Michon - Introduction to Traditional Islam: Foundations, Art and Spirituality

Art of Islam: Illustrated , by Titus Burckhardt, 2009

Christianity/Islam: Perspectives on Esoteric Ecumenism ,
by Frithjof Schuon, 2008

Introduction to Sufi Doctrine , by Titus Burckhardt, 2008

Introduction to Traditional Islam, Illustrated: Foundations, Art, and Spirituality ,
by Jean-Louis Michon, 2008

Islam, Fundamentalism, and the Betrayal of Tradition: Essays by Western Muslim Scholars ,
edited by Joseph E.B Lumbard, 2004

The Mystics of Islam , by Reynold A. Nicholson, 2002

The Path of Muhammad: A Book on Islamic Morals and Ethics by Imam Birgivi ,
interpreted by Shaykh Tosun Bayrak, 2005

Paths to the Heart: Sufism and the Christian East ,
edited by James S. Cutsinger, 2003

Paths to Transcendence: According to Shankara, Ibn Arabi, and Meister Eckhart ,
by Reza Shah-Kazemi, 2006

The Spirit of Muhammad: From Hadith ,
edited by Judith and Michael Oren Fitzgerald, 2009

A Spirit of Tolerance: The Inspiring Life of Tierno Bokar ,
by Amadou Hampat B, 2008

The Sufi Doctrine of Rumi: Illustrated Edition ,
by William C. Chittick, 200

Sufism: Love and Wisdom,
edited by Jean-Louis Michon and Roger Gaetani, 2006

Sufism: Veil and Quintessence , by Frithjof Schuon, 2007

Understanding Islam , by Frithjof Schuon, 1998

Universal Spirit of Islam: From the Koran and Hadith ,
edited by Judith and Michael Oren Fitzgerald, 2006

J ean -L ouis M ichon is a traditionalist writer, editor, translator, Arabist, and artistic consultant. He was born in France in 1924. Following his high school and initial university studies, Michons early interest in comparative religion and Islam took him to Damascus, Syria, where he taught high school from 1946 to 1949. While there, he studied Arabic and immersed himself in the beauty and harmony of Islamic civilization. Once back in Europe, he obtained a degree in architectural drafting in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1952. Around this time he began a long association with eminent thinkers of the school of perennial philosophy, such as Frithjof Schuon and Titus Burckhardt.

After marriage and the birth of a daughter, he began a career with a variety of United Nations agencies,first as a freelance editor and translator and finally, over a period of 15 years (1957-1972), as a permanent senior translator for the World Health Organization in Geneva. These assignments gave him the chance to visit many countries, a number of which belong to dr al-islm (the world of Islam).

It was also during this period that Michon obtained a Ph.D. in Islamic studies at Paris University (Sorbonne). His thesis was on the life and works of a scholar and spiritual guide of great renown from the north of Morocco, Shaykh Ahmad Ibn Ajbah al-Hasan (1747-1809), whose Autobiography ( Fahrasa )and Glossary of Technical Terms of Sufism ( Miraj al-tashawwuf il haqiq al-tasawwuf ) Michon translated from Arabic into French (Milan: Arch, 1982; Paris: Vrin, 1974 and 1990). Michons French translation of the Fahrasa of Ibn Ajbah has been translated into English by David Streight (Louisville: Fons Vitae, 1999).

From 1972 to 1980,Dr. Michon was Chief Technical Adviser to a series of joint programs of UNESCO,the UN Development Programme, and the Moroccan government, to be carried out in Morocco. These programs were for the preservation of traditional arts and crafts, and included the establishment of a broad survey of cultural property, covering inventories of national monuments and sites, museum holdings, and folk arts and traditions. His mission coincided in time with one entrusted to Titus Burckhardt for the preservation of the old city of Fez, which explains why Michon has been invited by the Temenos Academy to share with the public both his personal memories and some documentation as a tribute to Burckhardts unique personality and long and close relationship with Morocco.

Since retiring from the UN civil service in 1980, Dr. Michon has continued translating, including a French version of Martin Lings book Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources , and a French rendering of the Koran (see www.altafsir.com).

He continues to consult on projects related to the preservation of Islamic cultural heritage. Dr. Michon regularly participates in international conferences and symposia, and has, over the years, given many lectures on subjects connected to the value of art as a means of communication between people who belong to dif ferent cultures, as well as on the necessity of protecting traditional arts and crafts everywhere in the world.

In addition to all these studies and activities, Dr. Michon has continued to work out in the field: in Morocco, on a UNESCO project for the creation of a school of traditional arts and crafts in Fez, on the preparation and publication of the Directory of Moroccan Handicrafts , on the creation of CERKAS (Center for the Rehabilitation of Southern Kasbas) in Ouarzazate, and on proposals for the rehabilitation of Ksar At Ben Haddou (entered on the List of World Heritage in 1986); in Oman, on the restoration of the citadel of Bahla; in Bahrain, on the inventory of historical sites; and in Uzbekistan, on the evaluation of the state of conservation of historical sites in Itchan Kala, Bukhara, Samarkand, and Shahrisabz.

R oger G aetani is an editor, educator, and student of world religions who lives in Bloomington, Indiana.He has co-edited, with Jean-Louis Michon, the World Wisdom anthology on Islamic mysticism, Sufism: Love and Wisdom . He directed and produced the DVD compilation of highlights to the 2006 conference on Traditionalism entitled, Tradition in the Modern World: Sacred Web 2006 Conference , and has most recently edited the book, A Spirit of Tolerance: The Inspiring Life of Tierno Bokar.

Urban Development in Islams Earliest Period

Many indeed are the observers and historians of Islam who have remarked on an astonishing contrast within the geographical and human context where the Islamic Message first established itself: the Arabian Peninsula, inhabited mainly by nomadic Bedouins or semi sedentaries, and the classical visage of the Muslim world as it was to emerge a bare few centuries later: a network of great cities from India to the Far West between which there would flow and interflow, by land and sea, every kind of product as well as branches of knowledge, ideas,and cultures.

. Jabal Tr, the sacred mountain near Mecca, where Muhammad received numerous revelations

It is a fact that the propagation of Islam by the Arab armies and,even more, by the sheer conviction of the Message they carried with them, was accompanied by extraordinary urban development. This phenomenon took place in the three great areas to which the conquest first extendednamely: the Sassanid Empire in the North East (Mesopotamia and Iran), the Byzantine Empire (Syria and Egypt),and the previously Romanized West, now partly barbarized (North Africa and Spain). New towns appeared which were originally no more than fortified camps, such as Kufah and Basrah, founded in 157/637* during the Caliphate of Umar.** Their very first inhabitants, consisting of fighters in the Holy War, were supplemented by new converts and protected persons (Jews and Christians, all of them People of the Book subject to a head-tax but free as regards their persons, goods,and worship) at such a rapid pace that Kufah boasted a population of over 100,000 souls within thirty years, and Basrah over 200,000.The breakneck pace at which Baghdad, founded in 145/762 by the Caliph al-Mansur, was built by 100,000 workers, who were also its first inhabitants, meant that the Abbasid capital was the homeforty years laterof some 2,000,000 citizens and was the greatest metropolis of its age. Many more examples could be adduced: the creation of Fusttthe future Cairoby Amr in 19/641, of Kairouan by Uqbah in 48/670, and of Tunis several years later, followed by Almera (756) and Fez (807). There were, moreover, ancient cities everywhere which, having fallen into decadence, found renewed vigor and prosperity with their entry into the