ONE of the contradictions, real or apparent, to be found in the Divine Comedy is the fact that Dante places in hell a saint, namely Pope Celestine V, whom the poet reproaches for having abdicated and for having thus betrayed his charge. Here is the story…
Category: Articles
Dharmakara’s Vow
THE notion of "myth" is one which generally evokes an image of traditional stories that are full of symbolism but more or less devoid of historical foundation. Now this latter opinion should not enter too peremptorily into the actual definition of myth; it is sufficient to say that the function of myth is such that […]
The Void in Islamic Art
STRICTLY speaking, the forbidding of images in Islam refers only to images of the Divinity; it is thus situated in the perspective of the Decalogue, or more exactly of Abrahamic monotheism, which Islam renews: in its last as in its first manifestation, this monotheism is directly opposed to idolatrous polytheism…
Women in Islam
In the west, the common picture of a Muslim woman is the stereotype of a woman hidden behind a veil, a voiceless, silent figure, bereft of rights. It is a picture familiar to all of us, in large part because this is invariably how the western media portrays women in Islam.
The Message of the Human Body
To say that man, and consequently the human body, is made in the image of God,” means a priori that it manifests something absolute and for that very reason something unlimited and perfect…
Who Is “Satan” and Where Is “Hell”?
That in this day and age, when "for most people religion has become an archaic and impossible refuge," [1] men no longer take either God or Satan seriously, arises from the fact that they have come to think of both alike only objectively, only as persons external to themselves and for whose existence no adequate […]
On Jihad and Holy war
In the Islamic tradition a distinction is made between two holy wars, the "greater holy war" (el-jihadul-akbar) and the "lesser holy war" (el-jihadul-ashgar). This distinction originated from a saying (hadith) of the Prophet, who on the way back from a military expedition said: "You have returned from a lesser holy war to a great holy […]
Fundamental Keys
Fundamental Keys Meditation, concentration, prayer: these three words epitomize the spiritual life, while at the same time indicating its principal modes. Meditation, from our standpoint, is an activity of the intelligence in view of understanding universal truths; concentration, for its part, is an activity of the will in view of assimilating these truths or realities […]
Suhrawardi on Sacred Symbolism and Self-Knowledge
Amongst the writings of the founder of the school of Illumination and key figure in post-Avicennan Islamic philosophy, Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi (d. 587/1191)1, are a series of mystical/philosophical narratives or ‘recitals’ written in Persian….
Man and the Presence of Evil
OF the main theories to account for the existence of the world, or its apparent existence,one is the theory of emanation (or manifestation) and another is the Christian theory of creation. The theory of emanation—it may be called Platonic (and this includes its neo-Platonic developments) since it is in this form that it presents itself […]