States that classical Islamic texts cannot be understood without contemplative study. This book maintains that the study of Islamic texts cannot be treated separately from self-understanding.

"William Chittick exploits his studied familiarity with Islamic intellectual tradition to offer a striking alternative: a mode of knowing which cannot escape the interior disciplines of knowing the self. Islam can return us to Socrates and to our own souls; are we ready?"

Autorentext

William C. Chittick is professor of Persian Languages at Stony Brook University, New York. He is the author and translator of twenty-five books and one hundred articles on Islamic thought, Sufism, Shi'ism, and Persian literature, including Oneworld's Sufism: A Short Introduction.

Klappentext

Authentic Islamic thought is dying, or so argues Chittick in this profound
new book. With academic courses either encouraging commercialism, or
cultivating zealots, Chittick states that it is impossible to understand classical
Islamic texts without the years of contemplative study that are anathema to
the modern education system.
Insisting upon a return to the ways of the ancient wisdom tradition, which
saw the quest for knowledge of the soul, the world, and God as a unifying
spiritual discipline, Chittick maintains that the study of Islamic texts cannot
be treated separately from self-understanding. Fascinating, radical, and a
true challenge to modern trends in academic study, this book opens a new
debate in Islamic thought.

Zusammenfassung
With academic courses either encouraging commercialism, or cultivating zealots, Chittick states that it is impossible to understand classical Islamic texts without the years of contemplative study that are anathema to the modern education system. Insisting upon a return to the ways of the ancient wisdom tradition, which saw the quest for knowledge of the soul, the world, and God as a unifying spiritual discipline, Chittick maintains that the study of Islamic texts cannot be treated separately from self-understanding. Fascinating, radical, and a true challenge to modern trends in academic study, this book opens a new debate in Islamic thought.

Inhalt

Introduction

1. A Vanishing Heritage
2. Intellectual Understanding
3. The Rehabilitation of Thought
4. Beyond Ideology
5. The Unseen Men
6. The Anthropocosmic Vision
7. The Search for Meaning