Faith and Practice of Islam – Three Thirteenth Century Sufi Text

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Author: William C. Chittick
Publisher: Suhail
Year: 2000
Pages: 306
Printed: Pakistan
ISBN: 969-519-008-1
Binding: HardCover
Book Condition: New
Weight: 548gr.
From the introduction: Most premodern Islamic texts are very long or highly specialized. It is easy
to find heavy tomes on Koran commentary, Hadith, jurisprudence, theology,
philosophy, and Sufism, or short works on the fine points of these sciences. But
concise overviews of the essentials of Islamic faith and practice are rare. In what
follows, I translate three Persian texts written from a Sufi perspective about the
year 650/ 1252. They present their author’s understanding of basic Islamic
teachings succinctly, clearly, and simply. They may have been written by Ṣadr
al-Dīn Qūnawī (d. 673/ 1274), the step-son of the “greatest master” (al-shaykh
al-akbar), Ibn al-‘Arabī (d. 638/ 1240), and a good friend of the foremost Sufi
poet, Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (d. 672/ 1273). It is more likely that they were composed
by one NaṢīr (or Nāṣir) al-Dīn Qūnawī. The texts were almost certainly written
in Konya or its environs at about the time when Rūmī and Qūnawī were beginning
their careers. Whoever may be the author, he presents the teachings of Ibn
al-‘Arabī and his school in a simplified and straightforward manner. Thus, these
are perhaps the earliest examples of a genre that has continued to be written until
modern times.

Additional information

Weight .550 kg