa’s was removed and replaced, which is why there are two posts by me, back-to-back, even though I was addressing him.

    I then said:


    “I for one, believe that the Messenger of Allah--salla Allah 'alayhi wa sallam--who is the al-Insan al-Kamil and whose din is the Religio Perennis, is in fact intrinsically [dhatiyan] superior to the other Anbiya' and Rusul. According to the Perennialists, am I wrong?”
    To which he replied:


    In saying that the Prophet is superior to all other Prophets and Messengers, you are incorrect in one respect and correct in another respect.
    When I asked him to explain how I am incorrect in one respect, he replied:


    Speaking from the standpoint of the religio perennis, you are correct inasmuch as you are a Muslim for whom the Prophet Muhammad, 'alayhi's-salatu wa's-salam, is the center of your religious 'cosmos'. It is the specific revelation which was delivered through him that is your the nourishing substance of your spiritual life; that is to say that you are concretely affected by the Qur'an and the salat more than you are by Christ or the practice of sitting zazen. In this sense what you have said is correct even for a Muslim perennialist. In other words, it is theologically correct for a Muslim. Clearly, it would not be theologically correct for a Christian.

    Following from this, it is also devotionally correct, in the sense that, although one is aware that everyone has a mother who, for them, is uniquely 'Mother', yet it is natural to feel a special love and kinship for one's own mother and even consider her 'the best'.

    Metaphysically speaking, all the Prophets and Messengers are one in their essence or prophetic substance, thus a distinction is meaningless here. It would be comparable to claiming that one's own mother had more the quality of 'motherhood' than any other mother. So, metaphysically what you have said is incorrect, or rather it is not relevant to the plane of metaphysical principles.
    Although I have read a few books of Schuon, I must be frank: I was taken aback to see some of his comments on the Prophet Muhammad—salla Allah ‘alayhi was sallam. Where do I even begin?
    One of the most important principles of Metaphysics that is often overlooked is that there is in fact one Metaphysic. In other words, the principles that govern the orders of being are a single unified matrix. This is because Being Itself is One. That said, this Metaphysic has a hierarchy, a center, a quintessence, and a perfection in so far as it in the realm of relativity.
    What we have in al-Mustafa—salla Allah ‘alayhi wa sallam—is the archetypal archetype and the axis of all orders.

    Now it is one thing for someone to claim that the axis not is him and that it is this or that being, but it is another matter entirely to say that there can be no such universal axis; that there is nothing more that the relative centers or multiple domains.

    All of us—both Perennialists and non-Perennialist Muslims—know and acknowledge that there are Messengers and Prophets who were the poles of salvation and fountains of wisdom to their respective communities. But, how does it escape any discerning mind that humanity is itself a community which, as a collective, also has a pole and fountainhead? How does one not see that the entire creation is as such a community which needs a center? Are the Messengers followers of none? Have they no leader? Are they not a community? Are religions not a collective which has a perfection? What else is the “religio perennis” Perennialists covet? There must be a sky beyond which there is no sky, and a particle that does not divide.

    Sayyiduna Muhammad—salla Allah ‘alayhi was sallam—is the Sayyid al-Kawnayn wa al-thaqalayn, the first Prophet created, the last one sent, the first one resurrected, the possessor of the major intercession, the Sayyid of the Anbiya and Rusul, the one whose name is written upon the legs of the Throne and the leaves of Paradise, the reason for this world being created, etc. These are not a mere collection of theological positions that can somehow be discounted or “explained away” by a metaphysic that, quite frankly, renders them all “relative.”

    One of the principal differences between the Perennialists and us is that, while the both of us may affirm these aforementioned points, our belief in them is not followed by a distant echo of “well . . . not really.”

    What is disconcerting is that those who agree with Schuon on this seem to declare for themselves a unique vantage point from which they presume to observe the various universes at play, while they observe on a plateau above.

    Schuon said (as mentioned elsewhere on this thread):


    “. . .is an imitation of the Prophet founded on the religious illusion that he is intrinsically better than all the other Prophets, including Jesus, and there is another imitation of the Prophet founded on the prophetic quality in itself, that is on the perfection of the Logos become man . . .”
    Dear Shuayb, Isa, and Kareem, I pray to Allah that you do not really believe this, that the belief in the Prophet’s superiority—salla Allah ‘alayhi wa sallam—is a religious illusion. If we follow Schuon’s statement to its logical conclusion we will have the following scenarios:

    • Imam al-Busayri says in the Burda: “Munzahun ‘an sharikin fi mahasinihi” [exalted above have any partner in his beauties], and the Perennialist must say: “Well, actually that is not correct.”
    • The Messenger of Allah—salla Allah ‘alayhi wa sallam—says: “I am the Sayyid of the Children of Adam” and the Perennialist says (with the mute tongue of "metaphysics"), “Well, actually he is not.”
    • Imam al-Busayri said in al-Hamziya: “laka min dhat al-'ulum min 'alam al-ghayb wa minha li Adam al-asma'u” [For you are the areas of knowledge from the unseen realm, and for Adam are the names thereof], and the Perennialist says, “Well that is correct in your spiritual cosmos, but not correct in the Christian spiritual cosmos.”

    And I could keep going on and on with this.

    Of all places, I never imagined that I would read “religious relativism” from Schuon, who has a well-known and scathing attack on relativism. He said:


    “And in the same way, if we are assured that the Prophet is superior to the other Messengers—including Christ, of course—and that he is so in an absolute fashion; that the love offered God by the others and therefore also by Jesus was less perfect than that of Muhammad; and that the other Messenger—including Christ as always—were not raised to the degree of “friend” of God as the Prophet was, Abraham being so only to a lesser degree: then we must object that at the level of the founders of religions such evaluations are devoid of meaning and only serve to prove the ignorance and fanaticism of those who conceive them. Although in itself the symbolism of the superiority of a given Messenger within his own religion is “subjectively” legitimate—since each religion sees in its founder the total Logos—the arguments used are nonetheless inadmissible from any point of view; already unfortunate when the come from the pen of a theologian, they are all the more so coming from an esoterist.”
    (Christianity and Islam: Perspectives on Esoteric Ecumenism: World Wisdom, p. 102)

    The takeaway from Schuon’s statement is that any Muslim expression of the Supreme rank of the Messenger of Allah—salla Allah ‘alayhi was sallam—is nothing more than “subjective” and thus, ultimately relative. This can also perhaps explain how all of the Qur’anic verses and hadith reports that support Islam’s salvific exclusivity are explained away and “made relative and subjective” by the Perennialists.

    Now, Sidi Kareem, you said:


    The "newness" belongs to the expression, not to the truth. An example is the metaphysical doctrine of Ibn 'Arabi which came to be known as wahdat al-wujud. When Ibn 'Arabi's works started to spread, they were met with fierce resistance, even from Sufis and not just a few of them; in fact, even today not all Sufis accept his ideas, particular in the East. Some oppose Ibn 'Arabi and some see such metaphysical speculation as an intellectual dispersion and a distraction from the dhikr and praise of the Prophet.
    This is not entirely correct. The starting point of al-Shaykh al-Akbar’s metaphysics was the al-Haqiqa al-Muhammadiya and the Revelation. That which pertained to his Kashf—and due to which, was “subjective” as it was not revelation as such—was not always accepted. Some of Ibn ‘Arabi’s utterances were considered interpolations, and others were just called incorrect. A wonderful example of this is found in Imam al-Sha’ranis al-Kibrit al-Ahmar, where he distilled many of the esoteric sciences and observations of Ibn ‘Arabi. In more than one instance he cites Ibn ‘Arabi’s view and says: “Fihi nazar [that is questionable],” which, if you are familiar with scholarly writings in Arabic, indicates that he doesn’t agree.

    Most Sufi Shaykhs (judging from their written or recorded positions or what is reported from them) today hold al-Shaykh al-Akbar in the highest esteem, and only warn or prohibit their murids from reading his works because of the depth and profundity therein, and the risk of misunderstanding his statements and going astray. In fact, one of the notables of the Deoband orientation, Shaykh Ashraf ‘Ali al-Thanawi, has a book on him, I believe (and Deobandis here can correct me on this), and held him in the highest regard as an ‘arif mutahaqiq.


    The idea of the transcendent unity of religions is like the belief in wahdat al-wujud, i.e. it is not a matter of aqidah but a matter of spiritual kashf, intellectual intuition, or what have you.
    The comparison between the Transcendent Unity of Religions and wahdat al-wujud is faulty. The latter has orthodoxy and Sunnism as its starting point, and it does not depart from it in reality. The idea of the Transcendent Unity of Religions on the other had, posits that there are multiple orthodoxies; thus, according to the Perennialists, Sunnism, Shiism, Isma’ilism, and even Salafism are orthodoxies, as technically speaking, there are grades of relative truth.

    This, I am afraid, is where we part ways. Muslims do not view the extant religions as all equal, with Islam taking is fair place among them. We believe that is the religio perennis, abrogating all of the other faiths—this is something Muslims affirm, without the distant echo of “but on the metaphysical plain, not really.”

    The ma’rifa and shuhud of the saints are the highest reaches attained by non-Prophets and they do not declare the preeminent status of the Messenger of Allah above all creation with the disclaimer that it is only in their “relative” and “subjective” spiritual cosmos.

    Schuon said:

    Religions are like lamps of colored glass; now a lamp illuminates the dark because it is luminous and not because it is red or blue or green. On the one hand the color transmits the light, but on the other hand it falsifies it; if it is true that without a given colored lamp one would see nothing, it is just as true that visibility cannot be identified with any one color. This is what every esoterism ought to be aware of by definition, at least in principle and to the extent permitted by its knowledge of facts.
    (Christianity and Islam: Perspectives on Esoteric Ecumenism: World Wisdom, p. 98)

    Colored lamps that falsify the light? Did the Prophets who brought the revealed religions of the past “falsify” the light? Have they ever claimed to be The Absolute Light?
    Salla Allah ‘alayka ya Nur!

    http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/sho...re-any-reliability-in-him&p=489400#post489400

    ---
     
  12. abdarrashid

    abdarrashid Active Member

  13. abdarrashid

    abdarrashid Active Member

    Another site:

    With all my respect for Shaykh Abdal Hakeem, but Schuon will not give you a
    better understanding of theology but it will add confusion to confusion.
    Much of what Schuon has to say about tradition, metaphysics, caste, race and
    primordial man is taken from nineteenth century German philosophy and the
    Symbolic movement of the twenties and thirties in which he grew up. The
    symbolist movement, which influenced his father, had a romantic attachment
    to the esoteric and the primordial man. The symbolists were scavengers of
    India, China, Islam and other non Western cultures and developed an eclectic
    philosophy which was a mish mash of all cultures and religions. Schuon
    thinking is based on Gnosticism, Occultism, the Hermetic corpus,
    Pythagoreanism, neo-Platonism, the Hindu believe in reincarnation, karma,
    the cyclic time, the Kabbala and some religious trappings of Christianity.
    Schuon ushered this lethal brew into Islam and Sufism with predictable
    consequences. His critique of Kant, is not even a shadow to the new grounds
    achieved by phenomenology and later by Heidegger. He simply replaced
    rational metaphysics for occultist methaphysics -Heidegger will say is the
    same-. He was an impostor, which used cultist tricks and devices and his
    self-given Shaykhdom (which he acquired in a dream) to manipulate and
    control his own people. Even Guenon (who, unlike Schuon, at least believed
    you have to pray and fast) had to denounce him as an impostor and wrote:

    “Cela ne m'étonne guère, car, au point de vue technique, l'ignorance de tous
    ces gens, à commencer par F.S. [Frithjof Schuon] lui-même, est véritablement
    effrayante...”

    (I am not surprised, for, from a technical viewpoint, the ignorance off all
    these people, to start with F.S. [Frithjof Schuon] himself, is truly
    frightening...)

    Having said this, Schuon was a great influence to many gullible individuals
    of a generation now in their fifties and sixties who were in search for
    knowledge and to most of the modern perennialists particularly: Seyyed
    Hossein Nasser and Marting Lings. The latest wrote:

    “Schuon is unsurpassed and I would add unequalled, as a writer on
    comparative religion” and “If I were asked who is the greatest writer of our
    time, I would say Frithjof Schuon without hesitation”.

    The problem, Tazkiyya, is that this people roam in our Muslim arenas as if
    they are the true picture of Islam. They mingle with us while in fact they
    have different beliefs. As an example, I was surprised that somebody as
    educated as Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, is going to appear next weekend with Dr
    Lings (Abu Bakr Sirajuddin) to speak about Islam in the “The Shakespeare and
    Islam Lecture Series” in the Globe in London. This is a man who not only is
    a schuonian perennialist but has written:

    “The law of religion is for a particular place and period, as a torch given
    to man to guide him on a moonless nigh…But the true man has no need for this
    torch”

    “Our aim has been to express in the language of Sufism some of the universal
    truths that lie at the heart of all religions”

    “the universal aspect of all religion which is above all particular
    differences”

    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bewleyupdates/message/18903

    ---
     
  14. abdarrashid

    abdarrashid Active Member

    some thoughts another site:

    As regards the Perennialists, this is a less straightforward issue. On the one hand, people such as yourself have been genuinely and sincerely impressed by the personalities involved such as Martin Lings/Abu Bakar Sirajuddin. Also, it is undeniable that certain of their books have created a very favourable impression of Islam and Sufism in the eyes of Westerners (and also western-educated Muslims).

    On the other hand, serious issues arise when comparing Perennialist positions with orthodox Muslim beliefs and accepting the Maryamiyyah as an orthodox Shadhili Tariqah. The basic belief of Perennialism is that Islam and the Beloved Prophet (the Sayyidul Mursileen) salla ALLAHu alayhi wassallam have no pre-eminence over other religions and prophets and to believe so shows that one has a limited (“exoteric”) mentality and is guilty of religious nationalism! In their writings, they do not distinguish between the status of the Quran and the scriptures of other religions and appear to consider them all to have the same authority. Equally probelamatic is the Perennialist position which denies Islam’s universality, considering it “providentially” confined to a particular part of the world and “mentality” (along with other and, for the Perennialists, equally valid religions such as Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc). This is contrasted with the message of Schuon and Guenon, which is universal (as stated by Lings). Lings has also stated that neither Guenon nor Schuon (Lings’ Shaikh) converted to Islam in the usual sense (i.e. they did not leave Christianity).

    Based on the above, I think the writings of the Perennialists (and their understanding of Islam and orthodox Tasawwuf) need to be carefully scrutinised before arriving at any conclusions about their status as Islamic spiritual authorities.

    he says also

    At one time I was a “devotee” of the Perennialist books-almost to the extent I would not read anything else. However, I then realised the implications of Perennialism and its incompatability with pure Islam and Tasawwuf. Some examples are below.

    Rene Guenon:

    “I cannot let it said that I “converted to Islam” for this way of presenting
    things is completely false; whoever is aware of the essential unity of
    traditions is therefore “unconvertible” to whatsoever, and he is even the
    only one to be so; but one may “settle”, if one may say so, in such or
    such a tradition depending upon circumstances, and above all for
    reasons of an initiatory order.”

    Frithjof Schuon:

    “I have had since my youth a particular interest in Advaita Vedanta…Since I could not find this method…in Europe…I had to look elsewhere…and since Islam de facto contains this method in Sufism, I finally decided to look for a Sufi master; the outer form did not matter to me.”

    According to another Schuon follower, James Cutsinger, in the foreword to Schuon’s book “Prayer fashions man: Frithjof Schuon on the spiritual life”, Schuon knew that people “might falsely conclude that he had renounced Christianity and “converted” to Islam. In fact, his Sufi affiliation was simply a matter of vocation…it did not conflict with his remaining an adamant defender of traditional Christological doctrine and other essential Chritian truths…”

    Martin Lings

    “If I were to be asked who is the greatest writer of our time, I would say Frithjof Schuon without hesitation”.

    Although I have also heard people say that Martin Lings had a different position to Guenon and Schuon, I did not see anything he wrote in which he differed from his two predecessors in the fundamentals of Perennialism, i.e., all religions are identical in their innermost essence and differ only in their outer aspects, so it does not make a difference which religion one follows (a further implication of this was that all messengers/”Avatars” were to be considered equal and it was the sign of a limited mentality to exalt one over the other. Schuon rebuked Ibn Al Arabi for this “error” when he attributed to the Beloved Prophet Sayyiduna Muhammad Salla Allahu Alyhi wa Alihi wa Sallam a station above all other Prophets). Lings stated that it was one of the requirements of Schuon for his diciples (which included Lings himself as one of the staunchest and most loyal) that they love all religions equally.

    SH Nasr

    He has openly defended the right of Christians to believe in the doctrine of the Trinity and constantly and consistently in his books potrayed Schuon as a great spiritual authority with a function not limited only to Islam.

    Can the above sayings and beliefs be attributed to traditional Shuyukh or mureeds of the Shadhili school?

    So, based on the above, on the one hand I rejected Perennialism, but on the other hand there were these beautifully written books by authors whom I had admired and who I believed had deepened my understanding of Islamic spirituality. A question then occurred to me: if the basis of everything these authors view religion through (including Islam) is Perennialism, and I fully reject Perennialism, then is the Islam they see and talk about in their books the same as the one I was born into and exemplified in the works and personalities of the great Sufis down the ages? And also, if I do not accept Perennialism, can I separate this from the “non-Perennialist” aspects in such books? Unfortunately, I could not find any easy answers to such questions. Wallahu a’lam.

    ---

    I also read the Hamza Yusuf account but was puzzled by his reasoning. If Perennialism is to be rejected how can someone whose basis of being in, understanding, and explaining Islam is the same Perennialism be portrayed as some kind of Wali? While not advocating “takfeer” of someone holding such clearly rejected beliefs, I also think we should not go to the opposite extreme otherwise you are lending credence to the very doctrine you at the same time claim to be rejecting. Perhaps Hamzah Yusuf and Ali Jifri should have have taken the opportunity to give sound counsel/naseeha to Lings to correct his beliefs and understanding of Islam and Sufism.

    http://riyada.hadithuna.com/encounter-al-sanusi/
     
  15. abdarrashid

    abdarrashid Active Member

    Philosophia Perennis Universale Imperium
    Muhammad Salman Raschid
    Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. He was
    Visiting Scholar at Harvard University during
    1981/1982. He is the author of Iqbal’s Concept of God
    (1981)
    Religion, Vol. 13 No. 2(April 1983)
    The following is an extract from the review of Nasr’s
    book, Knowledge and the Sacred, published by the
    Edinburgh University Press in 1981:
    “Overall, Nasr’s book may be read as a very full
    statement of a kind of ‘perennial philosophy’ (in fact
    its pure milk - for those who can take so strong a
    diet): that associated with the writings of Guénon,
    Coomaraswamy and Schuon. The last-mentioned is the
    focal figure to whom Nasr keeps returning throughout
    his exposition - his works ‘crown the body of
    contemporary traditional writings’ (p. 107) but they
    have been ‘singularly neglected in academic circles’
    (p. 107)
    ….“The ‘perennial wisdom’ lies at the heart of every
    religion. It is one of the chief components of idea of
    tradition, a term which has a technical usage defined
    by Nasr as ‘truths or principles of a divine origin
    revealed or unveiled to mankind’ (p. 68). This eternal
    wisdom is identified with the philosophia perennis of
    the Western tradition by Nasr and was identified by
    Coomaraswamy with the Hindu Sanatana dharma (pp.
    68-69)

    “The formal set of ideas and principles underpinning
    the tradition constitutes a body of sacred knowledge:
    every revelation has this scientia sacra at its core
    (p. 130). Such knowledge originates in a dual source -
    revelation and ‘intellection’ (‘intellectual intuition
    which involves the illumination of the heart and mind
    of man’). Nasr identifies this sacred science with
    metaphysics - defined as ‘the ultimate science of the
    Real’ (pp. 132-133). This metaphysical science is
    based on the idea of that the cosmos is ranged in a
    gradation of levels of reality with ‘the absolute and
    infinite Reality’ at the apex of hierarchy. The use of
    the terms as ‘These Hypostases of the Real’ (p. 35)
    and ‘constant effusions’ of ‘Being’ (p. 137) serves to
    underline the thoroughly Neoplatonic origin of these
    ideas. Its essence, which is also the goal of the path
    of knowledge, it the attainment of ‘unitive knowledge
    … the awareness of the nondual nature of the Real’ or,
    in other words, the Divine Self-knowledge (p. 134;
    this is pure pantheism).

    Nasr makes many distinct claims about the nature and
    scope of his scientia sacra. I propose now to examine
    two such claims. First, consider the existence of a
    plurality of religions. Nasr writes:

    ‘Scientia Sacra can be expounded in the language of
    one as well as the other perspective. It can speak of
    God or the Godhead, Allah, the Tao or even nirvana …’
    (p.137)…


    ….‘the traditional perspective’ which

    ‘alone is able to see each religion as a religion and
    the religion, ‘absolute’ within its own universe,
    while reconfirming that ultimately only the Absolute
    is absolute.
    (p. 281; my comment: this is empty word-play).

    His basic position this:

    ‘Tradition studies religion from the point of view of
    scientia sacra which distinguishes between the
    Principle and manifestation, Essence and form,
    Substance and accident, the inward and the outward.’
    (p. 292).

    On such a flimsy basis Nasr boldly proclaims the
    ‘transcendent unity of religion’ for

    ‘The unity of religions is to be found first and
    foremost in this Absolute which is at once Truth and
    Reality and the origin of all revelations and of all
    truth.’ (p. 293)

    So that ‘below’ the level of ‘this Absolute’ religions
    manifest themselves by means of their very different
    specificities and particularities: doctrines, rites,
    symbols, etc. There seem to be two serious
    difficulties in this view. First, it does not deal at
    all adequately with the absolute and exclusive
    character of the truth-claims in many religions -
    pre-eminently perhaps in the Semitic monotheistic
    tradition. Secondly, it does not show how, as distinct
    from merely asserting that, the distinctly individual
    doctrines (e.g. God versus nirvana) become ‘united’ at
    the level of ‘the Absolute’. More concretely, and most
    specifically, I grew up as a Muslim in Theravada
    Buddhist Burma and I have never managed to reconcile
    the two religions. The Prophet Muhammad represents, in
    my view, the completion and consummation of mankind’s
    long religious story: but virtually everything he
    affirms is categorically denied by the Buddha. The
    Prophet’s message is deeply and intensely theocentric
    whereas the Buddha, on the strictest reading of the
    Pali canon by such scrupulous scholars as K. N.
    Jayatileke, was an extremely radical atheist… In this
    difficult situation the theory (for that is what it
    is) advocated by Nasr is not helpful. The discrepancy
    between the notions of God and nirvana need not
    trouble me for, according to the scientia sacra (of
    Nasr), at a certain level of reality they amount to or
    ‘become’ one and the Same Thing: variously called by
    Nasr ‘that unique Truth’, ‘the one formless Essence’,
    ‘The Absolute’, ‘the absolute and infinite Reality’,
    ‘The Ultimate Reality’, ‘The Real’, ‘Absolute Reality’
    etc. In this way the concrete, and deeply meaningful,
    theological and buddhological formulations of distinct
    traditions evaporate into a meaningless mist of
    vacuous rhetoric. On such considerations, then, Nasr’s
    ‘theory’ turns out to be a pointless and rudimentary
    verbal exercise. The root cause of the difficulty is
    that he is trying to have it both ways: in
    endeavouring to affirm two absolutes at once he
    inevitably ends up in an incoherent position. There is
    a deeper point at issue here: the Philosophy of
    religion should not violate the facts of religion.
    Nasr’s repeated declarations on the lines that he
    respects ‘the spiritual genius and particularity of
    each tradition’ (p. 69) are not borne out by his
    procedure: his fundamental premise is that

    ‘The metaphysical knowledge of unity comprehends the
    theological one in both a figurative and literal
    sense, while the reverse is not true’ (p. 138)

    This is a profoundly irreligious attitude; it should
    be axiomatic that any kind of religious metaphysic
    must be subsumed under the initial, and therefore
    initiating, Message - be it contained in the
    Christ-event, the Quran or the Buddha’s experience of
    nirvana. Nasr’s ‘metaphysic’ is actually an
    incongruous mixture of ideas derived from Semitic
    monotheism, Plotinian emanationism and a theistic
    interpretation of Vedanta, presumably based on
    Guénon.”
    “As a Muslim, I am bound to say that Professor Seyyed
    Hossein Nasr’s book cannot be read as a Muslim
    statement since it does not represent the statement of
    Islamic (i.e. Quranic) ideas. It is rather based upon
    a confused mixture of what could be characterized as
    ‘Neoplatonized Semitic Theism with an admixture of
    distorted Vedanta’. If this sounds like an
    extraordinary incoherent formulation I submit that it
    is a direct reflection of the basic incoherence in
    Nasr’s whole case.”
     
  16. abdarrashid

    abdarrashid Active Member

    also the following might be useful

    Muhyiddin Ibn al-`Arabi
    Amidst Religions (adyan)
    And Schools of Thought (madhabib)[1]
    MAHMOUD AL-GHORAB
    SHAKH AL-`AKBAR AND UNITY OF RELIGIONS
    Among the Orientalists and non-Muslim writers we find those who try to portray Shaykh al-`Akbar as a common denominator or factor of both the revealed and non-revealed religions. As if he were the Joker of playing cards, for them he is a believer in each and every religion. It was their erroneous understanding of what he wrote in the Tarjuman al-Ashwaq that led them to such belief, for he said:

    My heart has become capable of accepting every form
    A pasture for gazelles and a monastery for monks
    A temple for idols and a pilgrim’s Ka`ba
    Tablets for the Torah and the book of the Qur`an
    I follow the religion of love wherever its mounts lead
    This is my religion and my faith[2]

    Those who read these lines, without reading the Shaykh’s commentary, took them to indicate a different meaning, contrary to what he originally intended. In so doing they neither accepted the Shaykh’s explanation in the same book, nor tried to understand what he meant through reading his other works. The reason behind such misunderstanding is their confusing between the divine self-disclosure in the forms of beliefs, i.e. witness of the Real (al-Haqq) in the form of every belief (Fut.[3], I, pp. 238, 405, and 589; II, pp. 92, 326, and 498; IV, pp. 100, 101, 165, 405, and 415.) - which is what these lines mean - and the object of belief, which the Real (al-Haqq) orders the servant to follow on the tongues of His Messengers. For the self-disclosure in the forms of beliefs refers to the One disclosing himself, and He is the Real exalted and glorified, while the object of belief refers to the servant who is obliged to believe in God in accordance with what he was ordered on the tongue of the Prophet, which is found in the Revealed Law.

    The closest example to it is our belief that God is the creator of everything, this includes all the acts (af`al) of the servant; nevertheless, the servant is responsible for his wrong actions, and all evils that originate from him, and, equally, he is rewarded for all good that emanates from him and at his hands. So what they imagined is the result of their incorrect understanding of the Shaykh’s commentary on what God the exalted said: ‘Your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him’ [Q.XVII:23]. For the Shaykh ‘decreed’ here means ordainment not a commandment.

    In the same way they erroneously understood the Shaykh when he said: ‘None is worshipped other than God, even those who associate others with God worship none but God in the very objects of worship that they name as associates.’ (Fut., II, p. 92). They isolated such a statement, which is supported by what the Real said about those who associate others with God, when they admit: ‘We only worship them in order that they may bring us nigh in nearness to God’ [Q.XXXIX:3], instead of linking it to what he wrote about the importance of closely adhering to the Revealed Law. They also did not pay attention to what the Shaykh, may God be pleased with him, said:
    ‘He who prostrates himself to other than God, by God’s command, seeking nearness to God and obeying God, will be felicitous and attain deliverance; but he who prostrates himself to other than God, without God’s command, seeking nearness, will be wretched.’ (Fut., III, p. 367).

    Another cause for the mistake, of those who speak about the universality of the Shaykh in his belief, stems from over-emphasizing his words: ‘Mercy is all-encompassing and punishment is not eternal.’[4] Again, they paid no attention to his other statements:
    Torment and the sensory torture by fire, the burning of flesh, the biting of serpents and scorpions, and all other types of sensory and supersensory punishment, will continue for a period which he estimates to last fifty thousand years that are equal to the years of this world. (Fut., III, p. 383).
    They were unable to comprehend what he meant when he said that the form of punishment is everlasting and never changes, even after the end of the duration of punishment, and the encompassing of mercy to the people of wretchedness; for God the exalted will configure the people of the fire - those who belong to it and shall never come out of it - on a temperament through which they will enjoy that by which were tormented. Could we find an intelligent person who would hope to enjoy stench, pus and the burning of flesh, and abandons delight in the gardens with the beautiful companions, beauty in the abode of sheer pleasure, that is, Paradise, the abode of the felicitous ones?


    About the Jews specifically the Shaykh wrote in his commentary on the story of Mary, when she pointed to Jesus, peace be upon him, as she brought him to her folk: ‘Mary, peace be upon her, resorted to ishara because of the people of calumny and heresy (ahl al-ifk wa’l ilhad). (Fut., I, p. 279).

    He also wrote about them in connection with the interpretation of the Qur`an:
    One should never venture to interpret the speech of God according to the likes of these tremendously corrupted stories, like the story of Yusuf, Dawud and similar Prophets, may peace be upon them, and also Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, as they are only based on corrupt interpretations, and dubious sources, related by people who said about God that which He mentions in His Book[5]. So, if the one who teaches people repeats such stories in his circle, the angels would hate him, depart from his circle, and he will incur the wrath of God. If his circle is attended by one whose belief is not complete, he will find in such stories a license (rukhsa) that he can rely upon in his disobedience, claiming: ‘If the Prophets committed such acts [as the stories narrate] who could I be in relation to them? By God, far be it from what the accursed Jews attributed to the Prophets.’ (Fut., II, p. 256).

    About the Jews and Christians in reference to Jesus, peace be upon him, he wrote:
    He saluted himself in the three states referring to the verse in the Qur’an when God, on the tongue of Jesus the son of Mary, says: ‘So peace is on me the day I was born, the day that I die, and the day that I shall be raised up to life again’ [Q.XIX:33]. God the most high thus declared His incomparability (tanzih), above the misguiding utterances of the people of misguidance, when the verse declared: ‘Such [was] Jesus the son of Mary: [it is] a statement of truth about which they [vainly] dispute [Q.XIX:34]. (Ibn al-`Arabi, al-Tanazzulat al-Musiliyya, p.172.)
    In these passages we see the Shaykh calling the Jews and the Christians the people of calumny, heresy and misguidance.

    There is no doubt that those who imagine that Shaykh al-`Akbar believes and propagates the doctrine of the unity of religions have never read his writings on Jihad, or his call to fight against the unbelievers. (Ibn al-`Arabi, Fut., IV, p. 470; Ijaz al-Bayan fi’t Tarjama `an al-Qur`an, ‘Fight in the cause of Allah’, [Q.II:190]).
    They have also not read his letters to both Sultan `Izz al-Din Kaykaus (Fut., IV, p. 533), and Sultan al-Nur Ibn al-Rashid, (Ibn al-`Arabi, al-Musamarat, II), for if what they have imagined was true, no meaning would be left for unbelief (kujr), faith (Iman), the Garden, the Hellfire, felicity and wretchedness. While the Shaykh, may God be pleased with him, confirms that the people of the hellfire are of four categories, the second category is that of the associators (al-mushrikun), those who associate others with God, and the third category is made up of atheists (al-mu`attila), those who completely deny divinity and say that this universe has no God. (Fut., I, p. 301).


    والله يقول الحق وهو يهدي السبيل
    والحمد لله رب العالمين
    محمود محمود الغراب

    [1]- MUHYIDDIN IBN `ARABI, A COMMEMORATIVE VOLUME - MUHYIDDIN IBN `ARABI SOCIETY - 1993, P/199.
     
  17. abdarrashid

    abdarrashid Active Member

    Found the following on the net, a part of someones dissertation, its about perennialism (Nasr,Ling type) by Abd al-Malik Salam

    NEOPLATONISM AND ISLAM

    Neoplatonism is the philosophical school, developed by
    Plotinus and his followers in the third century, which
    combined the ideas of Plato and other Greek
    philosophers with Oriental mysticism. Adherents of the
    school hold that ‘all material and spiritual existence
    emanated from the One-the transcendent Godhead-through
    the actions of the divine mind, or logos’ (Drury 1992:
    219-220).

    A very similar idea is expressed by Nasr when he
    refers to ‘the metacosmic principle which is the
    Intellect’ and ‘spiritus or nous’. It is ‘itself
    divine and only human to the extent that man
    participates in it’. Furthermore:
    ‘The Logos or Buddhi or ‘aql, as the Intellect is
    called in various traditions, is the luminous centre
    which is the generating agent of the world-for “it was
    by the Word that all things were made”-of man and of
    religion. It is God’s knowledge of Himself and the
    first in His creation’ (Nasr 1981a: 146-147. Cf.
    Plotinus 1967: III, 4 and Aristotle 1974: III, 5).



    He also asserts that ‘true metaphysics of the highest
    order’ can be found ‘among the Greeks in the
    Pythagorean-Platonic writings, and especially in
    Plotinus’. True metaphysics, when ‘tied with a
    philosophy which is at once perennial and universal’
    is ‘the heart of the philosophia perennis’ (Nasr
    1968a: 82-83). This synthesis is apparent in Nasr’s
    belief that ‘all traditions are earthly manifestations
    of celestial archetypes related ultimately to the
    immutable archetype of the Primordial Tradition’ (Nasr
    1981a: 74). He reproduces a passage from Sophia
    perennis, an article by Schuon in which he refers to
    the ‘fundamental metaphysical truths’ that ‘lie
    buried’ in ‘the pure Intellect’. According to Schuon,
    only ‘the one who is spiritually contemplative’ or
    ‘gnostic’ and ‘the ‘philosophers’ in the real and
    still innocent sense of the word: for example,
    Pythagoras, Plato and to a large extent also
    Aristotle’ possess access to these truths (Schuon In
    Nasr 1981a: 88). Nasr describes them as ‘those who
    have the possibility of intellectual intuition’ and
    the experience they undergo as ‘microcosmic
    revelation’ which allows them to access ‘the ultimate
    science of the Real’, this being synonymous with the
    concepts of prajŠna in Buddhism, jŠn¢ana in Hindusim
    and ma‘rifah in Islam (ibid.: 131f.)

    Nasr contends that the wisdom ‘of Plato, Plotinus and
    other Graeco-Alexandrian sages and writings such as
    Hermeticism’ should not be seen ‘as simply human
    philosophy but as sacred doctrines of divine
    inspiration’. He argues that some Muslims regarded the
    former to be a prophet and that Muslim philosophers
    believed ‘the Greek philosophers had learned their
    doctrines from the prophets’, which although
    historically unverifiable ‘nevertheless contains a
    profound truth’ (ibid.: 35). Nasr echoes the views of
    Shih¢ab al-D³n al-Suhraward³ al-Maqt¢ul (d. 1191
    C.E.), who he claims speaks about ‘Divine Wisdom’ in a
    way which is ‘almost identical with what Sophia and
    philosophia perennis mean traditionally’ (ibid.: 72).
    He cites Suhraward³ in Three Muslim Sages as saying
    that ‘inner vision’ is the means he uses to arrive at
    the Truth and that
    ‘the procedure of the master of philosophy and im¢am
    of wisdom, the Divine Plato, was the same, and the
    sages of Philosophy who preceded Plato in time like
    Hermes, the father of philosophy, followed the same
    path’ ( In Nasr 1976: 63).



    Muslim Orthodoxy has taken a view of the philosophers
    which is rather different to that of Nasr. It has
    never trusted ‘those who would abandon the science of
    Shafi‘³ and M¢alik, and elevate the opinion of
    Empedocles to the level of law in Islam’ (Y¢aq¢ut In
    Goldziher 1981: 185-186). Smith (1940) notes that
    Suhraward³ ‘was put to death for his unorthodox views’
    and that he ‘accepted the doctrine of transmigration’
    which ‘orthodox Islam repudiated’ (op. cit.: 352-354).


    In the introduction to his Tahaf¢ut al-Fal¢asifah,
    Al-Ghaz¢al³ condemns as heretics those who ‘have heard
    the awe-inspiring names of people like Socrates,
    Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, etc.’ and ‘have been
    deceived by the exaggerations’ of their followers who
    claim that the ‘extraordinary intellectual powers’ of
    these philosophers ‘justifies their bold attempts to
    discover the Hidden Things’. He accuses them of
    accepting falsehood ‘blindly’ and ‘uncritically’ and
    refusing ‘to be content with the religion followed by
    their ancestors’ (Al-Ghaz¢al³ 1958: 2).

    Keller (1991) approves of the use of ‘Platonic
    philosophical language’ in Sufism to make ‘needful
    metaphysical distinctions such as “being”, “act” and
    “essence”’, but rejects it ‘in substantive doctrinal
    conceptions of the Platonic worldview such as
    “immutable essences”, “archetypes”, “Ideas”, and so
    forth’. He emphasises that
    ‘Sufis, whatever vocabulary they may choose, behold
    the Truth by the sun of divine revelation, not the
    movements of human introspection, and in a word, are
    illumined, while Plato is unillumined’ (op. cit.:
    1103)

    Evidently, Nasr’s approach is not limited to the use
    of necessary terminology which Keller refers to, but
    includes the incorporation of key Neoplatonic notions
    in his conception of the perennial philosophy.





    THE PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS

    ‘By philosophia perennis’ in Nasr’s view, ‘is meant a
    knowledge which has always and will always be and is
    of a universal character’. It deals with ‘universal
    principles’ and has existed throughout time among
    different peoples, being ‘contained at the heart of
    all religions or traditions’. The intellect can access
    it via those traditions and ‘by means of methods,
    rites, symbols, images and other means sanctified by
    the message from Heaven or the Divine Origin’. This
    knowledge, or ‘gnosis’, ‘provides the key for the
    understanding of both the necessity of the plurality
    of religions and the way to penetrate into other
    religious universes’. Nasr confesses that this
    understanding of the philosophia perennis is that of
    the traditionalist school, whose ‘first expositor in
    the West’ was the French metaphysician, René Guénon
    (Nasr 1984a: 182f.; idem 1987: 136ff.)

    René Guénon and the Primordial Tradition
    Many of the ideas held by Nasr are found in the
    thought of René Guénon, which is not surprising as the
    former admits to being an adherent of the
    traditionalist school. Guénon believes in ‘the
    essential unity of tradition underlying the diversity
    of more or less outward forms, which are really no
    more than different garments clothing one and the same
    truth’, this truth being ‘the great primordial
    Tradition’ (Guénon 1958: ixf. Cf. Nasr 1981a: 67ff.).
    He also refers to the ‘sacred science’ which proceeds
    ‘from universal principles’ and stresses the ‘premier
    role of intellectual intuition’ in gaining the
    ‘highest’ knowledge ‘that some, in whom the
    contemplative tendency predominates, may attain’
    (Guénon 1935: 21).
    Guénon appears to have developed most of his basic
    ideas before secretly embracing Islam and being
    initiated into the Sh¢adhil³ Sufi order in 1912.
    According to Waterfield (1987), ‘the basis on which he
    built all his work’ had already been formulated by
    this time, and ‘he did not develop any significantly
    new ideas after that date’ (op. cit.: 43). In the
    preceding years, Guénon was affiliated to a number of
    occult and fringe Masonic groups. Although he later
    repudiated occultism in his writings, he does seem to
    have retained some occult doctrines. Waterfield notes
    that a number of his ideas, including the concept of a
    Primordial Tradition, are found in the works of the
    influential occultist writer (and friend of Guénon)
    d’Alveydre (ibid.).

    Of all the occult movements, it was the Theosophical
    Society that was most severely criticised by Guénon.
    He devoted a lengthy volume, Le Théosophisme, histoire
    d’une pseudo-religion, to exposing the activities of
    the Society. There are, however, striking similarities
    between Guénon’s thought and Theosophy. Blavatsky
    (1888), who founded the Society, refers to ‘the
    archaic truths which are the basis of all religions’
    (op. cit.: vii) that are revealed by ‘comparative
    study and analysis’ of those faiths (idem. 1939: 3f.).
    She describes how each religion was evolved ‘from
    ancestral traditions’ which constitute ‘the primitive
    “wisdom-religion”’ (idem. 1960: 216), and that this
    ‘wisdom-religion was esoteric in all ages’. She also
    states that ‘Gnosis’ or ‘Secret Wisdom’ can be
    achieved through ‘real ecstasy’ which Plotinus defined
    as ‘the liberation of the mind from its finite
    consciousness’ (idem. 1939: 7, 10).

    These similarities can be explained by the fact that
    the Theosophical Society was so successful that, as
    Waterfield states, ‘it was the main vehicle for the
    dissemination of the idea that secret wisdom was
    available from the East’ (Waterfield 1987: 35). Other
    occult groups were therefore influenced by the ideas
    of the movement. Also, a number of Guénon’s friends
    and associates, including Ivan Aguéli who initiated
    him into the Sh¢adhil³ çtar³qah, had been Theosophists
    (Vide ibid.: chaps. 2 and 3).

    Nasr indirectly acknowledges the importance of occult
    ideas in Guénon’s thought, pointing out that ‘the
    rediscovery of the sacred in Oriental teachings and
    the attempt to regain knowledge of a traditional
    character’ in the nineteenth century by groups such as
    the Theosophical Society ‘provides a valuable
    background for the understanding of the significance
    of authentic traditional teachings in the West’. These
    teachings were first expounded early this century by
    ‘a small number of Europeans’ who had studied the
    Oriental traditions. Specifically, Nasr names Albert
    de Pouvourville, an occultist described by Waterfield
    as having a ‘powerful influence’ on Guénon, ‘Abd al
    H¢ad³ (Aguéli) as well as Guénon himself (Nasr 1981a:
    100, 123; Waterfield 1987: 36).

    Despite his break with occultism, Guénon ‘remained
    convinced of the importance of masonry as a
    transmitter of the Primordial Tradition’ and
    maintained his interest in it ‘throughout his life’
    (Waterfield 1987: 36, 46), contributing to journals
    such as the Speculative Mason long after his
    conversion (Crouch 1990: 17f.). This may account for
    why some of Guénon’s basic concepts are almost
    identical to certain Masonic beliefs. To illustrate
    this, Mazet’s (1992) pertinent comments need to be
    quoted at length:
    ‘The way the basic principles [of Freemasonry] deal
    with the differences of religions suggests an
    underlying belief in a transcendental truth of which
    the various religions would be different expressions
    in different historical and cultural contexts. Such a
    belief is generally recognised as part of the
    metaphysical foundations of the distinction between
    the exoteric and esoteric sides of religions. Then the
    esoteric character of Masonry would consist in leading
    its members, each through a proper understanding of
    his own faith, to this transcendental truth. Indeed,
    such a view is professed by many freemasons...’ (op.
    cit.: 249).
    One such mason, an Anglican vicar writing under the
    pseudonym Vindex affirms in Light Invisible, The
    Freemasons Answer to Darkness Visible that Freemasonry
    ‘embodies in itself the fundamental truths and ancient
    mysteries on which every religion is based’ (In Knight
    1984: 233).

    While Guénon may have been the first Western advocate
    of the traditionalist school, Nasr insists that it is
    Frithjof Schuon who ‘perfected’ the school’s doctrines
    (Nasr 1987: 138). It is to Schuon that Nasr
    acknowledges the greatest debt for the development of
    his thought and his exaltation of his master is
    absolute:
    ‘Schuon seems like the cosmic intellect itself
    impregnated by the energy of divine grace surveying
    the whole of the reality surrounding man and
    elucidating all the concerns of human existence in the
    light of sacred knowledge’ (Nasr 1981a: ix, 107)

    Islam and Other Religions
    Nasr’s belief in the philosophia perennis accounts for
    his positive view of faiths other than Islam. In
    particular his opinion of Hinduism, the study of which
    many traditionalist writers appear to be preoccupied
    with, is most favourable. He describes it as the
    ‘oldest of religions and the only echo of the
    “primordial religion” to survive to this day’ (Nasr
    1981a: 6). The ‘primordial nature of Hinduism in the
    Muslim mind’ has led ‘many Muslim authors’ to identify
    ‘the name of the bar¢ahimah (namely Hindus) with
    Abraham’ (idem. 1966a: 59).

    In answer to Sh¢ahrastan³’s objection to the belief
    that Hindus ‘are called Bar¢ahimah because of their
    affiliation with Abraham-upon whom be peace’ since
    ‘they are a people especially known to have denied
    prophecy completely and totally’, Nasr replies that
    ‘this theological criticism does not in any way
    detract from the metaphysical significance of the
    assertion ...’ (ibid.). He seems here to be espousing
    what Coplestone refers to as a ‘double-truth theory’,
    that a doctrine can be theologically false yet at the
    same time philosophically (or esoterically) true (cf.
    Coplestone 1982: 100).

    Nasr then refers to an article by Guénon, The
    Mysteries of the Letter N¢un, for an elaboration of
    the relationship between Hinduism and Islam. Guénon
    describes Hinduism in this essay as representing ‘the
    most direct heritage of the Primordial Tradition’ and
    Islam as representing ‘the ultimate form of
    traditional orthodoxy for the present cycle’ (Nasr,
    ibid.; Guénon 1980a: 100).

    ‘The primordial tradition’ to Nasr is ‘none other
    than’ the d³n al-han³f which is the ‘original message
    of unity (al-tawh³d)’ with which Abraham was
    identified with. Nasr claims that it is ‘like the
    san¢atana dharma of Hinduism’ which has a ‘profound
    affinity’ with the d³n al-han³f ‘on the metaphysical
    plane’ (Nasr 1966a: 53, 59; idem. 1981a: 87). This
    appears to be an attempt by Nasr to validate Hinduism
    since, as he understands it, at the esoteric level
    both Islam and Hinduism represent pure monotheism. A
    similar approach is taken towards Christianity, when
    he refers to ‘those Sufis who tried to interpret the
    Christian Trinity as an assertion rather negation of
    Divine Unity’ (idem. 1966a: 59).

    In an interview in 1994, Nasr responds to John Hick’s
    assertion that the historical Jesus ‘did not think of
    himself as God, or the second person of the divine
    Trinity’ by stating that ‘as a Muslim scholar, I would
    say that this recent [historical] discovery confirms
    what the Quran says explicitly about Christ, that he
    is in fact a prophet and not the son of God’. Nasr
    does not accept, however, that God could allow ‘one of
    the major religions of the world’ to be ‘misguided for
    two thousand years’. He therefore insists that ‘even
    if this doctrine is not historically borne out by
    existing documents, it was divinely willed for
    Christians and of course not Muslims’ and so ‘as a
    Muslim’ he would ‘defend the traditional Christian
    understanding of that doctrine’. This concept is given
    in more detail by Nasr earlier in the interview, when
    he declares, ‘I believe that the sacred rites, the
    sacred scriptures, and also certain fundamental
    formulations of theology are divinely ordained within
    each religion by God’ (Aslan 1996: 268, 271f.).

    The ‘most profound encounter’ between Islam and other
    faiths for Nasr, however, is not theological. It
    occurs ‘on the level of esotericism, in the
    perspective of Sufism’ which he considers to be ‘the
    most universal affirmation of that perennial wisdom
    which stands at the heart of Islam and in fact all
    religion as such’. Nasr identifies this ‘perennial
    wisdom’ as ‘the supreme doctrine of Unity’ which Sufis
    refer to as ‘the religion of love’. He cites verses
    from Ibn al-‘Arab³’s Tarjum¢an al-Ashw¢aq, including
    the words, ‘I follow the religion of Love: whatever
    may Love’s camels take, that is my religion and my
    faith’. According to Nasr, this love is ‘the realised
    aspect of gnosis’ and ‘a transcendent knowledge that
    reveals the inner unity of all religions’. Hence Ibn
    al-‘Arab³, he opines, ‘asserts openly the doctrine of
    the universality of revelation’ (Nasr 1966a: 65).

    Caspar (1981) appears to take issue with this approach
    to Sufism. He remarks that to simply ‘juxtapose
    selected Muslim, Jewish, Hindu or Christian texts on
    love’ or discuss ‘union with God, grace, charity,
    etc., on the basis of proximate translations’ is far
    easier than ‘to isolate the precise meaning of the
    expressions used ... taking into consideration the
    essential nature of the language, the personal
    synthesis of each mystic and his own living
    experience’ (op. cit.: 166).
    Keller (1996) accuses those who support ‘their emotive
    preference for the validity of other religions from
    the books of famous Sufis, such as Ibn al-‘Arabi’ of
    holding a belief which is ‘the opposite of orthodox
    Islam’. He refers specifically to Imaginal Worlds: Ibn
    al-‘Arabi and the Problem of Religious Diversity by
    the traditionalist writer and associate of Nasr,
    William Chittick. The author maintains that the shaykh
    does not believe in the abrogation of previous
    religions by Islam. He translates a passage from Ibn
    al-‘Arab³’s al-Futuh¢at al-Makk³yyah, which begins
    with the words, ‘All revealed religions [shar¢a’i‘]
    are lights’ and ends stating that ‘this explains why
    we have been required in our all-inclusive religion to
    have faith in the truth of all messengers and all the
    revealed religions. They are not rendered null by
    abrogation-that is the opinion of the ignorant’.

    Keller questions Chittick’s rendering, and provides a
    ‘fuller translation’ of the passage:
    ‘The religious laws (shara’i‘) are all lights ... This
    is why we are required by our universal law to believe
    in all prophetic messengers (rusul) and to believe
    that their laws are truth, and did not turn into
    falsehood by being abrogated; that is the
    misrepresentation of the ignorant ...’


    Keller’s version continues upto the words: ‘if the
    prophetic messengers had been alive in his [Muhammad’s
    (r)] time, they would have followed him as their
    religious laws have followed his law’. This last
    phrase ‘suggests that everything their laws (shara’i‘
    means nothing else) contained has not only been
    abrogated, but is implicitly thereby contained in the
    new revelation’ (Keller 1996: 3f.). Both Nasr and
    Chittick do not seem to have avoided the pitfall which
    Brewster (1976) warns students of Sufism about, that
    they ‘do not force mysticism
    into a pre-conceived framework of ideas’ (op. cit.:
    36).
    An alternative view of Islam and other religions is
    provided by al-Faruqi (1978), who cites the following
    had³th: ‘All men are born Muslims (in the sense in
    which Islam is equated with din al fitrah); it is his
    parents that Christianize or Judaize him’ [Bukh¢ar³].
    The din al fitrah, whose adherents are referred to as
    hanifs in the Quran, is ‘what God has implanted in
    human nature - the recognition of His transcendence,
    unity, holiness and ultimate goodness - is prior to
    any tradition’. This ‘religio naturalis’, as al-Faruqi
    also names it, ‘is always to be kept distinct from the
    religious traditions of history’ (al-Faruqi 1978:
    93f.).

    Keller is unequivocal in opposing the idea that
    religions other than Islam are valid. He cites the
    verse of the Quran: ‘Whoever seeks a religion other
    than Islam will never have it accepted from him, and
    shall be of those who have truly failed in the next
    life’ [Keller’s rendering of 3:85]. He then quotes
    from Im¢am Nawaw³’s Rawda al-®Talib³n:
    ‘Someone who does not believe that whoever follows
    another religion besides Islam is an unbeliever (like
    Christians), or doubts that such a person is an
    unbeliever, or considers their sect to be valid, is
    himself an unbeliever (kafir) even if he manifests
    Islam and believes in it’


    Keller notes that this is not only the stance of the
    Sh¢afi‘³ madhhab which Nawaw³ represents, ‘but is also
    the recorded position of all three other Sunni
    schools’, producing references from the ‘foremost
    fatwa resource’ of each one. (Keller 1996: 2, 9)


    Aristotle (1974) De Anima (translation of Books 2 and
    3 with some passages from Book 1 by D. W. Hamlyn
    Oxford Clarendon
    Aslan, A. (1996) ‘Religions and the Concept of the
    Ultimate: An Interview with John Hick and Seyyed
    Hossein Nasr’, Islamic Quarterly Vol. 40, 4 pp.
    266-283
    Blavatsky, H. P. (1888) The Secret Doctrine: The
    Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Volume
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