SUNY in Islam

An authoritative new edition and translation, with commentary, of one of the masterpieces of Persian Sufi poetry. The Gulshan-i Rāz, by Mahmud Shabistarī (1288–1340), is widely regarded as a masterpiece of Persian Sufi poetry and philosophy. This new edition, by the renowned scholar of Islam Seyyed Hossein Nasr, not only includes a translation of the poem, it also establishes a new, authoritative edition of the Persian text and provides extensive commentary on the poem and its place in the Islamic, Sufi, and philosophical traditions. The work also introduces readers to the world of Islamic esotericism and mysticism, and it includes extensive discussion of deep metaphysical, cosmological, and anthropological ideas of universal interest beyond the realm of Sufi and Islamic studies. Written in language that is accessible to both Muslim and non-Muslim readers, it provides a compelling introduction to Sufi thought through the lens of poetry.

Two important texts in the Sufi tradition made available together in English for the first time. Inscriptions of Wisdom brings together, for the first time in English, two pivotal Sufi texts that illuminate Ibn al-ʿArabī's (d. 1240) celebrated work Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (The Ringstones of Wisdom). The first, Naqsh al-Fuṣūṣ (The Inscription of the Fuṣūṣ), is Ibn al-ʿArabī's own distillation of Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, presenting a concise yet profound articulation of its core teachings. The second, Naqd al-nuṣūṣ fī sharḥ Naqsh al-Fuṣūṣ (Selected Texts Commenting on Naqsh al-Fuṣūṣ), by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī, is an anthology of carefully selected passages from the earliest and most authoritative interpreters of Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, enriched with Jāmī's own insights. Together, these works explore the quintessential knowledge and divine principles embodied by each of the twenty-seven major prophets of the Islamic tradition, from Adam to Muhammad. If Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam represents the culmination of Ibn al-ʿArabī's thought, then Naqsh al-Fuṣūṣ distills its very essence and inner mystery. Mukhtar H. Ali's meticulous presentation of the Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam commentarial tradition-featuring the first complete English translation of Jāmī's Naqd al-nuṣūṣ, chapter-by-chapter analysis, and extensive notes on key Sufi terms and concepts-establishes this volume as a landmark study in Islamic metaphysics and Sufi thought.

“Return to the Eternal Abode” is a series of in-depth discussions between Amira El-Zein and Seyyed Hossein Nasr, one of the world's foremost scholars of Islamic, religious, and comparative studies. Each of the six chapters addresses a central theme at the heart of Sufism: creativity, cosmology, the environment, poetry, art, and modernity. Nasr's answers to El-Zein's probing questions offer thought-provoking, comprehensive, and interdisciplinary approaches to these aspects of the Sufi tradition, reflecting a lifetime of scholarship and comfortably synthesizing various sources, philosophies, and traditions, both Islamic and otherwise. The book also sheds light on Nasr's relations to eminent thinkers of the twentieth century, such as Titus Burckhardt, Mircea Eliade, Louis Massignon, and Henry Corbin and provides, in many ways, an accessible synopsis or overview of his entire oeuvre.