Seyyed Hossein Nasr - Islamic Spirituality

First published in 1987

This edition first published in 2008 by
Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Transferred to Digital Printing 2008

1987 The Crossroad Publishing Company

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 10: 0-415-42600-6 (Set)
ISBN 10: 0-415-44262-1 (Volume 48)

ISBN 13: 978-0-415-42600-8 (Set)
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-44262-6 (Volume 48)

eISBN: 978-1-134-53902-4

Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

First published in Great Britain in 1987 by
Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

World Spirituality, Volume 19
Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, Art Editor

Printed in the United States of America

Copyright 1987 by The Crossroad Publishing Company

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Islamic spirituality: foundations.
(World spirituality; v. 19)
1. Islam 2. Spirituality
I. Nasr, Seyyed Hossein II. Series
297'.4 BP163

ISBN 0-7102-1097-3

In the Name of God, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate

Say, the Spirit is from the Command of my Lord

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Allahbakhsh K. Brohi

Abdurrahman Habil

Frithjof Schuon

Jafar Qasimi

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Syed Ali Ashraf

Allahbakhsh K. Brohi

Abdur-Rahman Ibrahim Doi

Syed Husain M. Jafri

Azim Nanji

Saadia Khawar Khan Chishti

Abu Bakr Siraj Ed-Din

Victor Danner

Jean-Louis Michon

Mohammad Ajmal

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Sachiko Murata

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Charles le Gai Eaton

William C. Chittick

T HE PRESENT VOLUME is part of a series entitled World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest, which seeks to present the spiritual wisdom of the human race in its historical unfolding. Although each of the volumes can be read on its own terms, taken together they provide a comprehensive picture of the spiritual strivings of the human community as a wholefrom prehistoric times, through the great religions, to the meeting of traditions at the present.

Drawing upon the highest level of scholarship around the world, the series gathers together and presents in a single collection the richness of the spiritual heritage of the human race. It is designed to reflect the autonomy of each tradition in its historical development, but at the same time to present the entire story of the human spiritual quest. The first five volumes deal with the spiritualities of archaic peoples in Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceania, and North and South America. Most of these have ceased to exist as living traditions, although some perdure among tribal peoples throughout the world. However, the archaic level of spirituality survives within the later traditions as a foundational stratum, preserved in ritual and myth. Individual volumes or combinations of volumes are devoted to the major traditions: Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic. Included within the series are the Jain, Sikh, and Zoroastrian traditions. In order to complete the story, the series includes traditions that have not survived but have exercised important influence on living traditionssuch as Egyptian, Sumerian, classical Greek and Roman. A volume is devoted to modern esoteric movements and another to modern secular movements.

Having presented the history of the various traditions, the series devotes two volumes to the meeting of spiritualities. The first surveys the meeting of spiritualities from the past to the present, exploring common themes that can provide the basis for a positive encounter, for example, symbols, rituals, techniques. Finally, the series closes with a dictionary of world spirituality.

A longer version of this preface may be found in Christian Spirituality: Origins to the Twelfth Century, the first published volume in the series.

Each volume is edited by a specialist or a team of specialists who have gathered a number of contributors to write articles in their fields of specialization. As in this volume, the articles are not brief entries but substantial studies of an area of spirituality within a given tradition. An effort has been made to choose editors and contributors who have a cultural and religious grounding within the tradition studied and at the same time possess the scholarly objectivity to present the material to a larger forum of readers. For several years some five hundred scholars around the world have been working on the project.

In the planning of the project, no attempt was made to arrive at a common definition of spirituality that would be accepted by all in precisely the same way. The term spirituality, or an equivalent, is not found in a number of the traditions. Yet from the outset, there was a consensus among the editors about what was in general intended by the term. It was left to each tradition to clarify its own understanding of this meaning and to the editors to express this in the introduction to their volumes. As a working hypothesis, the following description was used to launch the project:

The series focuses on that inner dimension of the person called by certain traditions the spirit. This spiritual core is the deepest center of the person. It is here that the person is open to the transcendent dimension; it is here that the person experiences ultimate reality. The series explores the discovery of this core, the dynamics of its development, and its journey to the ultimate goal. It deals with prayer, spiritual direction, the various maps of the spiritual journey, and the methods of advancement in the spiritual ascent.