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Islamic Mysticism: a Secular Perspective
[Hardback - 2000]
ibn al-rawandi
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Category: Religion
Sub-category: Sufism/mysticism
Additional Category: Islam
Publisher: Prometheus Books Usa | ISBN: 9781573927673 | Pages: 259
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Description

Beneath the battle cries of the jihad and an Islamic politics that draws attention to a religion of rigid rules and obsessive devotion, lies the mystical Islam, known as Sufism. What attracts so many Westerners to the faith, says former convert Ibn al-Rawandi, is its "heart made of poetry and art, vision and devotion, that can only be known fully from within." Enchanted by the metaphysics of Sufism, Rawandi studied and worshiped in Cyprus, convinced he had found the answers to life's questions. When doubts emerged for which the traditionalist authors had no answers and the Salman Rushdie affair divided Islam, Rawandi sought to critically evaluate Sufism by reviewing its origins and the best arguments for its views.In Islamic Mysticism, Rawandi contends that unreliable sources seriously undermine the classical account of Islam and Sufism. His detailed study of the philosophy of religion -especially the work of traditionalists such as RenT Guenon and Frithjof Schuon - helps to develop a critical analysis of Islam from the inside out. Particular attention is given to great Islamic mystic Ibn Arabi, who is taken as representative of Sufism in its highest development. Rawandi offers a critical, secular perspective on Sufism and concludes that mystical experience is not a trustworthy validation of religion.

About the Author

Abu al-Hasan Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Ishaq al-Rawandi (Persian: ابو الحسن احمد بن یحیی بن اسحاق راوندی, Arabic: أبو الحسن أحمد بن يحيى بن إسحاق الراوندي), commonly known as Ibn al-Rawandi (Persian: ابن راوندی; born 827 CE–died 911 CE), was an early skeptic of Islam and a critic of religion in general. In his early days he was a Mutazilite scholar, but after rejecting the Mutazilite doctrine he adhered to Shia Islam for a brief period and later became a freethinker who repudiated Islam and reviled religion. Though none of his works survived, his opinions had been preserved through his critics, and the surviving books that answered him. The book with the most preserved fragments (through an Ismaili book refuting Al-Rawandi's ideology), is theKitab al-Zumurrud(The Book of the Emerald).Abu al-Husayn Ahmad bin Yahya ben Isaac al-Rawandi was born in Rawand in Kashan, today located in Central Iran or some say in Marv-rud in Greater Khorasan, today located in northwest Afghanistan, about the year 815 CE. According to the Egyptian scholar Abdur Rahman Badawi, Al-Rawandi was born in Basra at the time of the Abbassid Caliph Al-Mamoun. His father, Yahya, was a Jewish scholar and convert to Islam, who schooled Muslims in how to refute the Talmud. Al-Rawandi abandoned Islam for atheism and used his knowledge of Islam, learned from his father, to refute the Quran.He joined the Mu'tazili of Baghdad, and gained prominence among them. He then became a follower ofMuhammad al Warraqin which he wrote several books that criticized revealed religion.It is generally agreed among Muslims that Ibn al-Rawandi was indeed a heretic, but there is no agreement as to the nature of his heresy. Some look for the roots of his heresy in his connections with Shi'ism, and depict him as a Mu'tazilite gone wild. Some regard him as an Aristotelian philosopher, while others see him as a radical atheist, and some stress the political challenge he presented to the Islamic polity.He rejected the authority of any scriptural or revealed religion. This is borne out by citations from his other writings, besides the Kitab al-Zumurrud and The Futility of (Divine) Wisdom (Abath al-hikma).

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