The said principle indicates an important issue in foreign policy of the state and international relations during the history of humankind. It has always been observed that different unions established among groups of states, whether military, political, economic, and commercial, are based on and follow two general goals. The first goal is increase of efficiency […]
Category: Articles
Symbols and the Interpretation of Symbols (Ananda K. Coomaraswamy)
SYMBOLS1 and signs, whether verbal, musical, dramatic or plastic, are means of communication. The references of symbols are to ideas and those of signs to things. One and the same term may be symbol or sign according to its context: the cross, for example, is a symbol when it represents the structure of the universe, […]
Metaphysics and Virtue in Sufism (Titus Burckhardt)
Sufi doctrine possesses several branches, the two most important of which are the domain of Universal Truths (Haqâ’iq) and the domain relating to the human or individual stages of the spiritual way (daqâ’iq); in other words, metaphysics (the science of principles, or of the Principle) and virtue (the “science of the soul”). Needless to say, […]
Who is Man? – The Perennial Answer of Islam(Dr. S.H. Nasr)
IN a World Exhibition whose theme is "Man and his World," "La terre des hommes," and which is devoted to a display of the different aspects of man's life and activities, it is perhaps not futile to pause for a moment and pose the question who is this man to whom the world is said […]
Man in the Universe (Dr. S. H. Nasr)
THERE is no domain in which change and transformation reign with the same supremacy and totality as in that which concerns nature and man's relation to it as well as his knowledge of it. Modern science, which has acted as a catalyst during the past centuries for change in so many other fields, is itself […]
Who’s Afraid of Ecstatic Dancing ? (Pierre Lory)
Two important texts of this volume – those of M.Azmayesh and M.During – have already tackled the question of samâ‘. It appears thus clearly for us that it is not a marginal, secondary topic. On the contrary, it goes to the core of the spiritual experience in Islamic climate. When one believes, or gets a […]
Three Nimatullàhi Shrines (Dr. Mehrdàd Qayyêmi)
Historians tell us that Sufism has been the main stream through the course of Iranian culture during its long history in the Islamic period. It is no surprise that this dominant cultural influence has been particularly manifest in architecture. Sufism has been given shape in most kinds of architectural works, both religious and secular. […]
SHAH NIMATULLAH WALI – ON RIND AND RINDI (DR. JANIS ESHOTS)
It is no secret to the people of tasting that the term rind, like most other key terms of Persian mysticism, does not translate satisfactorily into any modern Western language, and I shall make no effort to translate it. Instead, in order to give some initial notion of the rind and rindí (the state of […]
The Renewer of the Nimatullàhi Order in Iran(Dr. Shahram Pazouki)
Sufism is the spiritual reality of Islam, even if it was not known as “Sufism” at the inception of Islam. Phenomenologically speaking, it proves to be the essence of Islam, which gives life to it, like the soul gives life to the body. In Sufi terminology, Islam has two aspects: sharí‘at, its outer dimension, […]
Principles A Epistle by Shàh Nimatullàh Wali(Dr. Muaammad Legenhausen)
According to the Sufis and the masters of theology, existence as it is in itself, that is, not conditioned,4 is more general than universal and particular, singular and general,5 absolute and restricted and mental and external.