William C. Chittick - The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Perennial Philosophy Series)

In a time when religions suffer greatly from a lack of articulate and reasonable spokespersons, believers from any tradition who know Dr. Nasrs work are able to raise their heads high when his name is mentioned and say: He makes us all proud to be people of faith. I have been reading Dr. Nasr for over twenty years and his intelligence, prescience, and relevance astound me still.

Dr. Nasr was perhaps the first person to identify the causa profundis of the current environmental crisis, and in the mid-sixties he was a lone voice in the wilderness calling peoples attention to the grave danger that we now all recognize we are in. We ignore him to our own peril. He has much to teach us, and in an age that lacks wisdom, he is surely one of our great sages.

Hamza Yusuf, Director of the Zaytuna Institute

A masterful introduction to one of the most eminent scholars of our time, and a veritable feast for the educated reader. Remarkably, in twenty-one essays this anthology manages to offer a representative and balanced selection culled from an opus comprising over fifty books and five hundred articles.

Wolfgang Smith, author of Cosmos and Transcendence:Breaking Through the Barrier of Scientistic Belief and The Wisdom of AncientCosmology

Nasr is one of the major intellects of our day.... I know of no one else who is as solidly grounded in both authentic Islam and the complexities of the contemporary Western mind.

Huston Smith, author of The Worlds Religions

Who speaks for traditional Islam: the Islam lived for centuries by theologians and jurists, by philosophers and scientists, by artists and poets, by Sufis and simple people of faith throughout the Islamic world during fourteen centuries of Islamic historythe Islam which is in fact still followed by the vast majority of Muslims from the Atlantic to the Pacific? There may be still many who speak privately for this tradition but there are only a few writers and, among these few, Seyyed Hossein Nasr is pre-eminent.

Charles Le Gai Eaton, author of Islam and the Destiny ofMan and Remembering God: Reflections on Islam

This judicious selection of writings from Seyyed Hossein Nasrs prodigious oeuvre confirms that he is one of the eras most profound thinkers and the pre-eminent contemporary exponent of the philosophia perennis. He reaffirms the message of Tradition, particularly in its Islamic forms, in a manner attuned to the most urgent imperatives of the age, and thereby kindles the hope that we may yet find a way out of the spiritual and material crises which imperil our very existence.

Harry Oldmeadow, La Trobe University Bendigo, author of Journeys East: 20th Century Western Encounters with Eastern ReligiousTraditions

A careful and intelligent selection of essays, unique for their range of coverage, by indisputably the most prominent Islamic thinker of today. I highly recommend this collection to anyone interested in comparative religion, science, and the present predicament of human thought.

Ashk Dahln, Uppsala University and The Swedish Royal Academy of Letters, History, and Antiquities

Seyyed Hossein Nasr is one of the few scholars who combine modern Western knowledge with a study of Traditional Islam.

Inamul Haq, Benedictine University

This book is a first-rate anthology which offers to us some of the best pages of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the most important living thinker in the field of Tradition and Islamic studies. In the darkness and the spiritual fog of the modern world, harrowed by opposite fundamentalisms, where we see a grotesque form of Islam, a ghost and false expression of it, the words of professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr, enlightened interpreter of the deep meaning of Islamic doctrines, convey a message of peace and truth.

He plays a pivotal role in the dialogue between the Islamic world and Western civilization because he knows very well both languages, the traditional and the academic. His function as cultural bridge between Islam and the West is highlighted in this book as Nasr opens the mind of modern man, helping him to recover his true nature, forgotten because of a spiritual amnesia.

Giovanni Monastra, Direttore Generale Istituto Nazionaledi Ricerca per gli Alimenti e la Nutrizione (INRAN), Rome

Professor Nasrs wisdom covers an immensely wide range of philosophical and religious knowledge, enabling him not only to elucidate the causes of our present dilemmas, but also to guide us in the task of rediscovering a world-view in which Man, Nature, and God are seen in their proper harmony.

Carmen Blacker, University of Cambridge

The wide corpus of Seyyed Hossein Nasrs writings, which he has so eloquently presented in the last half of the century, pose a challenge for those who want to gain an insight into the complex web of his ideas for the first time. William C. Chitticks lifelong association with Nasr and his writings has provided him with a unique insight into bringing together the essential writings of Nasr for those who would like to gain an understanding of the salient features of his ideas and that of the perennial perspective.

Mehdi Aminrazavi, Professor of Philosophy and Religion, University of Mary Washington

The profound writings of S.H. Nasr belong to those kinds of fascinating and inspired texts which are universal in their metaphysical essence and, at the same time, reflect the particular historical situation of our contemporary world, which has lost its inner spiritual light and needs to be guided intellectually through the innumerable delusions and perils of modern life. The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr provides the necessary guidance for any serious spiritual student, whose discrimination increases and spiritual sight is strengthened by those philosophical insights, which reveal the timeless principles and eternal truths hidden in the depths of all the authentic religious traditions of humanity.

Algis Udavinys, Lithuanian State Institute of Culture, Philosophy, and Arts and editor of The Golden Chain: An Anthology ofPlatonic and Pythagorean Philosophy

The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr is a multifaceted work. It contains a portrait of a person who embodies the perennial wisdom of the Eastern tradition as well as the finest scholarly precision of modern Western knowledge. The selected pieces from Nasrs enormous contribution, which he modestly terms voicing the rich heritage of Islam, provides a glimpse into the complexity of the human dilemma of living in the secular age while longing for the certainty of the divine. It also presents a wonderful introduction to Nasrs works that are insightful, revelatory, and comprehensive. The editor of the work, William Chittick, an eminent, fascinating, and insightful scholar in his own right, should be congratulated for being able to make such precise choices from among the ocean of Nasrs contribution to our contemporary knowledge about religion, tradition, Islam, science, the environment, and literally all human scholarly endeavors.

Farhang Rajaee, Carleton University

At a time when the public opinion too often is dominated by the stereotypes concerning Islam and its culture... the significance of the publication of The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr goes far beyond academic boundaries. One might not share or disagree with some views of S.H. Nasr, yet undoubtedly nobody represents so strongly to the non-Islamic public the image of enlightened Islam.

Nobody else could present The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr as brilliantly as Prof. Chittick, not only because he was Nasrs student, but due to the fact that he himself is an outstanding scholar in the field of Islamic thought.