Philosophy

Rusmir Mahmutcehajic

Anyone who has ever read any book by Bosnian academic Mahmutcehajic knows that the beauty of his prose always brings one back to the Real. His writing – be it about Bosnian War, architecture, urban planning, tolerance, nationalism, democracy, mosques, coffee – has the quality of remembrance.

‘God is always present; it is we who are in constant danger of being absent. Similarly, God is always infinitely close to us, but we are always infinitely remote from Him. Our actions, whether in silence, speech or gesture, are beautiful and good to the extent that we are conscious of the presence of God in them as Beautiful and Good. Without such consciousness, all our acts, whether in silence, speech or gesture, are in vain no matter how they may seem to us. Once we cease approaching everything “In the Name of God the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful”, concluding with “Praise belongs to God”, they cease to connect us to God, and if they do not connect us with Him, then they connect us with something else. But there is no god but Him.’

“This book investigates the relationship between knowledge of the cosmos and knowledge of the self. Conclusions are drawn regarding ignorance as a source of corruption, expulsion, and murder on the basis of the case of the Stolac čaršija, how it came into existence, how it developed as a reflection of the inner life of its people, and the destruction it suffered during the 20th century. Our original dignity cannot be restored until the relationship between knowledge of the cosmos and knowledge of the self is recognized within a discourse of the eternal principle of all existence. This is so because there is nothing in the world whose being is not in some way for us. Unless we discover that purpose, we cannot find ourselves.”

Wardah’s Pick for the Best Book of 2011

Contents:
The Garden
The Town
The Mihrab
From Left to Right
The Call
The Hour
The Guest
The Market-Square
The Book
“Recite!”
The Scales
The House
Doors and Windows
The Labyrinth
The Valley and the Mount
Earth and Heaven
The Tree
Oblivion and Recollection

With David Barsamian

“Said believed that the intellectual must insist on truth and justice, and give utterance not to mere fashion and passing fads but to real ideas and values, which cannot be articulated from a position of power…” from the introduction by Nubar Hovsepian

Contents
Politics and Culture of Palestinian Exile
Orientalism Revisited
Culture and Imperialism
The Israel/PLO Accord: A Critical Assessment
Palestine: Betrayal of History

Graham Fuller

Reza Shah Kazemi

With an essay by Hamza Yusuf

Amira El-Zein

Beliefs regarding the jinn are deeply integrated into Muslim culture, and have a constant presence in legends, myths, poetry, and literature. In this work, Amira El-Zein examines the fields of law, theology, and folklore, and clearly places the status of the jinn in the metaphysical and cosmological economy of Islam.

William Chittick

The Quest for Self-Knowledge in the Teachings of Afdal al-Din Kashani

Toshihiko Izutsu

A Comparative Study of Key Philosophical Concepts

Ahmed Hulusi

The Foundations of the Science of Knowledge

Reza Shah-Kazemi

As a result of world events over the past few years, Islam has entered our consciousness in an unprecedented way. The Qur’an, guiding text for over one billion Muslims, is being looked to for answers to questions like: does the Qur’an promote peace and harmony or discord and conflict, does it contribute to pluralism or exclusivism, is its message spiritual or fanatical?

In The Other in the Light of the One, Dr Reza Shah-Kazemi illustrates how, throughout the centuries, Sufism has traditionally been a bastion against two tendencies: worldliness and literalism. Based on a profound study of the Sufi perspectives of the like of Ibn Arabi, Kashani, Rumi and Ghazali, The Other in the Light of the One is an attempt to answer the above questions and is an invitation to study the universality that is undoubtedly present in the Qur’an. Its aim is to relate some of the most profound interpretations of the Qur’an to philosophical and spiritual questions concerning interfaith dialogue. However, the purpose is not to just reproduce the ideas of the Sufis, but to build upon principles, to take advantage of insights, and to apply them creatively to contemporary conditions. Shah-Kazemi illustrates how a universalist perspective based on Sufi hermeneutics provides a third way between secular pluralism and religious exclusivism.

The Other in the Light of the One provides the faithful of all the different religious communities with the basis for dialogue and mutual enrichment within dimensions of religious life and thought that go beyond the outward forms of belief, yielding fruit not only in the practical domain of peaceful coexistence, but also and above all, in the fertile fields of metaphysical insight, immutable values, contemplative inspiration and spiritual realisation. For Muslims, The Other in the Light of the One offers a pioneering view of da‘wa, in that it proposes effective ways of putting into practice the many Qur’anic verses that commend discourse with others in a manner that is ahsan ‘finest, most beautiful’.